I know i will get mullered on here for saying this - but i have looked at the league table and the games in hand people have. I am still nervous that this team has the potential to go on a disastorous run. Said it aftet leicester and will say it again, we are not safe until we are mathematically safe.
We usually reserve such performances for our rare TV appearances or perhaps it's going to be shown as part of a crime and punishment series. It's certainly like doing community service going down to The Valley these day.
Very poor. Stephens was atrocious. Maybe CP could have done something at half time if we'd still had 11 players but we were so much worse than Forest in so many ways that it is hard to say what. Good job Forest don't have much of a cutting edge. After the second goal the game became boring as well as depressing. A training session for Forest.
Guedioura was majestic today, we would not have won with 12 men. That guy should be in the prem.
Agree completely.
It's easy to knock our own - and God knows people do - but sometimes you have to give the opposition some credit. Forest played well today and he was the pick of the bunch for me.
I'm not making excuses for todays performance , you can't but if we'd been hammered 5-0 by Leicester and won today , people would have been more forgiving , its because its happened at home , CP still hasn't got a winning formula for home games , we are very inconsistent and up against a more than all right team , its just not much fun watching Charlton at home at the moment , i hope we 'invest' in the Summer.
Reid ran the show. I'm glad we also clapped him when he came off. Yann was an idiot to get involved with Halford when the ball was going nowhere. Halford was generally crap with us but played well for them. I wonder if Stephen's was ill today? He was just awful. Like others are saying Dervitte was good in the air but very poor when passing the ball. To think I was really looking forward to this game!!!
Posting without reading, apologies if it's all been said. The Yann sending off made a tough task ten times worse. I don't know what happened but it must have been graphic to be seen by the lino 50 yards away. The referee is a very inexperienced one. Of course we could have hung in there, even at 0-1 and tried to have a go near the end, but Hamer made the mistake, again I'm afraid, but then showed what a great keeper he could be for the remainder of the game, but it was too late by then. The pitch was a pudding, the lads did their best...I loved the Solly tackle on Reid, I suppose you could say Wiggo got 90 minutes in, and our Waggy put a shift in too. The game was intresting enough up to the sending off, but after that it was a drag. Deep sigh, and move on.
As soon as I saw the Yann incident, I said to my dad 'he's going to get a red'. Much as I love Yann, we lost any chance of getting anything from the match when he went off, so I'm not too happy with him today.
I thought Forest were very good - far too good for us.
Although Forest had most of the possession when it was 11 v 11, they didn't create too much and, as someone mentioned earlier, it was similar to the start of the Blackpool and Peterbrough games and I fancy that we would have come more into it before Kermo's "moment of madness." Sadly we'll never know now.
With regard tactics, Powell is still set on packing the midfield and nullifying rather than focusing on what to do when we actually have the ball-that and the pitch really added to the misery today and Stephens particularly struggled. Do you think he's going to change next week and start with two strikers? Now we've signed Obika and with the rare possibility of Haynes and Fuller up top together, I reckon he just might and hopefully we'll be a bit happier at 5pm next Saturday
One thing that this bad form is definitely doing is increasing the numpty count in the North Upper by the game. Definitely going to move next season........
What a disappointment. Our home form this season is just awful and it is hard to see why the lads can pull off such excellent results away yet look so inept at the Valley. I just don’t buy the argument that playing away suits our counter attacking game better - many teams this season have taken the game to us on our own pitch and put us on the back foot for extended periods.
Today, there were very few positives. Only Solly and Wiggins (great to see him back, by the way) played anything like the way they can. Morro and Jacko did ok, but the others were well below par and some were dreadful:
Hamer - badly at fault for the 2nd goal Waggy - headless chicken Stevo - truly shocking, gave the ball away at virtually every touch (and I’m a Stevo fan) Pritch - heart of a lion but the strength of a lamb. Continually out-muscled Dervite - looked what he is, a limited ability stopper
Kermo’s sending off looked very harsh from my position in the East Stand but even before going down to 10 men we had been totally out-played by Forest. They were faster, slicker, stronger, more composed and way, way more skillful the whole game. To coin an old but apt phrase “we were lucky to get nil”. I can’t recall a single Charlton shot on goal - although I accept my brain may have mercifully blotted out the detail of the afternoon.
I still think we will finish around lower mid-table this season. Thinking about how we move forward, I would say that my aspiration for next season is to be more like Forest - playing better, pacier football, with a scattering of high quality players and people like Lewis McGugan and Billy Sharp on the bench - a sign of strength in depth. In short, a genuine challenger near the top of the table. Looking at the respective sides though, it feels that we are a long way away from even that modest aspiration and would need to invest pretty heavily in the summer to even get to that level. And if we don’t? Well, we certainly have some players that are already at upper Champ level or higher, and with the experience of this season in the Championship they will again do well, provided we can hang on to them. Chris Powell also will be better for the experience of this season and will be well placed to lead us. But a good half of the squad aren’t really up to this level and we will struggle to improve on this season’s performances. A sobering thought as I wound my way home around the M25 this evening.
Glad I didn't go today. Having said that, doesn't seem like the end of the world. Forest should be in the Playoffs come the end of the season and we seem to have had a tremendous off day. It'll happen. Got some very winnable games coming up so hopefully we'll pick up some good points in March. We move on
1) Why didn't I stay at home in the warm as I felt SO TEMPTED to do and watch the rugby?
2) The game since I decided to go after all.
Yann is doubtless the talk of the town and, from my position in Covered End Upper, I've no idea why he got a straight red. That said my view was probably not much worse than the linesman on the other side who clinched it! Still the fact is not just today was disrupted as a result but the next three matches too.
Whether the sending off was just or unjust I'm not totally convinced it changed the overall result. We hadn't worked their keeper prior to the sending off and, more understandably, didn't afterwards either. Did he have a shot to save? I only remember him being hurried twice in the first half by the persistence of Wagstaff who was later substituted as his reward for his efforts!
Forest as a team, and a slimline Reid in particular, made it look like boys against men at times and we were fortunate that they were so profligate.
Unlike many on Charlton Life I don't like digging out individual players generally but Stephens was abysmal, highlighted even more by the excellence of his supposed equivalent on the Forest side Reid, and I don't recall a successful pass to a Charlton player! I will give him some credit for a few defensive headers and clearances from corners but in his role as playmaker he was frankly appalling.
As for the rest of our lads I can't fault the endeavour but the likes of Pritchard were brushed aside like irritating little flies by the physically stronger Forest players. It's an old sporting maxim that a good big'un will always beat a good littl'un and today demonstrated that in spades.
Doubtless Powell will be slagged off for taking St Stephens off but I disagree. He had to do something with just 10 players and Fuller has the ability to play as a lone striker and can make things happen himself so it made sense to give him 45 minutes with 10 men. Dervite was the other option but he was one of our few remaining players with some sort of physical presence. I would have kept Waggy on, with his eye for goal and non-stop running, and taken the physically dominated Pritchard off for Haynes but that was a more debatable substitution which can be argued either way and I will not criticise SCP beyond expressing my view as I just have.
Not much more to say other than thank God we won on Tuesday to maintain some sort of safety net from the bottom 3.
Don't know if ill bother going again this season after that. Too far and too much money to keep coming home pissed off. I'll probably make the effort for millwall and the final game but other than that.
We only pack out our midfield with 5 cause our midfield isn't good enough to play football as a bank of 4. FACT!
Even if we win the odd game here and there I still know for a fact that some of the players in this team aren't good enough for this level.
When we win we don't actually merit the win, we just get very lucky and only win due to the effort the players put in. No quality phases of play, just pure determination and that determination will only get you so far.
I'm convinced if Barcelona came to The Valley next week some of our fans would be shouting "hold onto the ball" and "Get Out!" when they have it 25 yards out.
Forest are a better footballing team than us, a lot of teams in this league are. We deal with it by doing what we're good at - battling. We're where most sane fans expected us to be. It was bad today but Weds and Brum were worse results in my opinion.
Absolute rubbish, Definite sending off, I could see that from the NWQ, We are letting teams do what THEY want from the KO, this has got to stop.
* The bloke behind me travelled from Grantham in Lincs with his son and had a drunk in his ear for the whole of the first half. It must have been absolute hell for him.
Seen the red card incident on TV & I still think it was harsh - 2 yellows at best. I still can fanthom how Halford got nothing for retaliation. Also, fummy how the linesman on the other side of the pitch has a better view than the ref & linesman standing less than 20 yards away........or was it because that linesman was standing next to Billy Davies at the time !!!
HOWEVER
the sending off didn't really change anything & we would have lost with 11 men on the pitch - I was happy with 2-0 at the end as it could & should have been 4 or 5. We were awful and until CP sees the error of his ways we will continue to struggle. He is either really stupid or really clever by playing the players & system he is - clever because it shows TJ that we have a crap squad and so we will need to strenghten BIG in the summer or stupid becuase he is not learning from his mistakes....... .......I'll let you be the judge on that one !! The problems as I see it are :
If you must play 4-5-1 at home that the lone striker has to be someone who can a) hold the ball up & b) turn and run with the ball if & when they are set free on goal ..... Kermy does neither. He may be a "beast" up front but he mainly does flick-on's with his head or feet, which is totally useless if you haven't got someone alongside you ! Fuller would be the better choice. If you are then going to play someone up front with him then play a STRIKER not a winger. Haynes can play as a frontman & a winger so the set-up should include him from the start. not Waggy. Then when a sub is needed becuase of the sending off, why not sacrifice your non-entity in Dervitte. I aqree Stephens was having a stinker, but at least with 10 men Stephens may be able to go forward more and have a shot - Dervitte was anonymous today. Pritchard is also not a wide player - he may have lots of energy but as I have repeatedly said on here he is out of his depth and spent most of the game chasing the ball & not getting his foot in.
I am just hoping we can get enough points to stay up - 50 may not be enough as the bottom teams keep picking up wins, not just draws, but wins, and there in no-one currently stranded at the bottom - so I think at least 52 points may be needed and maybe even close to 55. I've written this season off and just looking towards next season to see how on earth we are going to improve the squad - either by a cash injection or by a new manager using the players he has at hand IN THEIR CORRECT POSITIONS.
For what it's worth, we are playing beyond our means with a league 1 team. Chris Powell is working miracles and the players are usually performing better than they should be capable of against better players. We bought no one in January because we couldn't afford it. We are still 13th. Please think about this before you get stressed out about the situation.
I don't think the formation had anything to do with what happened today. I think Henry is spot on in that we haven't got the players to out-play the Notts Forests and Leicesters of the world but we can compete with them through sheer hard work and with everybody on their game. Not many were on top of their game today...Wiggins maybe, can't think of anybody else.
Would like to see the sending off incident again. From my unbiased view in the lower west Yann appeared to trip Halford, then apologise, Halford retaliated then forest players surrounded ref. Linesman on lower west side (much further away from Linesman on East side, was screamed at by Billy Davies to do something. Davies shouting at him most of the time before that. So the Linesman on the West side got Yann sent off. Thought a booking for both players would have been fairer. But as Henry Irving says it was a fair sending off who am I to disagree. Does he sit in the lower east right near the incident? In all fairness our midfield were dreadful, worst game I have seen Stephens and Pritchard and Devitte play this season. We desperately need a midfield ball winner. Andy Reid was the best midfield player on the pitch. How we need someone with that skill. Think we need Andy Reid typeplayer plus ball winner, plus someone to help Danny Haynes. Thought Wiggins was our only decent player on the pitch for 90 minutes, good to see him back!
For what it's worth, we are playing beyond our means with a league 1 team. Chris Powell is working miracles and the players are usually performing better than they should be capable of against better players. We bought no one in January because we couldn't afford it. We are still 13th. Please think about this before you get stressed out about the situation.
At last, someone talking sense ! People moaning about Powelly are idiots. Had one full season as manager and we were Champions, this season 12th before today with a very limited squad. We are going to be inconsistent, Powelly isn't stupid, I'm sure he would love to invest heavily in the team but until that money is available we have to stick with the boys we've got. Talking of investment I'm close to Paddy P and some money needs to be spent on the pitch. It looked bad today although when you are on it, it's pretty flat. Covers, undersoil or something needs to be done, but you can't blame that on our home form.
It wasn't about the formation or how good the players are technically. They just didn't look interested today. No commitment or urgency despite getting outplayed from the first minute. If there was a bit more fight we might have had a chance to combat it but as it was it was awful to watch. And this a criticism based on just todays match not in general.
Frustrating game today, couldn't see the detail of what happened with the sending off but it looked harsh and certainly affected my view of it. Halford was gettung booed every time he touched the ball and deservedly so, thought the ref was ridiculously one sided, though even with that probably not the worst one we've had this season at home.
Forest looked better than us in almost all areas, they played crisp passing football and if their shooting was better would have beaten us by a lot more. The red card didn't help, but even before that they looked better than us. I thought most of the players battled well, though Stephens had a shocker and Pritch was outmuscled a lot. We weren't creative enough up front or good enough in midfield, so I can't really complain about the result, but I do wonder what masochistic streak is making me turn up at The Valley so regularly. The only positive I can see is that there are probably 3 teams worse than us.
really Henry I thought we started off 4,5,1 who was playing up front with Yann
We went 4411 after about three minutes. Waggy was playing up top with Yann
I thought we were a lop-sided 4-5-1. Forest set up in a 4-4-2 Diamond, with Reid in behind the Front 2 of Cox & Henderson. Wagstaff operated from the left and had the role of auxilliary striker, making runs into the space around Kermorgant to pick up the knock-downs & flick-ons. Not an easy role. Pritchard tucked in on the right to pick up the 4th midfielder in the Diamond, with Dervite, Jacko & Stephens.
Our midfield never got to grips with the movement of the Forest midfield in the opening half-hour. Dervite sat in front of the Centre Backs and covered the space, without actually picking up Reid, who dictated the play, as he did so effectively at the City Ground earlier in the season. Jacko, Stephens, and Pritchard were all exposed, chased shadows and lost possession too easily.
We are playing three in Central Midfield and sacrificing the second striker, because we don't have midfielders strong enough to operate as a pair at this level. It should have been addressed in the transfer window. If we had the strength & quality, we would no doubt play 4-4-2 and let the opposition worry about us a bit more.
The sending off was petulant and cost us any chance of a point or three. Playing as the lone striker requires discipline as well as ability. Kicking-out gave the "traffic warden like officials" an excuse to show their mastery of the rules to the assessor in the directors box. Stupid.
Forest are a good outside bet to get through the play-offs. Davies has got them going already. They have plenty of quality going forward. The Centre Defence is the weakest area on the team and might struggle against anything played in behind. Other than that, they look a better
Comments
It's easy to knock our own - and God knows people do - but sometimes you have to give the opposition some credit. Forest played well today and he was the pick of the bunch for me.
Yann was an idiot to get involved with Halford when the ball was going nowhere. Halford was generally crap with us but played well for them.
I wonder if Stephen's was ill today? He was just awful.
Like others are saying Dervitte was good in the air but very poor when passing the ball.
To think I was really looking forward to this game!!!
The Yann sending off made a tough task ten times worse. I don't know what happened but it must have been graphic to be seen by the lino 50 yards away. The referee is a very inexperienced one.
Of course we could have hung in there, even at 0-1 and tried to have a go near the end, but Hamer made the mistake, again I'm afraid, but then showed what a great keeper he could be for the remainder of the game, but it was too late by then.
The pitch was a pudding, the lads did their best...I loved the Solly tackle on Reid, I suppose you could say Wiggo got 90 minutes in, and our Waggy put a shift in too.
The game was intresting enough up to the sending off, but after that it was a drag.
Deep sigh, and move on.
I thought Forest were very good - far too good for us.
Stop it.
Although Forest had most of the possession when it was 11 v 11, they didn't create too much and, as someone mentioned earlier, it was similar to the start of the Blackpool and Peterbrough games and I fancy that we would have come more into it before Kermo's "moment of madness." Sadly we'll never know now.
With regard tactics, Powell is still set on packing the midfield and nullifying rather than focusing on what to do when we actually have the ball-that and the pitch really added to the misery today and Stephens particularly struggled. Do you think he's going to change next week and start with two strikers? Now we've signed Obika and with the rare possibility of Haynes and Fuller up top together, I reckon he just might and hopefully we'll be a bit happier at 5pm next Saturday
One thing that this bad form is definitely doing is increasing the numpty count in the North Upper by the game. Definitely going to move next season........
Today, there were very few positives. Only Solly and Wiggins (great to see him back, by the way) played anything like the way they can. Morro and Jacko did ok, but the others were well below par and some were dreadful:
Hamer - badly at fault for the 2nd goal
Waggy - headless chicken
Stevo - truly shocking, gave the ball away at virtually every touch (and I’m a Stevo fan)
Pritch - heart of a lion but the strength of a lamb. Continually out-muscled
Dervite - looked what he is, a limited ability stopper
Kermo’s sending off looked very harsh from my position in the East Stand but even before going down to 10 men we had been totally out-played by Forest. They were faster, slicker, stronger, more composed and way, way more skillful the whole game. To coin an old but apt phrase “we were lucky to get nil”. I can’t recall a single Charlton shot on goal - although I accept my brain may have mercifully blotted out the detail of the afternoon.
I still think we will finish around lower mid-table this season. Thinking about how we move forward, I would say that my aspiration for next season is to be more like Forest - playing better, pacier football, with a scattering of high quality players and people like Lewis McGugan and Billy Sharp on the bench - a sign of strength in depth. In short, a genuine challenger near the top of the table. Looking at the respective sides though, it feels that we are a long way away from even that modest aspiration and would need to invest pretty heavily in the summer to even get to that level. And if we don’t? Well, we certainly have some players that are already at upper Champ level or higher, and with the experience of this season in the Championship they will again do well, provided we can hang on to them. Chris Powell also will be better for the experience of this season and will be well placed to lead us. But a good half of the squad aren’t really up to this level and we will struggle to improve on this season’s performances. A sobering thought as I wound my way home around the M25 this evening.
1) Why didn't I stay at home in the warm as I felt SO TEMPTED to do and watch the rugby?
2) The game since I decided to go after all.
Yann is doubtless the talk of the town and, from my position in Covered End Upper, I've no idea why he got a straight red. That said my view was probably not much worse than the linesman on the other side who clinched it! Still the fact is not just today was disrupted as a result but the next three matches too.
Whether the sending off was just or unjust I'm not totally convinced it changed the overall result. We hadn't worked their keeper prior to the sending off and, more understandably, didn't afterwards either. Did he have a shot to save? I only remember him being hurried twice in the first half by the persistence of Wagstaff who was later substituted as his reward for his efforts!
Forest as a team, and a slimline Reid in particular, made it look like boys against men at times and we were fortunate that they were so profligate.
Unlike many on Charlton Life I don't like digging out individual players generally but Stephens was abysmal, highlighted even more by the excellence of his supposed equivalent on the Forest side Reid, and I don't recall a successful pass to a Charlton player! I will give him some credit for a few defensive headers and clearances from corners but in his role as playmaker he was frankly appalling.
As for the rest of our lads I can't fault the endeavour but the likes of Pritchard were brushed aside like irritating little flies by the physically stronger Forest players. It's an old sporting maxim that a good big'un will always beat a good littl'un and today demonstrated that in spades.
Doubtless Powell will be slagged off for taking St Stephens off but I disagree. He had to do something with just 10 players and Fuller has the ability to play as a lone striker and can make things happen himself so it made sense to give him 45 minutes with 10 men. Dervite was the other option but he was one of our few remaining players with some sort of physical presence. I would have kept Waggy on, with his eye for goal and non-stop running, and taken the physically dominated Pritchard off for Haynes but that was a more debatable substitution which can be argued either way and I will not criticise SCP beyond expressing my view as I just have.
Not much more to say other than thank God we won on Tuesday to maintain some sort of safety net from the bottom 3.
Even if we win the odd game here and there I still know for a fact that some of the players in this team aren't good enough for this level.
When we win we don't actually merit the win, we just get very lucky and only win due to the effort the players put in. No quality phases of play, just pure determination and that determination will only get you so far.
Forest are a better footballing team than us, a lot of teams in this league are. We deal with it by doing what we're good at - battling. We're where most sane fans expected us to be. It was bad today but Weds and Brum were worse results in my opinion.
We (try to) move on.
Definite sending off, I could see that from the NWQ,
We are letting teams do what THEY want from the KO, this has got to stop.
* The bloke behind me travelled from Grantham in Lincs with his son and had a drunk in his ear for the whole of the first half. It must have been absolute hell for him.
HOWEVER
the sending off didn't really change anything & we would have lost with 11 men on the pitch - I was happy with 2-0 at the end as it could & should have been 4 or 5. We were awful and until CP sees the error of his ways we will continue to struggle. He is either really stupid or really clever by playing the players & system he is - clever because it shows TJ that we have a crap squad and so we will need to strenghten BIG in the summer or stupid becuase he is not learning from his mistakes....... .......I'll let you be the judge on that one !! The problems as I see it are :
If you must play 4-5-1 at home that the lone striker has to be someone who can a) hold the ball up & b) turn and run with the ball if & when they are set free on goal ..... Kermy does neither. He may be a "beast" up front but he mainly does flick-on's with his head or feet, which is totally useless if you haven't got someone alongside you ! Fuller would be the better choice. If you are then going to play someone up front with him then play a STRIKER not a winger. Haynes can play as a frontman & a winger so the set-up should include him from the start. not Waggy. Then when a sub is needed becuase of the sending off, why not sacrifice your non-entity in Dervitte. I aqree Stephens was having a stinker, but at least with 10 men Stephens may be able to go forward more and have a shot - Dervitte was anonymous today. Pritchard is also not a wide player - he may have lots of energy but as I have repeatedly said on here he is out of his depth and spent most of the game chasing the ball & not getting his foot in.
I am just hoping we can get enough points to stay up - 50 may not be enough as the bottom teams keep picking up wins, not just draws, but wins, and there in no-one currently stranded at the bottom - so I think at least 52 points may be needed and maybe even close to 55. I've written this season off and just looking towards next season to see how on earth we are going to improve the squad - either by a cash injection or by a new manager using the players he has at hand IN THEIR CORRECT POSITIONS.
People moaning about Powelly are idiots. Had one full season as manager and we were Champions, this season 12th before today with a very limited squad. We are going to be inconsistent, Powelly isn't stupid, I'm sure he would love to invest heavily in the team but until that money is available we have to stick with the boys we've got.
Talking of investment I'm close to Paddy P and some money needs to be spent on the pitch. It looked bad today although when you are on it, it's pretty flat. Covers, undersoil or something needs to be done, but you can't blame that on our home form.
Forest looked better than us in almost all areas, they played crisp passing football and if their shooting was better would have beaten us by a lot more. The red card didn't help, but even before that they looked better than us. I thought most of the players battled well, though Stephens had a shocker and Pritch was outmuscled a lot. We weren't creative enough up front or good enough in midfield, so I can't really complain about the result, but I do wonder what masochistic streak is making me turn up at The Valley so regularly. The only positive I can see is that there are probably 3 teams worse than us.
Our midfield never got to grips with the movement of the Forest midfield in the opening half-hour. Dervite sat in front of the Centre Backs and covered the space, without actually picking up Reid, who dictated the play, as he did so effectively at the City Ground earlier in the season. Jacko, Stephens, and Pritchard were all exposed, chased shadows and lost possession too easily.
We are playing three in Central Midfield and sacrificing the second striker, because we don't have midfielders strong enough to operate as a pair at this level. It should have been addressed in the transfer window. If we had the strength & quality, we would no doubt play 4-4-2 and let the opposition worry about us a bit more.
The sending off was petulant and cost us any chance of a point or three. Playing as the lone striker requires discipline as well as ability. Kicking-out gave the "traffic warden like officials" an excuse to show their mastery of the rules to the assessor in the directors box. Stupid.
Forest are a good outside bet to get through the play-offs. Davies has got them going already. They have plenty of quality going forward. The Centre Defence is the weakest area on the team and might struggle against anything played in behind. Other than that, they look a better