Charlton Athletic v Scunthorpe United
Tuesday 7th March 2017 … 7:45pm Kick-Off
Referee: Dean Whitestone (Northamptonshire)
IntroductionRight then; let’s take two
Heading back in my Match Preview time machine; January was supposed to see a total of five matches being played in League One yet due to FA Cup commitments our game against Rochdale was cancelled and with a harsher winter than usual this year our match against Scunthorpe was also called off before it could begin. And so with our Rochdale game played, we’re now left with one game in hand on the teams around us… Sadly though it’s against one of the more consistent teams this season yet who have stuttered at late as for the third time this season we welcome Scunthorpe United and their fans to the Valley.
The OppositionName: Scunthorpe United |
Manager: Graham Alexander
Ground: Glanford Park
Back in November these sides met in the FA Cup with the Addicks winning 3-1 whilst even earlier in the season, we travelled to Lincolnshire in the hope that we could become the first side to take all three points from Scunthorpe for the first time in the whole of 2016… That fixture ended 0-0 yet more recently; Scunthorpe have lost three home games which included Saturdays huge match against Fleetwood (a 2-0 loss) which has seen the Iron drop out of the automatic spots for only the second time since August…
Let’s have a look at the key players who could influence a potential win for the visitors tonight:
The Manager: Graham Alexander must surely have become one of the most wanted men outside of the top two Divisions. This is his second managerial role since retiring from Football, a League Two play-off win with his first side: Fleetwood is his only piece of silverware yet as proven, if Scunthorpe do have to settle for the play-offs then they have a Manager who knows how to win them.
The Player: Josh Morris has been the main man for the Iron this season yet my focus will be on their main Striker: Paddy Madden, someone who certainly knows where the goal is, he’s the man who fired Yeovil up into the Championship and is now into his fourth season in Lincolnshire with 46-goals over that period for his current club, he’ll certainly be hunting for a goal in the box this evening.
Charlton Team NewsWith another defeat coming against Northampton on Saturday you have to wonder what changes Karl Robinson can make when he appears to have tried everything… With Declan Rudd shipping goals you’d have to wonder if it’s time for Dhillon Phillips to be given another run out yet it’s not just down to the goalkeeper and there was relieving news yesterday when Jason Pearce tweeted that he’d returned to full training so will hopefully be back before the end of the month.
In Defence though; Chris Solly should now return from his three match ban meaning that Nathan Byrne will either return to the bench or will replace Jordan Botaka in Midfield, yet that is unlikely due to the latter scoring his second goal for the Addicks on Saturday.
Rudd
Solly | Konsa | Bauer | Chicksen
Botaka | Crofts | Ulvestad | Holmes
Magennis | Novak
Substitutes Bench: Phillips | Dasilva | Jackson | Teixeira | Byrne | Watt | Ahearne-Grant
Comments
3-2 to Scunny. Watt gets sent off in injury time when yet another inaccurate shot poleaxes the linesman.
Back in June booked tickets with the wife to go see Lukas Graham at the Roundhouse in London, this date was free until the original fixture was cancelled
5-5.
Too much hard work to get there for 90 minutes of further frustration. The ground will look even more empty than recently.
Fully expect a comprehensive defeat. 1-4.
I think after the games on Saturday we will know where we stand with all the teams below us playing each other. (except Gills who play Scunny and Coventry who play Bradford) the worse case will be us on 42 points, four points off the drop zone (with Port Vale having 3 games in hand). Does not bare thinking about.
A stinking cold, so won't be leaving the house today.No great sacrifice...
Our very first league match following relegation from the Premier League was at home to Scunthorpe. 11 August 2007, a 1-1 draw watched by 23,151, featuring Marcus Bent’s final goal for Charlton, which I think was set up by a brilliantly-improvised cross from new signing Yassin Moutaouakil. A disappointing result to mark the beginning of Charlton’s ultimately-fruitless promotion campaign, whilst Scunthorpe would have been delighted to take a point off a side that had been 2 levels above them the previous year to get their survival efforts off to a decent start, although they still got relegated at the end of the season.
I was ridiculously optimistic at the start of that season – I actually thought we might go the entire season unbeaten! In my worst nightmares, I couldn’t envisage anything more harrowing than a defeat in the play-off semi-finals at the end of the season, followed by a further promotion campaign the next year. Few could have guessed that the first cogs were starting to turn on Operation Total Meltdown.
In the Charlton dugout that day was an obnoxious gobshite with a vastly-inflated opinion of himself and a penchant for talking nonsense, who took a side that was supposed to be challenging for promotion and turned it into relegation fodder. That’s pretty much the only similarity I can think of between that day and this day. The Tuesday evening clash with Scunthorpe will most probably be played out in front of a crowd of about 5,000.
8 games without a win vs 7 games without a win, so an opportunity for someone to get their season back on track. Can’t see it being us though, Charlton 0 – Scunthorpe 3. Will be interested to see who Karl points the finger of blame at for this defeat – he couldn’t fault the players’ efforts and attitude after the Bury game, after Shrewsbury he’d decided that half of them weren’t fit to wear the shirt, but after Northampton he’d decided that it was actually all his fault. Depressing.