Charlton Athletic v Southend United
Saturday 8th April 2017 … 3pm Kick-Off
Referee: Roger East (Wiltshire)
IntroductionFollowing on from our match on Tuesday… Football instantly returns to the Valley this Saturday for what will be our last match of the season on this day of the week – Tomorrow sees the Addicks hosting Southend United in what will hopefully be our last match against a side above us in the table, the recent performance against Milton Keynes Dons on the other hand will certainly put question marks on whether that will be the case yet more points than what we’re on are needed…
Where they come from though is greater conundrum.
The OppositionName: Southend United |
Manager: Phil Brown
Ground: Roots Hall
The Shrimpers come to the Valley this Saturday on the back of an impressive run, something that the Addicks could certainly do without, just one defeat in the last five matches which saw four wins has well and truly catapulted Southend into the Play-Off positions and with just a handful of games remaining it’ll remain to be seen whether our opponents can hold on to the position this time around…
Results will certainly create mixed emotions for Charlton fans as a win for Southend will continue to deny Millwall’s hopes of promotion come May – Who are the main men though aiming to take Southend back into the Championship?
The Manager: Phil Brown is best known as that Manager who at Half-Time ranted at his Hull City side during a Premier League defeat against Manchester City yet despite a drop which saw him taking over at League Two: Southend, he’s certainly rebuilt his reputation guiding the Shrimpers back into League One and now even possibly beyond.
The Squad: One of the reasons Southend are so high is thanks to the wealth of experience within their ranks, both Marc-Antoine Fortune and Simon Cox have had Premier League experience (with West Brom and Reading respectively) whilst well known bad boy: Nile Ranger appears to have settled (for now) and is proving that if he concentrates on his Football he should be playing at a higher level having scored eight times in yet another disrupted season.
Charlton Team NewsWith another poor defeat against Milton Keynes on Tuesday, the fans were left once again sceptical of Karl Robinson’s post match views as the customary responses were given… In yesterdays Press Conference ahead of our match on Saturday it was confirmed that the players would now be training at the Valley to get accustomed to the pitch and surroundings (despite that being our home pitch where we already play half our games).
In terms of Squad selection its impossible to predict who’ll be included and who’ll be dropped after that pathetic display which saw many asking whether they deserved to wear the shirt… Because of that my own selection this week is certainly nothing more than a stab in the dark!!
Rudd
Solly | Bauer | Pearce | Dasilva
Jackson | Ulvestad
Byrne | Aribo | Holmes
Magennis
Substitutes Bench: Phillips | Teixeira | Chicksen | Botaka | Forster-Caskey | Crofts | Watt
Comments
I wish I could be more positive but I can't.
3.1 Southend.
Just sell the club
0-2 and the plummet towards a final day show down continues.
Charlton till I die
0-2
Southend are another side that we've got a great record against, 24 wins and just 9 losses in 43 meetings. The standout Addicks vs Shrimpers memory has to be the game that marked the opening of the East Stand, when the Addicks won 4-3 with a late winner scored by a knobend with a massive nose, despite the efforts of the Southend left back whose name I didn't know at the time, but I think he went on to have a reasonably successful career.
There was also a 3-0 midweek home defeat in the mid-90's. The ITV cameras were there as the game was going to feature on Carlton Sport (hosted by the suave Matthew Lorenzo if you're interested) later that evening. I don't remember much about the game, except for getting an interesting insight into the mentality of a football supporter. Obviously a 3-0 defeat was pretty horrendous viewing from a Charlton supporter's perspective, and I recall an old bloke shouting out "f%*king sort it out Charlton, I've got to sit through this again when I get home!". Nobody would go to the cinema, watch a film which turned out to be absolutely rubbish and then go home and immediately endure it again on DVD. The old bloke was right though, and I also went home and dutifully turned on Carlton Sport.
Getting no positive vibes at all about tomorrow. Rock-bottom is redefined for the second time in 5 days with a 3-0 defeat - just be thankful that Carlton Sport isn't on tomorrow evening.
3-0 Addicts to Send Sarfend (kerb) crawling back to Essex.
Ludicrously Paddy Power still has the shrimpers 6/4 against the away win! That simply represents free money and should not be spurned. Betting against one's team always feels strange, wrong even, but this is just not to be missed. Anywhere you can get Evens or better has to be lapped up. Any compensations, however strange, have to be taken while roly persists with his toxic pantomime. Not even refereeing of Keith Stroud's kind of lunacy can stand between Southend United, 3 points and a major boost to their goal difference. Edging the spanners a little further out of the play-off picture is good too.
Meanwhile, anytime the risible fat scouse gobshite wants to move as far away from SE7 as his pastey pins will carry him, can't come soon enough for me. "training at the the valley will make a difference...blah blah blah..." yet another in his litany of preposterous drivel, he plumbs new depths in blather, just as roly's mob plumbs new depths in mismanagement, they deserve each other. We all deserve neither.
Big improvement leading to a battling draw, or more likely, a heavy defeat.
Players fed up with being publicly berated for not being good enough have a habit of saying 'sod you then'.
Most of them know they have no future at the club, for one reason or another, and have clearly lost any faith they may have had in KR's 4231 formation (or whatever it's supposed to be).
For what it's worth I'd play Botaka.
Either 1-1 or 0-4.
Can it get any worse?
We need to finish higher than 22nd to avoid our lowest ever league position.