MATCH THREAD: Charlton Athletic vs Birmingham: Carabao Cup: Tues 13th Aug 2024 KO 19:45 +POST P21

Leuth said:

Braziliance said:

Leuth said:

Braziliance said:

fenaddick said:

Braziliance said:

fenaddick said:

Braziliance said:

sillav nitram said:

Braziliance said:

oohaahmortimer said:

Callumcafc said:

It makes me wonder… Did people not realise this is the kind of football we were likely getting with Jones?

I’m sure people had a clue just didn’t realise it would be sooooo dull 
people can take any crap whilst winning but not so easy when losing .
the big glaring issue is so far there’s limited skill and creativity on show ,  a load of athletes running around a lot 
what happened to this magical Jones formula when he ballsed it up at Stoke and Soton 

This is how I feel. I had an exact idea on how Jones would set us up. 5 at the back, two strikers and a hard working midfield. I also however have a lot of expectations, and based on the back end of last season, and the start of this one, including pre-season, it hasn't been met. 

What I was expecting to see, was a well drilled side, who close the ball down quick, run with intensity for the majority of the game, and when we get the ball, move it quick and get ourselves into scoring positions, and take advantage of it.

Instead, we hold a defensive shape, close down fairly slow, and when we do get the ball, the players are either woeful at shooting, crossing or beating their man, take your pick. 

I don't mind the style at all, if we have the right players who can create the moments when we have the chance, the big problem is, none of them look good enough on the ball to make it happen, and that was evident again in our poor shooting and crossing yesterday. 

It might sound harsh, but I am of the opinion that the likes of TC, Anderson and Kanu should have been loaned out, rather than being mainstays of our first team. I don't particularly think any of them are ready yet. We are also still stuck with a bit of dross on our books we will really struggle to shift.

Again early doors, but my gut instinct is that 20 minute joke of a power point presentation, was a complete waste of ours and their time. '8 players that anyone would want in this league and would be able to play championship football'? Have a word 😂

Honestly, 2 games. I think your expiations need to be tempered. Just a thought.

It isn't just 2 games, I am counting the back end of last season as well. How many fresh restarts does this club need and transfer windows. 

He's come into this side with experience of getting teams (Luton) playing, he's allegedly been allowed total freedom over transfers and been given a good budget. In that time he has managed a 27% or so win rate, less than the likes of Ben Garner, Nigel Adkins and about on par with Russell Slade (due to the sheer amount of draws). We had actually sacked those 3 with similar amounts of games managed.

Of course I am not saying we should switch managers, it's just an observation that there was a lot of anger towards those 3, but there is more faith around Jones in the hope he can replicate what he did at Luton. I was definitely in that boat, however, the more I watch Charlton, the more I can't see the difference from the rest of the managers we have had in this league, particularly in terms of results.

I don't think he is in a position where questions shouldn't be asked or discussions about the teams playstyle. I really couldn't tell you any difference between this side, or the other poor league 1 sides I've watched over the last decade. We keep a good shape, and look harder to score against, that's true. We also however play 5 at the back and are sacrificing attacking options to allow that. 

It's a prediction, I'll still watch every game and hope it gets better, I just think we need to spend a lot of cash, which in my head already writes off this season due to the comments about needing to shave wages before spending more..

Think it's hard to count last season. He was using players he didn't fancy and towards the end of the season was experimenting with a few things. His win % is going to take a hit when you consider where we were when he came in. Compare this side to the one in January and they're markedly different. We look defensively solid for the first time in years. That was clearly priority no1. It takes time for attacking players to build relationships. Admittedly, we haven't got much time on our hands but I'm confident it will be ok and we'll be in the play off mix at the very least.

It might sound harsh, but that is what every football manager in the world with deals with unless you're Pep. You go into a club that has made signings prior to your arrival that you now manage.

I love his character, I love his antics, and I really like his post match interviews. I did feel the same way however about the likes of Jacko and Adkins.

I still have faith he's gonna elevate us at some point, with the right players, I'm just a bit concerned how his style hasn't been implemented yet, and that we may have wasted another transfer window. Unless of course we manage to move the likes of Edun and Fraser on and replace adequately.

Leyton Orient are no mugs and I am expecting them to cause us serious problems. I was hoping by now I'd feel a bit more confident about our chances against what I expect to be a mid-table side. 

Well yes and no. Most managers arrive in time to have a window to work with. Garner had one straight away, Adkins had one pretty quickly as he came in late in the season, Jacko was made permanent just before the January window. Jones came in the day after the window closed and had to scrape around a bit. That worked well for Small but not for Wickham or Lua Lua. 

I think his style is being implemented, it just isn't pretty so lots of people don't like it. That's fair enough and a few years ago I'd also have been annoyed but we've been in this league too long for me to care how it looks on the eye. If we scrape our way to promotion by ugly 1-0's all season then I will be delighted. 

Orient are no mugs, you're right. I would counter that by saying we're defensively very solid from the looks of it and I think we'll limit their chances like we have done in the first two games. Hopefully Ramsay can get forward and provide some good crosses like he did at times against Wigan and our press creates chances like it did last night. If Berry scores with one of his chances last night I think we're all having a very different conversation.

Good points re first paragraph, I am just expecting a similar outcome. Some of the signings have been good, I just think the squad was too clogged up to turn it around unless the powers that be were willing to take a financial hit, that isn't really Jones fault. The win % is still concerning regardless for me, and I hope that changes over the next ten games. 

I'd argue it isn't with the style. The way he is setting the team up is what we expect, but in terms of the energy and work rates, I am not seeing what he has spoke about. Of course it's early doors, but with a proper pre-season, and the time to address it, I was expecting it already. Again, I think that could be down to the players though, I don't rate a lot of this squad. I don't believe Jones is happy with the squad either and was probably expecting more. 

I reckon we'll draw 1 all with Orient, hopefully that's just my pessimism though and we put out an energetic performance and stuff them.

Anyway said most of my negatives, positives, Zack Mitchell looked like a progressive centre back with a decent ceiling, Mannion looks fairly assured imo, better than Isted and AMB just from a few glimpses, Lloyd Jones looked very decent and I have no concerns with him and A.Mitchell being 2 of the 3 main stay centre backs, finally I liked the look of Berry. His shooting boots he left elsewhere, but his movement was nice and I think over the course of the season he should chip in with a few goals.

What on earth are you talking about, re: energy and work-rates being low. We absolutely pressed Birmingham as a pack, and if they broke the press we flooded back in recovery really quickly. They created really very little because of our press. The issue wasn't with energy or work-rate, it was with ball retention and quality of delivery, and to a certain extent the finishing of what was created by our high-energy style

Na, they schooled us. We held a shape but our press wasn't good, if it was, they wouldn't have had the lions share of the ball and been allowed 7 shots on target alone. 

It was a poor performance in isolation, you can think otherwise but I didn't think we looked like scoring once other than a bad penalty. 

I'd say they're on a completely different level to us which is understandable considering they're a freshly relegated side and have added players to their side from the Dutch top flight and have spent millions. 

They broke our press a lot because they've signed a shit ton of really good footballers. We then got back in numbers to defend, every single time, because we've signed or retained a bunch of really energetic and tactically disciplined footballers 

I think Wigan actually played through our press better than Birmingham did. We definitely didn’t have a half hour spell at Wigan where we kept winning it back off them like we did the first half hour last night 

I get the points made on both sides of the debate on waiting to see how things develop and if we improve vs the same worries and concerns are there.

The good thing is Jones is aware of what the issues are and there’s still over two weeks of the window being open.

Why should we be patient? Why would we improve? Look back to 18/19 under Bowyer when we went up - we only won one in our first six games (including the League Cup).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_Charlton_Athletic_F.C._season

After trying various types of managers with many different styles of play in recent years I’m glad NJs priorities last season were to get us playing with more intensity, aggression and organisation. We’ve built on that since by signing players who enhance those priorities over those who could be too passive and/or lacked something physically.

It’ll never be the best football to watch in this division when Birmingham are spending literally millions on fees but it’s far better we develop a reliable and effective style over trying to build a possession team without the budget to do so, or putting too much focus on our attack over being strong defensively.

Curbs and Powell were described as cautious, pragmatic etc and while Bowyer’s promotion side played good football he also ensured attitude, effort and organisation were the minimum expectation and he would also grind out results playing cautious and going more direct when needed.

I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out over the next few games. My guess is we’ll look better going forward than we’ve shown so far. Playing out from the back has become more popular in this division but pressing well with the right type of players can cause those sides a lot of problems. We know because we’ve been one of them.

Effort and organisation can take you a long way at this level, it’s how clubs like Stevenage got close to the playoffs. I think those games where teams used to sit back in numbere will look a bit different this season with us being more direct. Insisting we play out from the back in the past is partly why opponents get back in numbers to begin with, and why the obvious answer is often to be to sign more creative players.