POST-MATCH THREAD: Shrewsbury Town v Charlton Athletic: Saturday 14th September 2024 KO 15:00

Well, it was hard to watch that game! The result is more than okay - we get three points away with a clean sheet, and both those objectives were rarely seen last season.
But the first forty five minutes were pretty miserable - we were under the cosh for the last thirty and really, while you can't expect the opposition to not try and win, being so relentlessly pressed back by Shrewsbury is hard to square with promotion candidates.
Second half we imposed ourselves, and got the goal, but we didn't make their goalkeeper work a great deal after that and despite the fact we were on top, Mannion had more sves to make, although he was never forced to pick the ball out of the net.

So I am happy with the win, the points, and some of the performances, and I'll willingly accept we are a work in progress and will gel sooner or later, but from there forwards, I doubt any spectators with no knowlege of league 1 would have watched that game and thought either of those teams are going up. That was a good win, but not a warning to the rest of league 1 that the  Addicks are going up this year.

ken_shabby said:

Well, it was hard to watch that game! The result is more than okay - we get three points away with a clean sheet, and both those objectives were rarely seen last season.
But the first forty five minutes were pretty miserable - we were under the cosh for the last thirty and really, while you can't expect the opposition to not try and win, being so relentlessly pressed back by Shrewsbury is hard to square with promotion candidates.
Second half we imposed ourselves, and got the goal, but we didn't make their goalkeeper work a great deal after that and despite the fact we were on top, Mannion had more sves to make, although he was never forced to pick the ball out of the net.

So I am happy with the win, the points, and some of the performances, and I'll willingly accept we are a work in progress and will gel sooner or later, but from there forwards, I doubt any spectators with no knowlege of league 1 would have watched that game and thought either of those teams are going up. That was a good win, but not a warning to the rest of league 1 that the  Addicks are going up this year.

BIB; that suits me. Let Brum and Wrexham snaffle up all the headlines and we can quietly go about our business consistently picking up points and come up the rails without the huge amount of pressure that being "favourites" brings with it. I tell you what though, if any team thinks they can relax or not be at their best or underestimate what it takes to beat us this year they are going to be in for a bit of a shock.

Yep, I want to watch a football match, not a game of chess.

.

LoOkOuT said:

At the other end of the spectrum, I can't be the only one that finds Man City's football boring as fuck. It's too "perfect" it puts me to sleep.

Give me the QPR goal vs Wednesday over a Man City tap in every day of the week

eastterrace6168 said:

Know this is slightly off-piste, but you know all this talk of Man City being "investigated", do me a favour you just know they will slide and slither their way out of it, or at the most a meaningless fine will be the result...talk about snake oil...does my 'ead in they do.🤦‍♂️

...anyway back on topic...

Said it from the beginning, they will get a record fine so the FA can pat themselves on the back and say look its the harshest punishment yet, City will complain and appeal (only to give the punishment some legitimacy) then quietly withdraw the appeal  6 months or so down the line and pay the fine (which is nothing more than a tax on cheating for them). Similar to what happened with West Ham we all know if they had finished 7th the season they had Tevez they would of had points taken away but FA bottled it.

but back on track, I get its not the best football to watch but its not as bad as some make out and lets face it, if someone had offered this at the end of last season we would bit their hands off.

Here are our average positions for the match according to sofascore.com. Interesting how close Berry & Coventry are and that Doc is pulling much wider

eastterrace6168 said:

fenaddick said:

Here are our average positions for the match according to sofascore.com. Interesting how close Berry & Coventry are and that Doc is pulling much wider

Also how deep Gas is compared to TC...

That was my initial thought too but it makes sense if TC is looking for flick ons from Gas

It's not obvious from that map what Berry's role is meant to be. 

I'd love us, against weaker teams at home happy to park the bus, to change our system a bit e.g. 3412, with TC having a free role and able to drift wide as the 10, and 2 strikers ahead of him.

eastterrace6168 said:

fenaddick said:

eastterrace6168 said:

fenaddick said:

Here are our average positions for the match according to sofascore.com. Interesting how close Berry & Coventry are and that Doc is pulling much wider

Also how deep Gas is compared to TC...

That was my initial thought too but it makes sense if TC is looking for flick ons from Gas

Yeah, but much as I like Gas, the flicks don't seem to find the target with any regularity...🤷‍♂️

Is that something for Campbell - Godden - Kanu etc. to work as well as Ahadme though?

Gas can only go to where the long ball has been sent, his fellow striker needs to do better at reading that too

Even the likes of Berry, by being closer... as have found a lot of the balls that Ahadme brings down, quite close to him.

Something to improve in training as a whole.

fenaddick said:

He wins 42.7% of his aerial duals which doesn't seem a lot but puts him in the top 30% of strikers in the division. As @ForeverAddickted says, our players need to get better at anticipating where his headers are going

Higher than I would have thought actually - Reading in the first half, was one the best game I've seen from him, in terms of bringing the ball down for team mates.

Reading though, did an excellent job at isolating him... Bit like Peter Crouch, don't bother competing in the air, just make sure you're in the right place to thank him for bringing down the ball for you 

ForeverAddickted said:

fenaddick said:

He wins 42.7% of his aerial duals which doesn't seem a lot but puts him in the top 30% of strikers in the division. As @ForeverAddickted says, our players need to get better at anticipating where his headers are going

Higher than I would have thought actually - Reading in the first half, was one the best game I've seen from him, in terms of bringing the ball down for team mates.

Reading though, did an excellent job at isolating him... Bit like Peter Crouch, don't bother competing in the air, just make sure you're in the right place to thank him for bringing down the ball for you 

Interestingly he only won 33% of aerial duels against Reading. He won 53% against Orient which is his highest % all season. Reading actually is his lowest %.

What I don't know is what actually counts as an aerial duel, I seem to remember him controlling a few with his chest v Reading which probably don't count

bromdog said:

One of the best we’ve had in the ‘air’ in recent cafc history was Deon Burton. Didn’t necessarily win headers all game but used his body to hold up the ball. Remember him actually using his chest a lot to bring the ball down. If gas can get near that with his work rate then we’ll have a good league one player.

Deon Burton sits in my mind as one of the stupidest reds I've ever seen against Swindon in THAT Llera game. Second yellow for handballing the ball after a centre half beat him to a header. Was a great hold up man though. 

NabySarr said:

fenaddick said:

He wins 42.7% of his aerial duals which doesn't seem a lot but puts him in the top 30% of strikers in the division. As @ForeverAddickted says, our players need to get better at anticipating where his headers are going

But when Aneke is on we seem to keep the ball off a lot more of his flick ons? So I’d suggest it’s an Ahadme problem rather than a problem with the runners anticipation 

Is that because Aneke brings the ball down to feet a bit more? - e.g. that lovely control against Rotherham for example

He's also got the strength to hold off most opponents

fenaddick said:

NabySarr said:

fenaddick said:

He wins 42.7% of his aerial duals which doesn't seem a lot but puts him in the top 30% of strikers in the division. As @ForeverAddickted says, our players need to get better at anticipating where his headers are going

But when Aneke is on we seem to keep the ball off a lot more of his flick ons? So I’d suggest it’s an Ahadme problem rather than a problem with the runners anticipation 

Possibly true, I guess a tired defence also helps as our other subbed on striker might have quicker reaction times? It's certainly an interesting Q and I don't think there's a stat to see how often we retain possession from different players aerial duels

Yeah I’m just going from memory of the games and to me we always seem to retain it more when it’s Aneke. But saying that, I  don’t think it’s too fair to judge Ahadme vs Aneke, because 25 minutes of Aneke is not a level I’d expect any striker at this level to be able to reach consistently