POST MATCH THREAD : Charlton Athletic V Crawley Town : Tuesday 3rd December 2024

I really don't want another new manager. I do think the main reason why we have been so bad on the pitch over the last few season is a lack of consistency in this area.

However I think Jones does need to go. Sticking to this long ball football is absolutley mental. The players are clearly told that this is the tactic and it's so boring to watch and you could forgive it if it was getting results but it isn't.

I also think Scott needs to go. His job is so important in this era of football and he has made the wrong calls on manager choice/ player transfers far to many times now.

If Jones & Scott are kept on and they turn things around then I will be happy to have been proven wrong but I just don't think that is going to happen.

I have been supporting Charlton since the early 2000s so not as long as some of you. Bar a couple of good seasons in the Prem and the promotion seasons in League One we have been largely awful. That being said I have never felt less interested about going to a Charlton game as I have this season. The thing I have found the most frustrating is having to watch players clearly not putting effort in only to hear the manager say that this is the beginnig of a new era and that they are the most hard working individuals he has ever worked with. No matter whether we win lose or draw his team will never leave the field without putting 100% in. That interview Jones did after the FA Cup game on Saturday seems so cringe now after tonights efforts.

I am normally really positive. I will also hold up my hands and say that at the start of the summer I thought Jones was going to get us into the playoffs at least. When he didn't sign an attacking midfielder or any wingers I did start to get a bit worried but still thought he had a plan. Turns out he does but it is just a terrible one.

Also one last thing. Right at the end of the game Mitchell took a throw in it was in extra time so he needed to be quick. There was no options near him and Taylor the closest player to him looked at him and walked away rather than giving him an option. When Mitchell shouted at him he looked so unbothered. This shit really pissed me off. We're 2-1 down in a game we should be winning. Have some pride.

Long rant over sorry. Just needed to get this off my chest. Wish I was in a pub with someone debriefing, that was a truely awful performance tonight.

It's difficult to write when one's mind is overcome with blinding rage, but I'll give it a go anyway, as I hope to find some catharsis in ripping this team to shreds. I am impotent to do anything about it myself, of course, just as that team was impotent for all to see tonight, and by all accounts at Burton vel sim which I didn't have the fortune of watching.

There is absolutely no-one in that side that appeared to show some fight. The closest we got was REG moaning at AMB after a wayward long punt to the front few rows of the West Stand, and even that seemed half-arsed, like the entirety of our play. Crawley are not a good football side. The first half showed as much. We were just much much worse. Whenever we had possession, it would be strung along the back four, players playing careless passes that kill momentum. The lazy pass when under no pressure is a momentum killer.

Indeed, I think it led to the opener: Mitchell bobbles a slow 15-yard ground pass to REG, who then sells Coventry short cos he has to play it from shin high rather than off the floor, who then is forced to concede a throw, from which they score an admittedly decent goal. But the ball should have still been in our possession. There was no movement from the midfield or forwards, nothing creative for any of the defenders to try and get on - just lump it up to Gas (who did admirably, relatively speaking, given what he had to work with) and hope.

When we responded it was similarly toothless. A Crawley side content with a lead sat back and played anti-football, and we huffed and puffed and couldn't break things down. Substitutions didn't seem structured. They had a vague effect of course, as Kanu scored an equaliser - and was generally industrious, and probably the best of a woeful bunch on the night - but that was poor defending from Crawley as much as it was a nice flick on and finish from Gas/Kanu.

However, we afforded Crawley so, SO much space without ever adjusting. Three centre forwards was a baffling decision: none of them tracked back enough, so they had time in the middle of the pitch. They also had time out wide, as we played with six central players in midfield and attack. So they basically had space wherever they wanted as we'd have three "pairs", if you like (a midfielder and a striker each) occupying the same general zone. So we were overrun, and it got much worse when Coventry came off, because he actually was covering a lot of the empty space that Crawley's players found. A baffling substitution.

They scored because we gave space, backed off, executed a save inexcusably badly (hold it or tip it round for god's sake AMB), and then we responded like a team that had already decided it had lost. The attitude tonight was appalling throughout. There's no leadership, no imagination, no-one even putting in a shift properly really. Terry Taylor for all his quality just waltzes about at one pace. Allan Campbell is useless. REG was at half speed - but it looked like lightning compared to a disinterested or injured or moody or whatever it was that meant Leaburn looked not even a shell, but barely even a ghost of the player he has been. Rightly slung at half time but he was not moving for through balls, not tracking back, taking 20 touches where 2 would suffice, and not in any sort of decent position. Part of that is on Jones, of course, as we had three central strikers on the pitch.

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I could go on and on and on I think. But that would not really tell anyone what we don't already know - that there is something very wrong with how we are playing and Jones must be held accountable. He has to go, and this highly unbalanced squad needs some renovating. I actually think there is the nucleus of a decent side available to us there, if we break it down to basics - but Jones is nowhere near finding the right path.