MATCH/PREVIEW THREAD : Dartford V Charlton Athletic Pre-Season : Saturday 12th July 2025 : KO 15:00

Reports of Charlton fans turning birthday cards upside down in the priory center cards 4 u...vile behaviour.

As our Seth Plum used to say:
It was a must win.

Even though it wasn't to either side or else Dartford wouldn't have swapped their keepers.

First half 

Not sure how it’s 2-2 … and how there been two pen the only real poor tackle in the whole 45 mins was the poor tackle on Doc that to the surprise of everyone was not given by the ref and that led to there goal as Coventry was caught with the ball and in a scramble the ball was in our net ..the two pens were very soft indeed , other then that Charlton have dominated Coventry and Doc have controlled mid Rylah looked the pick of the bunch some excellent balls in the box …only disappointment would say Kanu he struggled against two old fashioned non league centre half’s

second half 

completely different second half Charlton have had 80% procession but unlike first half we lack that flair player to open up the defence .. Olaofe looks isolated he should have started the first half he would have had a couple of goals but led the line well .. Carey looks impressive  as does Burke and A Mitchell at the back .. but Mwamba and Fuller are not as effective as Dixon and Rylah , but once we made the change with two up top , Carey centre mid we looked a lot better …. 

Good run out in the sun. Was impressed with the crossing ability of young Rylah...solid with both right or left foot. 

Thought both Mwamba and Fullah looked really comfortable in midfield, both very good footballers.

I wonder if playing as an attacking RWB will end up being Rylah's best position, rather than being a winger who sometimes plays up front. That first half really highlighted he's more of a crosser than a tricky, agile winger twisting and turning to beat the full back. He showed a good variety of crosses from different positions and with either foot.

He has a year left on his contract, will be interesting if he gets a new deal. Feels like a player who was thrown into the first team too early.

sillav nitram said:

Any ideas why Mannion wasn’t in the squad?

Someone said the other day his missus was about to give birth?

Looking forward to seeing if we stick with 3-4-2-1/3-4-3 throughout preseason. Perhaps NJ thinks the shape will help us in the Championship where more teams will be passing out from the back - we can still press high with the front 3, but the two 10s can also drop back to give us four CMs to crowd out teams when defending but without losing that counter attacking threat.

https://x.com/CAFCofficial/status/1944074963411210663

NJs post match interview.

I hate 343. Almost no teams do it successfully and those that do tended to have preternaturally talented wingers. Jones has tried it before and quickly put it in the burn box along with the 442 diamond. I don’t hold out all that much hope for 3421 either. We know Jones likes using pre-season to try some ideas so I expect and hope we’ll line up 352 when the season starts 

swords_alive said:

Had a feeling at 2-2 we'd go on to win this

Jeez too rich for me im out

Thought the split of the teams was a little off, first half team needed some strength up top and second half needed some pace on the wings but good run out and enjoyable day at Dartford as always

Rich Cawley and Louis Mendez have uploaded a post match mini podcast on Rich’s Substack.