Cynic Athletic

Wembley Impressions

2007-03-25T15:16:00.000+01:00

Football stadiums have always been of particular interest to me. I love the game itself, but there is something about the homes of football that have always just got the adrenaline pumping for me. The first glimpse of the floodlights as you approach the ground for example, or that first look at the playing surface when you leave the concourse. I will never tire of that feeling...

I was lucky enough to be at the final game under the twin towers, and yesterday was again lucky enough to have a ticket for the first competitive match at the new Wembley. Here are my impressions of the overpriced superstadium set to become the new home of English football.

We arrived at the ground about 90 minutes before kick off and Wembley Way was rammed with supporters. The tube journey to Wembley Park was been a squeeze as always, and although the new stadium has an increased capacity, it didn't look to me like any work had been done at the station itself in order to deal with the increased number of fans who will be passing through it on future matchdays.

That aside though, when you get to the top of the station steps and see the arch for the first time you can't help but feel just a little bit awestruck. I have taken a few pictures/videos of the day which I will include at the end of this article, but I have to apologise in advance for the poor quality of the images, they were taken on a mobile phone.

Everybody was searched upon entering the ground. Bags were turned inside out, screw tops were removed from drinks bottles, and the guy in front of me had to throw his can of deodourant into the bin (which he was most upset about). After finally clearing the security we were on the concourse, and this was where you really started to get a true feeling for the size of the ground. Yes it was only two thirds full yesterday but there was no pushing and shoving going on as people made their way towards various toilets, gift shops, and refreshment kiosks. I would estimate that the concourse was 4 times as wide as the Valley's North Upper equivalent.

Beer was £3.50 a pint, which is actually cheaper that I expected it to be. Hot dogs and burgers were also between £3-£4, and looked pretty much like they do in any other football ground nationwide. I wasn't about to risk them.

Then came the highlight of the day for me, that jaw-dropping moment when you actually enter the stands themselves. I didn't really care about the game to come, this was why I had come to Wembley today, and I have to say that at first glance it entirely lived up to my expectations. The ground is just huge; there is no other word for it. Although there are only 12,000 odd seats more than the old Wembley you could be forgiven for thinking that the stadium had doubled in capacity.

The pictures I have taken inside the ground really do not convey the size well I'm afraid. Suffice to say that it is the nicest looking football stadium I have ever seen, and the leg room afforded to each seat is more than generous. However, the space in between your seat and the seat next to you wasn't so great. The 3 lads I went with were all big fellers, and none of us were able to keep our arms by our sides without annoying the neighbour.

The game came and went, I'm sure you're not really that fussed about my match report.

One thing I will say though is that the atmosphere wasn't what I was expecting. There were the obligatory Mexican waves and In-Ger-Lund's rolling around the gargantuan stands, but the acoustics didn't appear to be fantastic.
I'm sure that this will change when you get the whole ground filled with fans for an England game, or when you get the 50/50 split for an FA Cup final or other such fixture.

Have you ever been to a game where there were no away fans? It was that kind of atmosphere. More of a novelty to be there than to actually sing in support of the under-21's. No one was really that fussed as to whether we won or lost, and perhaps that's why the game went the way it did...

I'm not sure how easy the ground would be to get out of at the end of a match because we left 10 minutes before the end. About 20,000 others had the same idea though, and mounted Police periodically stopped the tide of fans heading back towards Wembley Park station in order to let the crowds clear. When I got to the top of the stairs at the tube station and looked back along Wembley Way all I could see were fans with at least an hours wait to get on a train. We definitely made the right decision in leaving early.

I am one of those who have followed the building of the new Wembley pretty much from the start. At least once a month for the last couple of years I have logged on to http://www.wembleystadium.com just to see the latest pictures, or to stare at the web cams bleary eyed for 5 minutes, so for me to be there yesterday was just wonderful.
Why then, can I not shake a feeling of disappointment?

All Charlton fans have wonderful memories of Wembley, and I have watched England play there so many times aswell. The new stadium has to be seen to be believed, and it is definitely ready for the future, but is it still Wembley?

Did you go to the Emirates this season? Beautiful ground isn't it? But it's just not Highbury.

Maybe in 5 years time when England have built some memories under the Arch, and there have been some memorable FA Cup matches at Wembley I will feel differently about this, but right now I feel like the country has lost something.
The stadium I was sitting in yesterday could have been a stadium anywhere in the World. Move it to Sydney, or Madrid, or Los Angeles, and it would still be a gorgeous futuristic stadium, but there was nothing that I saw yesterday that made me say "Yeah, this is Wembley, and this is the home of English football".

Hopefully this feeling will dissipate given time, but at the moment, all I have is a sense of overwhelming anticlimax.

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Here are the Videos:

--> External Panorama
--> Internal Panorama
--> National Anthems - God Save the Queen starts at 1 min 25 seconds

Here are the pictures (click for slightly bigger images):

Fulham goals

2006-12-28T02:32:00.000Z

Just a quickie in order to post the goals from tonights match for the benefit of anyone who wasn't there.

Link

It was a disgusting decision that robbed us of three points tonight. Everyone keeps telling me "that's football", but when was the last time you saw something like that happen to United/Chelsea?

Maybe that sounds a touch bitter, but its the truth isn't it??

From the Fans Forum

2006-11-17T03:03:00.000Z

New manager Les Reed and second in command Mark Robson met face to face with over 200 Addicks in the Valley’s Millennium Lounge this evening. I managed to get myself a seat at the fans forum, and although I was gutted when I was told that I couldn’t bring my lap-top inside, I rallied, got myself a pen and paper, and scribbled furiously throughout the whole event.

The idea was that I would then type out as much of the proceedings as I could for the benefit of those who weren’t there (and Inspector Sands), just in case the club decide not to release the whole audio recording to the general public.

By the way, if anyone reading this happened to be there as well and thinks that I’ve made a mistake in what I recorded, I don’t care. I did as well as I could.
For the rest of you, I hope you’re thankful! This is going to take me hours to do :-)

I’ll summarise what was said for the most part, but verbatim quotations will appear in capital letters and bold type.

---------------

Fans Forum, Millennium Lounge, The Valley, 8pm – 10pm, November 16th, 2006

BH – Ben Hayes
LR – Les Reed
MR – Mark Robson
Q – Question from the audience

I arrived earlier than most and managed to get myself a seat in the middle at the front. There were at least 6 seats facing the audience, so I assumed that Reed and Robson would be joined by others from within the club but it turned out to be just the two of them in the end, with Supporters’ Director Ben Hayes presiding over the whole event.

I was a little disappointed that neither Varney, Murray, nor anyone else from the boardroom level attended the evening. It was obvious pretty much straight away that some of the more meaty questions about Dowie’s departure were going to be met with “no comment”, and that the whole forum would be about first team matters rather than the weightier issues that the last 7 days have seen arise.

There was a generous round of applause when Reed and Robson came to the table, and then Ben Hayes addressed the forum by asking Les Reed to TALK US THROUGH THE LAST 72 HOURS.

LR – Stated that he received a call from Richard Murray at approx 6:30pm on Monday evening, and the chairman went on to say that he had had a long discussion with Iain Dowie and that consequently Iain would be leaving the club. He then suggested that Reed should get in touch with Mark Robson, arrange a meeting with the players, and begin to prepare the team for the trip to Reading on Saturday. Les described himself as SHELL SHOCKED when he heard this news.

On Tuesday morning there were only 7 regular first team players in training due to injuries, the International matches, and a reserve match that afternoon. Reed met with the 7 players who HAPPENED TO BE THE MOST SENIOR PLAYERS and informed them that he was now in charge. Murray told Reed that he didn’t want the role to be temporary because he didn’t want his new manager LOOKING OVER HIS SHOULDER at speculation within the press. Reed again described himself as SHOCKED AND DELIGHTED with this news, and then told the forum that he just wished his promotion COULD HAVE OCCURRED UNDER BETTER CIRCUMSTANCES. The appointment was then described by Reed as A DREAM COME TRUE for him, and as ONE OF THE BETTER JOBS IN FOOTBALL.

Reed also confirmed that despite allegations in the national media, there was no dressing room unrest in the days leading up to Dowie’s dismissal, no training ground bust up’s, and that the players were all IN FULL SUPPORT of Iain Dowie.

The meeting was difficult for Reed who claimed IT WAS NO EASY TO ADDRESS THE PLAYERS WHEN I WAS STILL IN SHOCK MYSELF. After the meeting he then phoned all of the absent players and gave them the news.

The team were described as SHOCKED AND DISAPPOINTED initially, but Reed then told the audience that training that afternoon was first class, and the players minds were focused on Reading.

--

BH – Asked Les if he could now talk about the future a little more, and shed an light on who would be the third man involved in this new management structure.

LR – replied by saying that he had NO IDEAS as to who the third man is going to be, and that he doesn’t even know what the job description is yet, but he has had LOTS OF APPLICATIONS ALREADY!

He then went on to speak about Mark Robson’s knowledge of the younger players at the club due to his previous role, and the fact that this role is now vacant. He also stated that perhaps the incoming third coach will be utilised in this area, whilst also alluding to the fact that it would be a shame to lose Robson’s experience with the youth team. He suggested perhaps tweaking the roles slightly so that the younger players could reap the benefit of Robson’s experience, and that we could ensure a SMOOTH PATHWAY FROM THE YOUTH TEAMS INTO THE FULL SQUAD.

Reed and Robson will talk more about what they require from the third man after the Reading game is out of the way.

--

Q – Richard Murray talked about teamwork in his press conference after Dowie departed, and said that not all parties had been acting as a team, what was this all about?

LR - Didn’t really answer this question satisfactorily in my opinion, claiming that Murray’s comments were not referring to the ex-manager himself, but to the management structure of the club that was put together in the summer (Reed/Robson/Dowie).

He also stated that Andrew Mills and Murray himself were also supposed to be involved in this team, but it appeared to me from the manner in which Les was speaking that this did not occur in practise. Basically, Murray comments were referring to all senior staff, not just the footballing staff.
It was also claimed that there was ALWAYS GOING TO BE A REVIEW, it just so happened that the club were bottom of the league when it occurred.

--

Q – In general, there was a better style of football under Iain Dowie than there was under Curbishley, will this continue?

LR – NO, WE’RE GOING TO START KICKING IT LONG!

--

Q – Are the current crop of players good enough to get us out of the mess that we’re in, and do you think you will be signing players in the January transfer window?

LR – Les told the forum that he was VERY CONFIDENT THAT WE WILL TURN THINGS AROUND, BUT ITS GOING TO BE A LONG HAUL. He also said that he will be setting the squad points targets on a monthly basis, and that the fixture list had given us a decent run in, although hopefully we would be out of trouble before it gets to that point.

Reed also stated that we are only struggling due to A COMBINATION OF REASONS.
- The late appointment of Iain Dowie and the subsequent late signing of players.
- Bad luck with injuries
- Bad luck in the matches played to date
- Difficult pre season, for example, he claimed that the management team only had 1 DAY WITH THE FULL SQUAD before travelling to the West Ham game.

With regards to the January transfer window, Reed told the audience that we HAVE GOT A DECENT SQUAD, BUT WILL NEED TO FINE TUNE IN JANUARY. IT WILL BE A BIT MORE WHEELING AND DEALING THAT SIMPLY JUST HAVING THE CASH TO SPEND…

--

Q – Just before we put to bed the incidents this week, the club have more than insinuated that Iain Dowie didn’t just leave because of results on the park. Can you tell us what happened?

BH – Chimed in to say that Les couldn’t really expand on what he had already said.

LR – Spoke out and said that the management structure that was put together after Iain was appointed was supposed to SECURE THE CLUB’S LONG TERM FUTURE. Before Iain was sacked, Murray/Varney didn’t feel that this future could be guaranteed, and they had to make a decision in the short term because the long term future was at risk.

--

Q – I don’t think that the strike force is good enough (Darren Bent aside). Marcus Bent is useless, Hasselbaink looks lazy. We’re just not scoring enough goals. What about the likes of Alan Smith/David Healy/Nugent etc?

**Spontaneous applause from the audience after this question**

LR – Les said something along the lines of - I agree that we need to do something about scoring goals, but obviously we are unable to until January. Other areas of the team (midfield, defence etc) also need to chip in, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE PLAY A 5 MAN MIDFIELD.

--

Q – Simon Walton looks good on Sky doesn’t he?

LR – Claimed that Simon was signed due to the fact that he has massive potential, and although he performed excellently in pre-season it was decided that he would benefit from some first team football. Therefore he was loaned to Ipswich.

Reed also stated that the club have been monitoring his performances for the Suffolk side so far. I SPOKE TO HIM YESTERDAY and assured him that he was still part of my plans, and my current thinking is that WE WILL BRING HIM BACK IN JANUARY

--

Q – What will your tactical approach be? Will we continue to play expansive football?

LR – Les stated that in order to get out of the position that we are in, it would be difficult to only play expansive football. Some of the uglier things will also need to happen.
Reed also stated that ONE OR TWO PLAYERS HAVE SUFFERED CONFIDENCE PROBLEMS this season.

WE HAVE TO BE VERY SOLID AND VERY RESOLUTE WHEN WE LOSE THE BALL. Reed went onto say that he would continue to use flair players such as Thomas and Rommedahl, but he would have to teach them to work harder when the team isn’t in possession.

MR – Also said that he was looking forward to working with the first team squad. Obviously he has involved in reserve and youth teams at Charlton in the past, and when asked how he felt about so many promotions in such a short space of time, he said I’VE HAD A FEW OPPORTUNITIES TO MOVE ON OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS, BUT DIDN’T WANT TO BECAUSE I LIKE IT HERE. COACHING IS IN ME, AND I LOVE DOING IT.

--

Q – Can you give us an update on current injuries?

LR – Les said that he is concerned about the inordinate number of hamstring injuries that seem to be occurring, and said that he will be reviewing the WAY IN WHICH WE TRAIN ON THURSDAYS AND FRIDAYS BEFORE GOING INTO THE HIGH INTENSITY MATCHES ON SATURDAYS.

He believes that the hamstring problems and injuries we are suffering may be due to the fact that we had much less of a pre-season than we have been used to in the past.

With regards to current injuries, Diawara won’t be fit for Reading on Saturday, neither will Kishishev, and Faye is suspended. Rommedahl will be fit, as will Darren Bent, BUT JEROME THOMAS IS TOUCH-AND-GO.

--

Q – Set pieces and corners, we don’t score enough. Do you agree?

LR – YOU’LL CERTAINLY SEE SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM NOW ON. Reed said that the team will be working on set pieces tomorrow at Sparrows Lane, and that he is aware how important they are to being a successful Premiership side.

--

Q – We seem to concede less goals and score more goals when Rommedahl and Thomas start on the wings, any views?

MR – Told the forum that he though Rommedahl had been much more effective this season that he has been in previous seasons, but he said that work is still required to improve his final ball. He believes that Rommedahl has pace which frightens defences, and that we need to get him in behind the opposition back line a little bit more.

LR – REGARDLESS OF HOW WELL YOU THINK HE’S BEEN PLAYING FOR CHARLTON, HE SCARES THE OPPOSITION WITH HIS BLISTERING PACE. Reed also made the point that it gives the opposition manager something else to think about in the dressing room when he finds out that Rommedahl is in the side.

--

Q – The players’ body language speaks volumes so far this season, why don’t they fight back more after losing the ball?

**Smattering of applause after this question**

LR – Les agreed with the forum that on occasions certain players have displayed poor body language on the pitch so far this season. He also assured the audience that this is something that he will be looking at in future training sessions.

--

Q – Are we going to lose Thomas Myhre?

LR – Les Stated that Myhre had BEEN TERRIFIC in training, although he has had his fair share of injury problems so far this season. WE HAVEN’T GOT ANY INTENTION OF LOSING HIM IN JANUARY.

--

Q – We haven’t had any real leaders on the park since Kinsella/Di Canio etc. Who is the next natural Charlton captain.

LR – Les agreed that there is a lack of charismatic leadership within the side at present, and claimed that this is something which he has discussed with managers at other clubs. It’s a trait THAT SEEMS TO BE DISAPPEARING from football.

Les also said that the senior professionals at the club all have a role to play when it comes to leadership out on the pitch, and it shouldn’t all fall on the captains shoulders. He also expressed his wish to address this issue on the training pitch, and claimed that players showed a marked improvement in training today, (possibly due to the effect that a new manager has on a side).

--

Q – Andrew Mills, what does he bring to the table?

LR – Les fielded this question by saying that himself, Mark Robson, and the incoming third coach have the job of team building, squad building and developing players and tactics, and that the new structure of the club was put in place in order to allow them to concentrate on these primary responsibilities.

Mills’s job is to work VERY MUCH LIKE A LINK BETWEEN OURSELVES AND THE CHAIRMAN. He deals with the day to day running of the club and handles the issues of non-football staff, which allows us (Robson and Reed) to concentrate more on the first team.

He also stated that he would decide what type of player was needed, Murray and Mills would then find the players and come back to Reed with a list of potential signings. Reed/Robson would then make the final decision on who to sign.

--

Q – How can we hold onto Darren Bent in January?

LR – Les informed the audience that Charlton would not have a problem in holding onto Darren Bent in January, and was very complimentary about the player and his attitude. HE SIGNED FOR CHARLTON BECAUSE HE LOPVES IT HERE. HE’S NOT A DIFFICULT PLAYER, HE’S STILL A KID WHO TAKES HIS FOOTBALL TO BED WITH HIM. Cue the “ahhh, bless him's” from the female members of the crowd.

--

Q – We haven’t had a proper ball winner since Parker, when are we going to sign a similar player?

LR – Les claimed that one of the primary reasons for signing Amady Faye was his ability to win the ball and the presence that he has in the middle of the park. He also spoke about Simon Walton coming back to the club in January because ball winning is one of his strongest attributes.

Les then moved onto Omar Pouso and said that Omar is STRUGGLING WITH THE PACE OF THE GAME IN ENGLAND, but could still develop into a ball winner. Emphasis was also put onto the fact that it is the teams responsibility to work collectively in order to win the ball, the responsibility should not fall on one particular type of player.

--

Q – What’s happening with the kid Bolanos?

LR – Les explained the work permit problems which prevented Christian from signing for us in the summer, and said how upset the club were that their appeal was rejected by the Home Office.

He then suggested that perhaps a deal will still be done whereby we sign him and then loan him out to a country in Europe which has less strict rules on work permits (perhaps through our link up with Germinal Beerschot). The player would then have the opportunity to play in Europe, and continue to amass the International caps which would eventually allow him to play in England. IT’S DEFINITELY STILL IN THE WORKS.

--

And there you have it. That was the end of the forum. Ben Hayes stood up and thanked everyone for coming, as well as thanking Mark and Les for attending the evening in spite of the fact that it has been a busy week for them.

Overall, I thought Les Reed spoke pretty well about all things Charlton. I managed to shake hands with both Les and mark at the end of the Q+A session, congratulated them both on their appointments and wished them the best of luck for the future.

It's also probably also worth mentioning that the club held a raffle for a signed football (unknown at this stage as to whether Dowie signed it!) with the proceeds being given to the Valley Flag Campaign. £180 was raised, which is the price of half of one banner.

Feel free to add your own thoughts below.

Varney's side of the story

2006-11-14T13:38:00.000Z

For anyone who was at work this afternoon, I recorded Varney’s press conference from Sky Sports News and have now uploaded it. (Just follow the link and then click download file.)

Varney Interview

It’s worth listening to if you haven’t heard it, even if it’s only to hear our Chief Executive’s comments on Simon Jordan’s latest rantings.

As for Cynic Athletic, the site will be back up and running again soon, I promise.

Murray takes a gamble

2006-09-03T14:31:00.000+01:00

Because of the nexus of unofficial Charlton sites which are now available on the web, I rarely bother to check the Official site anymore. Personally, I would rather read other fans' opinions on the facts, rather than just the facts themselves. Today was a slow news day though, so I found myself trawling the official pages and clicking things that I wouldn't normally bother to click. If you are anything like me, chances are that you may also have missed this interview with Richard Murray.

The chairman mainly speaks about the signing of Souleymane Diawara (who doesn’t speak English by the way), but what makes the clip interesting is the fact that he admits that the club have massively overspent on new players this summer, and confirms that we have already dipped into next seasons transfer kitty. For anyone who is reading at work or is otherwise unable to click the audio link, here is an excert from the clip:

Reporter - "£3.7m? Thats quite expensive for a defender"

Murray - "Very expensive. I’m giving Iain a hard time on that, because he is spending money we haven't really got. We've already dipped in to next years budget."

Murray also claimed later on in the clip that the reason for the clubs financial gamble is the Premiership’s new TV contract that starts in the 2007/08 season. For those of you who don’t know, back in May the European Commission threatened the Premier League with legal action should in not ensure that other television companies were given a share of the live matches this time around. The upshot of all of this is that Sky will now only broadcast 88 matches per season (as opposed to the 138 that they currently offer) and the rest of the live games on TV will be broadcast by Setanta, an Irish channel who you will also have to subscribe to in order to watch your football from next year.

Basically, the rights to Live football on the three occasions that they have been negotiated have increased massively from £191.5m in 1992, to £670m in 1997, and now to £1.7b in the upcoming deal. Setanta are yet to announce how much it will cost to view their matches on pay-per-view. The new deal also guarantees the 20 Premiership clubs much more money per season that the current one. The format will be the same however, each club receives an identical amount, and then gets a bonus at the end of the season dependant on where they placed in the table. The new contract will massively increase (from £500k currently), the amount of money that the clubs will receive per league placing. Our financial splurging this summer is largely to ensure that Charlton are still a part of English football’s elite when this contract begins next season.

In short, this season is absolutely critical to the future of Charlton Athletic. To go down this term would be a complete disaster financially, and if we do eventually get relegated we have already gambled a portion of next seasons transfer budget. With the dizzying amount of money that is being talked about here you can understand to some extent the boards thinking in spending what we have spent, but gambling our clubs financial future is not something that Charlton often do, and it has left me a little concerned. Making comments about gambles and next years budget already being spent is almost like saying to bigger clubs: “we are going to be skint next summer, so if you fancy Darren Bent on the cheap, just make us an offer next July”. Also bear in mind that the club have now received local residents backing to redevelop the East Stand at the Valley, and I’d imagine that is going to cost us a fair amount of wedge as well.

We are not the only club in this particular boat however, Blackburn, Manchester City and Tottenham were the only three Premiership clubs whose dealings in this transfer window have amounted to a profit, and Spurs only recorded that profit because of the ridiculous £18m they received for the very average Michael Carrick. Much has been made of the fact that any one of 14 Premiership clubs could go down this season, and taking into account these comments from Murray, it is absolutely essential that we aren’t one of the three this time around.

Transfer summary

2006-09-01T04:33:00.000+01:00

From a Charlton perspective it was quite a predictable series of events that made up our deadline day dealings. Andersen has gone out on loan to Leeds but can be recalled if either Carson or Myhre pick up knocks. Pouso has signed on a year long loan from Penarol for an initial fee of £350,000 (with a further £1.3m to come if we want to make the deal permanent in 2007), and the forgotten man of SE7 has finally left the club, signing for Middlesbrough in a deal worth up to £300,000.

Nobody really knows too much about the Uruguayan, but he’s supposed to be a ball winner with an eye for goal, so I would assume that the short term plan is to play him in place of Holland in the middle of the park. Pouso and Faye should be an energetic double act in the engine room, and with Reid and Ambrose out on the wings our midfield is starting to take shape. The second choice quartet (Hughes, Holland, Kishishev and Rommedahl) is now pretty much what our midfield was at the end of last season, and with Jerome Thomas still to come back into the fold, things in that area of the pitch now look a lot more secure than have done for most of the summer.

As for Euell, well, he’s a player that I have always respected. Jase scored some vital goals for us during some pretty key seasons as a newly promoted club, and it’s a shame the way his career has gone sideways since the public bust up with Curbs. I remember almost falling off of my chair with surprise when I saw Euell’s face on an advert for the Orange mobile phone network a few years ago. It was the first time I had ever seen a Charlton player involved in a national advertising campaign and if you remember the advert, Euell scored a winning goal at Highbury and went running off in celebration around the streets of London! It was a rubbish advert really, but I remember it fondly because Jason scored at Highbury later in that season (the fourth goal in our 4-2 win), and I remember sitting in the crowd that day half expecting him to jump over the advertising boards and go running off down the road when that ball hit the back of the net.

He was never the most skilful of players, but what he lacked in finesse he made up for in desire and persistence. It's a shame that when most of the football world consider Euell's career at Charlton they wont remember that he was top scorer three years on the spin, they will just remember the last 2 years he has spent in the reserves. At least he still has a chance to prove to the nation that he does still have the ability to perform in the top flight, and I hope he takes that chance with both hands.

All the best in your future career with Middlesborough Jase, and I hope you will recall all of the good times you had at The Valley as vividly as you will remember the bad.

Diawara makes it eight

2006-08-31T03:00:00.000+01:00

With 40 hours of the transfer window left, the Addicks announced that 27-year-old Souleymane Diawara has become Iain Dowie’s 8th signing of the summer. I’ve never even heard of the lad let alone seen him play, but he has experience of playing in Europe, has won domestic trophies in France with Sochaux and is an experienced International. The price is slightly higher than I would have expected to pay for such a player but Dowie claims that he has followed his career for some time and is well aware of what he can do, so the rest of us will just have to trust his judgement. The fee was £3.712m (and twenty six new pence) by the way.

As I’m sure most Addicks are aware by now, one player who will not be present when Diawara joins up with the squad is Costa Rican talent Christian Bolanos, whose appeal for a work permit was turned down by the Home Office yesterday. I’m gutted about this news to be honest. I wasn’t at the friendlies that the kid took part in but I have heard nothing but glowing reports from those that were, and I’m sure that the club will be keeping an eye out for his inclusion in up and coming Costa Rica squads. As soon as Christian’s percentage creeps up over the 75% mark, I’m sure he will be on the first available plane back to London. It was obvious when the original application was turned down that Bolanos hadn’t played enough International matches, and I would love to know on what grounds the club appealed the decision anyway. It does seem a little harsh though to expect the kid to have been playing ¾ of his countries International games at the age of just 20.

So with Bolanos off of the list, and no further movement on the alleged deal for Pouso, Dowie now has approximately 21 hours of the transfer window left in order to find us the midfielder we so desperately need. Even if we find the right man, the question is: Do we have enough money left to sign him? By my reckoning we have spent just over £11m this summer and recouped nothing. Jason Euell looks likely to be off to Boro, but even if that move goes through I can’t imagine it being for anything more than a million. Perhaps it would be wise not to sign a midfielder tomorrow, and save the money for January instead. By then we will have a better idea of where we need to strengthen anyway.

Pouso on the way?

2006-08-29T13:29:00.000+01:00

With 2 days of the transfer window left, BBC Sport has reported that we are on the verge of signing Uruguayan midfielder Omar Pouso on a season long loan. The player is allegedly in England at the moment, and discussing terms with the Addicks.

A few Google searches have confirmed that not much seems to be known about Pouso at the moment. The BBC article is lacking any serious details, and Soccerbase don’t even have his date of birth registered. (Edit - this story claims that Pouso is 26). With regards to his ability as a player, all I know is that he can hit a mean volley for 35 yards, just ask England. (video of that goal is here)

The President of his current club Penarol claimed yesterday "Pouso explained to us that they (Charlton) offered an attractive amount of money and we won't forbid him a step forward in his career”. Not quite sure what the player would have meant by that. If we are taking him on loan then I thought the general procedure was that the club signing the player just pays him the wages he would have been getting at his original club. I’m ready to be corrected if that isn’t the case.

In other news, poor little Kevin Davies has suffered a fractured cheekbone as a result of Hreidarsson's challenge at The Valley on Saturday. Allardyce has revealed that not only are the club going to appeal the red card he received that day (although he should have had 2 before receiving the one that actually dismissed him), the Bolton manager has also lambasted referee’s for never giving the player the protection he deserves.

"It is appalling that Kevin doesn't get the protection he deserves from referees. He is constantly put under duress by defenders and he never feigns injury or tries to con the referee by simulating" - Allardyce

The irony is almost unbearable. This man manages a squad which includes the likes of Diouf and Campo, two of the worst culprits in the league when it comes to feigning injury. It's always an elbowfest when Bolton come to town, and games with them are always boring, and littered with niggly free kicks because of the style in which they play. The elbow on Faye at the weekend may not have been the worst challenge Davies made on the day but there is no way that the FA will let him wriggle out of his suspension, not with the way he conducted himself throughout the rest of the match. One of my pet hates is managers who religously defend their players even when they are clearly in the wrong. Davies lived by the sword at the weekend, so he can't have any complaints when it came back to bite him.

Wanderers jinx given the elbow at last

2006-08-27T14:16:00.000+01:00

Darren Bent's well taken goals and Scott Carson's superb display between the sticks are the main reasons that we find ourselves off of the foot of the table today, but credit must also be given to Iain Dowie for delivering both a victory and a clean sheet for the first time in his Charlton career.

It was also an eventful afternoon for referee Mike Dean, who gave two penalties, issued two red cards, and should really have issued two more if the law had been obeyed to it's letter. Davies was a flurry of elbows all afternoon but Hreidarsson was foolish to get involved in retribution. Upon viewing the replays I think a sending off was probably the correct decision but if Davies hadn't have gone on to get his own marching orders, a debating point this morning would surely have been whether the Bolton player should have even been on the field by the time HH decided to dispense his own justice. The referee clearly missed the first incident between the same two players, and it was a stroke of fortune for Davies that Hermann decided to just get on with the game rather than roll around on the floor as if he had been shot.

Both of the penalties were harsh. There may have been contact between Diouf and Faye but there was certainly nothing which should have constituted a foul. When you view the replay from the camera in the East stand, the way that Diouf falls over without even bending or twisting his body is quite embarrassing really. Scott Carson was on hand to ensure that he did not profit from his theatrics and he was on his feet in a flash in order to clear the rebound, where lesser keepers may have still been laying on the floor congratulating themselves. We have a real gem in this lad, and we should be pushing Liverpool immediately in order to agree a fee and make the deal permanent in January. The last minute save from Idan Tal was just further evidence of his alertness and agility.

Our penalty was also a soft decision, and I'm inclined to agree with Allardyce that there may have been a subconscious decision from the referee to level things up. I can't imagine he would have given that if both sides had 11 men and he hadn't just given a debatable penalty at the other end. Still, he gave it, and Darren Bent did what he does best. The second goal was the first real combination that we have seen from the two front men this term and it was indeed refreshing to see the ball hit the back of the net, and a partnership beginning to form.

It wasn't all good news though, there were times yesterday when I was screaming at our defenders for leaving wide open spaces, particularly down our left, and Stelios in particular could have had a couple of goals on another day. There are obviously defensive frailties in the side at the moment and the loss of Hermann for the next three games isn't going to make it any easier for Dowie to get those errors ironed out.

Both of the debutants did ok. Traore was guilty of one of two positional blunders, but those will surely become less frequent once he is more familiar with the rest of his back four. Reid did not look as out of shape as I had expected him to, and he even sprinted on one occasion! We have quite a lot of height in the side now that Traore and Faye are included, and Reid's delivery of the ball from set pieces will no doubt be valuable to us this year.

An international break means that we don't play again until the 9th of September, and hopefully by the time that match comes around Bolanos will be cleared to play, and Thomas/Gibbs will be a little closer to recovering from their injuries. Isn't it amazing how much brighter things look after obtaining three points?

Bolton Preview

2006-08-25T21:23:00.000+01:00

I’m not so sure that I agree with Dowie’s claim that we “haven’t been put to the sword” in either of our first two games. The fact that we lost to Manchester United doesn’t really bother me, but the manner of the defeat was pretty morale sapping.

Towards the end of the Curbishley era there were a number of occasions where the heads of the players visibly dropped after going a goal behind, and that generally resulted in the opposition helping themselves to further goals. I’m a little worried because a similar thing happened on Wednesday night. I remember commenting at half time that although they had hit both the bar and the post, I didn't feel particularly threatened by United. Then half time came and went, they scored, our heads dropped, and they scored again and again. This is an alarming trait that our players seem to have, and one that needs to be nipped in the bud before it develops into a full-blown confidence crisis. If we do go behind in matches, we need to have the belief that we can still get something from them.

I saw a set of statistics towards the end of last year, which showed how many points Premiership teams had accrued when coming from behind in matches. I can’t find the link now, but we were awfully low in that table.

People within the media and on the various football forums net wide are widely tipping us to struggle now that they have seen our first two results, and this slide needs to be arrested immediately. We have never before been bottom of the Premiership, even in 98/99 when we got relegated. I don’t think we have ever lost the first four fixtures of a league campaign in my lifetime either, but with Chelsea (a) next up on the list it just goes to show what an important fixture it is at The Valley tomorrow.

Traore will come back into the fold and will make his home debut; it also looks as though Reid is set to figure from the start aswell. Wyn Grant reported earlier in the week that Bolanos’ work permit has finally been approved, so we could in theory be welcoming three new Addicks to The Valley this weekend. Presumably Hughes will drop out of the side for Reid, and Fortune for Traore with HH switching back into the centre. I don’t envisage any other changes.

Sam Allardyce and his league of nations arrive unbeaten after their first two matches, with a win at home against Tottenham followed up by an away draw with Fulham. They also have an excellent record at The Valley over the last 5 years, having beaten us on four occasions and drawn the other. We surely must be due a win against this side, and we can draw hope from the fact that they haven’t taken 3 points on their travels since the 17th December 2005. In fact, they have only scored one goal on the road in their last 5 League matches, and that was the penalty they were awarded at the cottage on Wednesday night.

I hate playing Bolton. They are well organised, but they are also dirty and boring. I don’t envisage this one being a classic by any means, but when you are scrapping for your lives at the bottom of the league (and we are, by the way) I’m perfectly willing to sacrifice entertaining football for three points.

I’m going onto nights this week, so the match report is unlikely to be up until late on Sunday/early Monday. Apologies in advance.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 2-1 Win (Ambrose, Hasselbaink – Nolan)

No attacking ideas, no points

2006-08-24T09:02:00.000+01:00

If a team is beaten in it’s mind, then it’s going to get beaten on the pitch as well. With about 20 minutes to go last night I turned to my mate and commented that we were playing as if we were already 4-0 down, the side didn’t look like they believed there was a way back into the match, so the fact that we went on to concede another 2 late goals was hardly a surprise to any of us up in the attic of the Covered End. Indeed, if not for the sturdy Charlton woodwork and the accomplished shot-stopping of Scott Carson, tonight could have been utterly embarrassing.

United were good, there are no doubts about that, but they didn’t have to work nearly as hard as they should have done in order to claim all three points from us. Faye, Holland and Hughes were just chasing ghosts around the middle of the park for almost the entire second half, and Dowie now has less than a week to bring in a player to create things and orchestrate the midfield. 26 year-old Steed Malbranque from Fulham would be my first choice in that regard. Coleman has told the man that he won’t play for Fulham again even if he is fit, and if the fee is as little as £2.5m (the same amount we paid for M. Bent), we should definitely take a punt on him.

The baiting of Ronaldo kind of dried up once it became evident that he was the best player on the pitch by a country mile, and the defence struggled to cope with surging runs from the United midfield all evening. It was almost comical in the 80th minute when the ball came to Saha, only for both of the defenders we had between him and the goal to instinctively go running towards Ronaldo instead of attacking the ball. Saha can’t have believed his luck, and he simply turned and smashed the ball into the corner without even having to evade a challenge.

On another day we could have had a penalty or two at the beginning of the first half, but it’s worrying that we are yet to score a goal from open play, and even more worrying that we don’t look likely to score a goal from open play. There was no verve or creativity in this performance, and the chances that fell our way were a result of shoddy United defending rather than a nicely weighted through ball or perfect cross.

Dowie cited post-match that his plans for the fixture were thrown into disarray with the late injuries to Sorondo and Reid, but that doesn’t qualify as a legitimate excuse to me. Sorondo allegedly fractured a bone in his back during the West Ham game, and was in pain towards the end of that match. That was four days ago, so it doesn’t qualify as a late injury. Reid hasn’t been fully fit since he joined the club so plans to start him in place of the woefully ineffective Brian Hughes, although tactically sound, were never going happen this early in the season. I also found Dowie’s comments about the goalkeeping situation rather interesting. His quote, “We have two number ones at this club, and I hold Thomas in high regard, but Scott has just got the nod at the moment” must not have gone down particularly well in the Andersen household.

Anyway, two games played, 6 conceded, and bottom of the league. The start to this season could not have been much worse, and things need to be sorted out quickly. If you include the pre-season friendlies, Dowie hasn’t managed to deliver a clean sheet in any of the 9 games in which he has managed us. The Bolton fixture is huge now, and we must avoid defeat at all costs.

United Preview

2006-08-22T19:19:00.000+01:00

Alan Curbishley guided us to the Premiership twice during his reign, and under his tenure we came face to face with Manchester United no fewer than 12 times in the top flight, without ever managing to record a victory.

Iain Dowie will step up to the plate in order to have his first crack at the Red Devils tomorrow night, and fresh from an opening day defeat to West Ham, he could surely be forgiven for wishing that the opponents for his first competetive home game were somebody other than the 8 time Premiership Champions. We have never lost our first two Premiership games in any of the seasons in which we have graced the league, and Dowie is more than aware of how hard we will have to work in order to extend that record.

"Wednesday provides the ultimate test, against probably the best team the Premiership has had in the time it has been going. It is our first home game and we have got to make sure that the fans go away having been entertained." - Ian Dowie

Team news for Charlton, obviously Traore misses out after his error at the weekend but his spot on the left will be filled by Hreidarsson, with Sorondo probably getting the nod in the centre. Carson will surely continue in goal, and the midfield and strikers should also keep their places. The only change I could foresee would be the possible inclusion of Reid in Hughes' place, but it's widely reported that he isn't fully fit yet and in my opinion it would be foolish to risk him from the start in a match like this.

United arrive in SE7 in good form, although they may be forgiven for thinking that they are still in the midst of their pre-season routine, such was the level of resistance put up by Fulham on Sunday.
Rooney and Scholes (who both starred in that 5-1 demolition) will start their three-match suspensions, and it's likely that their main danger man will be replaced by Ji-Sung Park. At least we can be certain that Van Nistelrooy wont be getting his customary goal against us this time around.

The key area for me will be Ronaldo's tussle with the ageing Hreidarsson down our left flank. He will need to be carefully marshalled if we are to have any hope of keeping a clean sheet. Distribution of the ball when playing our way out of defence is also critical. If we obtain it and then hoof it up field, we will find it coming straight back at us. We need to play a bit more intelligently against sides of superior footballing ability.

Curbishley often described this sort of match as a 'bonus ball', in the sense that a win is a great result, a draw is a good result and even a loss is acceptable. To a certain extent I agree with this, but I can't help feeling that if we were to suffer a heavy defeat at the hands of United tomorrow night, it could severely damage the confidence of a squad who are already unfamiliar with each other. Of course it works the other way aswell should we get a huge victory, but can any Addick look themselves in the eye and say with their hand on their heart that they honestly expect us to win tomorrow night?

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 2-1 Defeat (Ronaldo, Saha - Bent)

Traore off as Addicks stumble

2006-08-20T02:25:00.000+01:00

“Referee’s make decisions. I’m not going to criticise him, but in my opinion he got the first booking wrong” – Iain Dowie

The manager’s fragmented and contradictory post match comments were the only thing I found amusing about our trip to East London today, but upon reviewing the evidence I don’t think either of the bookings can be complained about. Traore’s suitability as a signing was questioned on more than one Charlton blog before he joined the club, but regardless of footballing ability, if a player doesn’t have the common sense not to stick his foot in front of the ball when the opposition are about to take a free-kick, then that player shouldn’t be on the field at all. It was a stupid thing to do, and it cost us any chance we had of actually winning the match.

However, Dowie was correct in pointing out that West Ham should have already been 1 man down by the time that Traore endeared himself to the travelling support. How Gabbidon’s blatant punching of the ball away from Hasselbaink’s head wasn’t deemed to be preventing a goalscoring opportunity, I will never know. The cross came from out on the wing and was in the air at least a couple of seconds, so it can’t have been deemed as ball-to-hand can it?

Bent put the penalty away with aplomb, Reid looked useful when he came on and Carson made one spectacular save in the first half, but I can’t really think of too many other positives to take from today. The marking was awful for West Ham’s equaliser, and I counted four mistakes in the build up to their second, the worst of which being a comical attempt to clear the ball off of the line by Karkouri. Carlton Cole (I just knew he was going to score today) came on late in the day to rub salt into our wounds, but in truth the game was already over as a contest by that point.

I’m not going to press any panic buttons over this defeat however, we are a new side this year and the players were always going to need time in order to mould themselves into the finished product that Dowie has in mind. I said in yesterday’s preview that one win from these first three games would be a decent return and in my heart of hearts, I always thought that we would be most likely to pick up that win against Bolton on the 26th.

Let's just sweep this defeat conveniently under the carpet and forget about it. Hopefully we can spring a surprise against United in midweek.

West Ham Preview

2006-08-18T23:40:00.000+01:00

A brand new Charlton Athletic will take to the field tomorrow afternoon against West Ham at Upton Park. Plenty of new players, a new management team, new songs from the terraces, and hopefully some new ideas about the way Premiership football should be played.

We all know the size of the job Iain Dowie undertook when he agreed to take over the reins from Curbishley, and from what I have seen of the man so far, I am impressed with the way he has set about it. For so long this summer the squad looked dangerously think in places, but five new faces within the last 10 days have really bolstered those positions, and although many of the new recruits haven’t had much time to train with their new team mates, I am confident that over the course of the next few weeks they will settle in, and in 38 games time we will once again finish mid-table in what is widely described as the toughest league in the World.

As for the starting XI tomorrow, Amdy Faye is almost certain to start in the middle of the park, and I would imagine that Kishishev will be in there alongside him. Myhre should keep his place between the sticks, and a back four of Young, Hreidarsson, Karkouri and Traore is the most likely in my opinion. Bent and Hasselbaink will no doubt form our most lethal striking partnership since Hunt and Mendonca, and that just leaves the two wide positions to fill.

I think it’s safe to say that this game will have come too soon for Andy Reid to be considered for a starting place, he has just returned to training after a 4 ½ week injury and claims on the official site that he ‘still needs a bit of work’ before he will be match fit. I actually think that Dowie will opt for Rommedahl and Hughes, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if Ambrose pips one of them to the post.

From a Wet Sham perspective, new boy Robert Green will probably make his first start against the club that he was having a medical with 5 days ago, and former (useless) Addick Carlton Cole looks likely to benefit most from Ashton’s unfortunate injury. The reunion theme will be continued in midfield where old boy Lee Bowyer will no doubt make his debut, and while in defence, last season’s loanee Johnathan Spector (along with Konchesky of course) will also come face to face with their former colleagues.

We all want a good start to the season, of course we do, but the fixture computer hasn’t done us too many favours this time around and in truth, I think that one win from our first three games would be a decent return. If you're going to Upton Park tomorrow, make sure you're loud and proud.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 1-1 Draw (Hasselbaink – Cole)

Reid sneaks in on the quiet

2006-08-16T21:07:00.000+01:00

When I am at work I normally keep the BBC Football page open in order to keep up to date with the latest football news, and whenever Charlton sign a player I am generally besieged by text messages from various friends and family just in case I somehow missed the announcement. The system kind of broke down today though. I was too busy at work to even think about the internet, and nobody sent me a message, so when I got home and finally logged on I was totally blindsided by the news about the £3 million signing of Andy Reid.

We were linked with him about 3 years ago whilst Curbishley was in charge, but I’ve heard no mention of his name as a potential target for anybody this summer, let alone any reports linking him to the Valley.

As for my opinion of him as a player, he always looked cracking at Forest and I was gutted when he eventually moved to Spurs, but in truth he’s failed to live up to his own billing during his time at The Lane. His weight problems have been well documented in the media, and lack of effort in training has often been cited as the reason for his omission from the Tottenham side (that, and their penchant for signing 8 midfielders every season). But the lad is still only 24 years old so he definitely has the time to turn his career around at Charlton. The fee is perhaps slightly expensive when you consider that Spurs only bought for £4m. It’s hard to believe that his market value has only depreciated by 25% during his 18 months at The Lane. Still, he’s naturally left footed, comfortable on the ball, has a good set-piece delivery and possesses an eye for goal according to Iain Dowie, who also claims that the club beat off some stiff competition in order to land his signature.

Provided he can prove his fitness to the coaching staff over the next couple of days he will probably make the bench for this weekend’s game with the Shammers. In the longer term, he has primarily been signed to play on the left of a midfield foursome (or perhaps the left side of a central pairing with Faye), so Jerome Thomas will have a new rival to displace once he recovers from his injury. Midfield was a problem area for us a few weeks ago, but we now have Reid, Hughes, Kishishev, Ambrose, Holland, Faye, Rommedahl, Euell and Bolanos vying for places, with Thomas still to return and Walton able to deputise in the middle if necessary.

In an ideal world I would like to sign another striker before the window closes, but perhaps it’s wise to keep some money set aside for January. No doubt Dowie will have his first choice side settled by then, and he will be more aware of the positions in which he needs to reinforce.

The opposition are weakening...

2006-08-15T21:01:00.000+01:00

Unfortunate news for West Ham this evening. Dean Ashton suffered an injury in training this morning, and scans have now confirmed that he has broken his ankle and will miss not only the England game tomorrow night, but also the start of the Premiership season.

One man's bad fortune is usually another man's blessing in disguise, and while I wish Ashton all the best in his recovery from injury I am excited that now there is a definite possibility of Darren Bent claiming another start for the Three Lions tomorrow against Greece. Even if McClaren opts to go with Crouch and Defoe up front, Bent is the only other striker in the squad, so he should certainly play some part in the match. Ashton of course will also be missing from West Ham's starting line up against us on Saturday.

News has also been released today that both Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes have been unsuccessful in their appeals to get pre-season red cards overturned, and the three match bans given to both players by FIFA have been upheld. These bans will allow both players to play in their first match of the season against Fulham, but the suspensions conveniently come into effect the day before we are due to play United at The Valley.

Those tough first two games have just become that little bit less daunting..

Also, I’d like to offer an official welcome to the club to Scott Carson, our new on loan goalkeeper from Anfield. I wasn't over-enamoured with the news when it broke yesterday but all of the football sites and forums that I frequent have served to assure me that the man has a big future in the game. Some Liverpool fans that I speak to regularly have even claimed that they expected him to play 15+ games this season, so it looks like we have got ourselves a good deal there. Hopefully we can persuade them to part with him on a permanent basis before his fee inflates itself to more than we can afford. Dowie talks more about the signing here.

Update on Green

2006-08-14T14:56:00.000+01:00

West Ham have now also had an official bid accepted by Norwich. The bid is believed to be £1.7M, eventually rising to £2M dependant on clauses.

Dowie will have to move fast if he wants to capture his man, otherwise that will make 2 goalkeeping targets within the last week that have discussed terms with us, and then chosen to move elsewhere in the Premiership.

Link from BBC Football

----------------------

And in another semi-related update, the club have announced a year long loan deal with "World Cup Keeper" Scott Carson. The stopper has since been relegated from the full squad back into the U-21's for tomorrows Euro 2008 qualifier with Moldova at Portman Road. Not a bad signing I suppose, although I would have preferred to see an option to buy for a pre-agreed price in with the loan deal. Otherwise theres always a danger that the player will have one cracking season, and then we will be priced out of any permanent deal for him.

Addicks turn to Green

2006-08-14T11:24:00.000+01:00

With 5 days to go until it all kicks off again, Norwich City chief executive Neil Doncaster has revealed that Charlton have had an offer accepted for goalkeeper Robert Green.

26-year-old Green was signed as an apprentice by Norwich when he was 16, and has made 241 appearances during his 10-year stay at Carrow Road. His contract with the canaries expires next summer, and he has been linked with both Pompey and Fulham over the last 2 months.

Whenever its officially announced that we are in talks with a particular player the first thing I do is to scour the Internet for message boards and blogs relating to the players current team in order to gauge the opinion of their fans. In this case it appears that most of the Norwich supporters are already resigned to losing Green, and how they feel about the transfer depends upon how much money they get for him.

There are a couple of threads here which claim that the fee is likely to be £6 million (mostly due to this story in the Kent Messenger) but that is surely just wishful thinking. I can’t see Charlton paying that amount of money for a player who only has 1 years worth of Premiership experience, and is still yet to play after the cruciate ligament injury he suffered in the run up to the World Cup. The general consensus among the fans appears to be that Green is slightly overrated by all outside of Norwich, but has been a good servant to the club and they wish him all the best if he goes.

If the deal goes through I would expect the final fee to be between £2.2M and £2.5M, which by my reckoning would make Green the most expensive keeper we have ever signed.

Gearing Up

2006-08-10T14:16:00.000+01:00

Lots of positive news has come out of Charlton in the last couple of days, and for the first time in a long time I am starting to relax a little bit ahead of the coming campaign. The 2-1 victory against the spectacularly named Germinal Beerschot at the Olympisch Stadium (again spectacularly named, although the namer sounds like he must have had a few too many Beershots) was the best result of our pre-season to date. The widely predicted signings of Bolanos, Faye and Traore have all come to fruition for combined fees of £4m, and Dowie has claimed that there may well be another signing or two before the season begins.

Provided he is match fit, Faye will doubtless move into one of the central midfield spots in place of either Matt Holland or Bryan Hughes for the West Ham game, leaving us with a starting XI looking something like this:

..........................Andersen.............................

Young........Hreidarsson..........Karkouri..........Traore

Rommedahl......Faye.....Kishishev.....Hughes/Bolanos

...............Hasselbaink...........Bent....................

There are a couple of uncertains with that. Obviously Thomas is still to come back into that side once he is fit again, Walton could very well claim a starting berth ahead of either Kishishev or Karkouri, and Sorondo will also be pressuring the Moroccan for a place in the side, but on paper that side looks solid enough for a mid table finish to me.
Another article I found about Bolanos claims that he has experience playing at wing back, midfield, or even as an a striker if needs must, so there is versatility there. It's definitely the most complete our squad has looked since January, and it looks as though 21-year-old attacking midfielder Scott Brown could also become an Addick before next weekend.

Kudos to the club aswell for offering the valiant 32 away season ticket holders from last term free plane travel to and from the Utrecht game on Friday as a reward for their loyalty, although as Inspector Sands points out, if you are one of the 32 you may need to leave more time than usual for your checking in etc. Hopefully we can round the pre-season off with a win and a clean sheet.

My season ticket has finally arrived along with a host of other goodies including the 'Red Card', which in case you haven't received it yet allows each season ticket holder a certain number of benefits :

-> The right to buy 2 tickets for each of the 19 home matches, subject to availability.
-> Free entry into a prize draw to win an autographed home shirt
-> A bumper car sticker
-> Daily email bulletin detailing all news from the club (available here anyway)
-> Free entry to reserve and women's games
-> A tour around the Valley at the end of the season

All of this along with a flyer inviting each season ticket holder to join the cup ticketing scheme. A good idea which allows the club to debit your card whenever home cup tickets go on sale, and they will be automatically posted out to you before the game. Saves all of the queuing up down at the Valley on cold Wednesday mornings, and you'll certainly be glad you did it if there turns out to be an equivalent Operation Riverside this season...

Isaksson faces Addicks decision

2006-08-08T08:59:00.000+01:00

Quick post today regarding Andreas Isaksson the Swedish goalkeeper who is allegedly on his way to SE7 from Rennes. The rumours began a fortnight ago when his agent Rodger Ljung claimed: "Charlton is one of the clubs interested in Andreas."

The player then came out a couple of days later and said:

"It would be a dream to play in the Premier League. Of course, I would be interested. You grow up with the Premier League in Sweden. I know there is interest, but that's all I know."

Since that quote a fee has been agreed with Rennes, and Isaksson has already held talks with Charlton and agreed terms, but now it appears that the goalkeeper is in demand up at the City of Manchester Stadium aswell. Stuart Pearce has been in negotiations for a couple of days with Portsmouth over the sale of goalkeeper David James, and Isaksson has been contacted by City and asked whether he would consider a move to Eastlands as his replacement.

Here is a quote made yesterday by the player, although I am unable to provide any links for this due to the fact that it was printed, and unfortunately the paper in question's website has no trace of the story.

"I have an agreement with Charlton, but I am waiting for City before I decide."

It looks like one way or the other, Isaksson is headed for The Premiership this coming season, he was left out of Rennes' opening fixture against Lille on Saturday, and the situation is likely to be resolved over the next couple of days.

Personally I hope we do sign the guy. Myhre did well in parts last season, but he's only got a year or so left in him. I think Dowie considers Andersen his current number 1, but the signing of Isaksson will give us 2 Premiership quality keepers to choose from next season, and that is the minimum number required in my opinion.

Bolanos, the new Pele?

2006-08-06T16:02:00.000+01:00

The only first hand review I've heard from the New Zealand game was that we should have scored 4 or 5, played well in patches but abysmally in others; and that the pony tailed trialist Christian Bolanos put in an excellent account of himself. That and the fact that Marcus Bent missed a couple of sitters aswell.

The usually reliable soccerbase has next to no information about the Costa Rican, but I did manage to find a decent article about him on the Guardian's website, which was written back in December 2005. David Pleat claimed:

"A trip to Japan for the Club World Championship allowed me to keep an eye open for foreign players who might make it in the Premiership, and this Costa Rican winger impressed me. I predict he will find a new home for his talents in England or continental Europe after the World Cup"

The rest of the article is here and it's worth a quick read, even if Pleat does make him sound like the second coming of Pele! Still, he surely isn't going to cost too much and his wages aren't going to be a problem when you consider that he only earns £70,000 a year at present.
It looks like he might not be the only player we add to our ranks this week either. BBC Football holds a quote from Glenn Roeder claiming that Newcastle have finally granted permission for 29 year old Amdy Faye to discuss personal terms, and the much talked about transfer of Djimi Traore is allegedly also on the brinks of completion.

Dowie said earlier this week that he was after 5 new faces before next weekend, but then claimed that three of the right quality would do. Whether Traore is the right quality or not will certainly be a subject for debate if we sign him, but he's managed to amass 140 appearances for the five time European Champions, and remained in their squad for 7 years whilst the more talked about names have come and gone. We'll have to reserve judgement until we can see for ourselves.

Radio Representation

2006-08-03T18:53:00.000+01:00

Well, so much for my comment about the Park View Road game enlightening us as to what Iain Dowie considers to be his preferred formation, and so much for my hopes of it providing an insight into which players he favours. We ended up giving trialists and prospects a run out, and promptly got our noses rubbed in it by the non league footballing dynasty that is Welling United. Yes, yes, it's only a friendly but we have now lost three of them in a row, and I'm a great believer in the old cliche about winning becoming a habit. Reserve side or not, defeats damage morale, and right now we could really do with a couple of resounding wins. A clean sheet would be nice aswell.

Due to work comittments I'm having to turn down the option of corporate hospitality at the New Zealand game on Saturday, so the next time I see Charlton live will be at our first home game against Man United. Dowie commented this afternoon that if things go according to plan over the next fortnight, there will be another five new faces at The Valley before that happens:

"I know the type of areas I want to strengthen. That is not being critical of any of the players here, absolutely not. I feel, and the coaching staff feel, that we need to strengthen in one or two areas. We have said that four or five is about the level we need. If we get three in, if they are the right quality, then great. But I would like to get five in and I think that's important" - Iain Dowie (Full interview here)

On another note, I was listening to Talksport on my way home from work tonight. We were the subject of debate for a quarter of an hour on their evening programme, and Mickey Quinn (I think it was him) considers us 4th favourites to go down next term behind Watford, Sheffield United and Reading. I had a good mind to ring up and have a moan at one stage because he claimed that Iain Dowie would be lucky to make it through the season and still be in charge. He alleged that Charlton fans were ringing up in droves last year and moaning about Curbishley, and then claimed that we will all be on Dowie's back if we don't have a strong start to the coming season.

I can understand where he is coming from in the sense that over the last few years we have had decent starts and poor finishes, but over the course of his 10 minute attack on the club he made our fans out to be a bunch of fairweather supporters with ideas above our stations, who didn't appreciate the job that Alan Curbishley did for us, and who will be calling for the head of the new manager if we aren't upper mid table at Christmas. Any non-Charlton fan who heard it will now view our club in a totally different light to the one in which we should be viewed. For all my life we have been a 'family' club, who have consistently and steadily improved our League position due to continuity of management, sound financial dealings, and passionate support from the fans. To lambast us like he did in front of the listening millions was unfair and inappropriate.

I listen to Talksports phone-in every weekend after the Saturday games have finished, and I often download BBC's 6-0-6 equivalent at some point during the following week. Last season there were certainly a few idiots who called up and misrepresented the majority of Charlton fans' views, but there was always one sensible Addick who called up half an hour later and set the record straight for the rest of us. With the new season approaching, and the tough start that we've been handed fixture wise all of us have to prepare ourselves in advance for the fact that we may find ourselves close to the foot of the table after the first month or so.

Players are going to have to adapt to the fresh ideas being presented to them by the coaching staff, and the coaching staff will need time to coax the best out of the players. These things will take time, and I'm going to try and make a conscious effort to stay as positive as a Cynic can during this transitional period, and I implore the various muppets who have given our club an image that we do not deserve in front of the footballing nation to think before just calling the phone-ins and letting loose if we lose our first three matches. Im sure the players listen on the coach back from the games, and it can't do them any good.

We are not the little club that we used to be anymore, but there's no reason why we can't still present the image of a united front, who don't turn on the manager or the players when things don't go right out on the pitch. Tonights tirade against a club you don't normally hear a bad word about really shocked me, and I don't want that to become a common occurrence. Times are-a-changing at the Valley, so lets embrace the change and give the all players within the squad a fresh chance to prove themselves anew next term.

Catching Up

2006-08-02T10:07:00.000+01:00

Whilst I have been away, the biggest news to come out of Charlton is undoubtedly the signing of veteran striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, so welcome to the club Jimmy. He and Darren Bent certainly look a formidable pairing on paper, and his goalscoring record proves that he finds the net regularly at every club he has ever signed for. 220 goals in 399 appearances is an incredible record by anybody’s standards, and if he can keep up that 0.55 goals per game ratio next season then we are all in for a bit of a treat.

It’s nice to see that even after only a month or so in the job Iain Dowie can already persuade quality players that Charlton is the right place for them to come and ply their trade. Allegedly we beat a whole host of other clubs to his signature, so kudos to Mills, Murray and Dowie for getting their man.

Walton was also signed whilst I was away for a fee of close to £500,000, and rising to a million if he fulfils his potential whilst at Charlton. He looks like a decent prospect for the future and he is a signing that I welcome, but if he is that good, you do have to wonder why he has only made 26 appearances in his 2 seasons at Leeds.

Other than those two, things have been ominously silent on the transfer front. The central midfield is obviously the problem area. Neither Murphy nor Smertin have been adequately replaced as yet, and the prospect of starting a new campaign with Kishishev, Hughes and Holland in the middle again is more than a little concerning, and Thomas’s injury makes things even worse.

I’m sure that we will make another signing or two before the West Ham game but ideally the management must have wanted the new boys to be training alongside the existing squad by now. The Steve Sidwell link seems to have quietened down a little lately, and other often-linked names (Boyce, Queudrue etc) have found other clubs, leaving us worryingly tied to the likes of Djimi Traore. You only have to read the Liverpool forums to work out what type of player he is…

With regard to the friendlies, 1 win and 2 defeats isn’t particularly inspiring but we can’t draw too many conclusions from matches where the entire team is changed at half time. The Millwall win was convincing enough, as was the first half up at Hibs, but then in Valencia we played 4-4-2 in the first half and 4-5-1 in the second, so Dowie is obviously still tinkering with the system we are to play this year. Perhaps tonight’s friendly at Welling will tell us a little more.
Personally, I’d like us to just stick with the 4-4-2 we all know, and are all comfortable with. Players grow up playing 4-4-2, and therefore there is a natural awareness of where your teammates are going to be. Things just look more fluent when players are comfortable in a formation, and it also means that we wont be isolating the front man in the same way that we did last year. It’s no wonder Darren Bent was caught offside more than any other player in the Premiership last year, he was consistently chasing aimless long punts over the top rather than receiving the ball to feet and having a strike partner in close proximity to lay the ball off to.

The link up deal with Valencia seems like another shrewd piece of business, but we have signed such deals before (notably with Inter Milan) and not seen too much come of them. Murray has commented that there will be an exchange of youth players as well as coaches between the two clubs, and apparently we will also have first option on players leaving the Mestalla. However, he then comments that the main focus of the partnership will be on introducing our commercial partners to them (and vice versa), aswell as getting Valencia involved in our community projects in Spain. Hear Murray interviewed about the deal here.

Guess who's back?

2006-07-31T10:25:00.000+01:00

What a holiday I’ve had! It was a real step back in time for me, returning to a country where I used to reside and looking with an adult eye over the places in which I lived, learned, worked, and generally became the person that I am today.

The trip became even more memorable midway though it, when on a starlit beach and after a perfect day on a Sentosa Island, I got down on one knee and Mrs Cynic agreed to put up with me until death do us part. It truly was the trip of a lifetime.

I have so many happy memories of Singapore, and can highly recommend a visit to anybody who hasn’t ever been. The country is clean, tidy and safe, and because it is so multi-cultural it really serves to give you an idea of what life is like all over South East Asia. Food is both cheap and superb, with dishes available from just about every country you could name, and for such a small Island it’s almost impossible to believe the contrast between the skyscraper dotted cityscape and the dilapidated shop houses of Chinatown and Little India. There is so much to see, and even if a city break is not your thing, there are beaches on the outlying islands to rival any that I have ever sunbathed on.

Premiership football is massive out there and the locals actually have quite a decent knowledge of the game. Upon entering a taxi one morning, the driver noticed the badge on my chest and immediately struck up a conversation about how Hasselbaink was going to link up with Darren Bent, and whether or not I thought the two of them could form an effective partnership. Mrs Cynic just stared at him in disbelief, this was supposed to be her break from football!

Regular visits to the local Internet café (sorry Chicago Addick!) kept me in touch with the rest of the news from home, and in a quaint back street Singaporean bookshop I even found a copy of Garry Nelson’s Left Foot Forward available for sale! I wonder if he knows.

Still, I’m back now and as soon as I've managed to get my head around that fact I’ll update the site with my thoughts on what’s occurred in SE7 over the last couple of weeks.

Here are a few pictures from a wonderful trip.

> Keppel Harbour from Sky Tower
> Siloso Beach on Sentosa - Link now fixed
> Dolphins
> Local housing estate
> Cable cars
> Sentosa from Cable Car
> Seletar Reservoir 1
> Seletar Reservoir 2
> Singapore River
> Local Hawker Centre
> Clarke Quay
> Merlion and city skyline
> Raffles Place
> Monitor Lizard
> Waterfall

Holiday

2006-07-07T14:21:00.000+01:00

Temporarily of course. I've been on holiday for the last few days, and myself and my partner are off to Singapore this week for a well earned break so it's unlikely that there will be any updates until close to the end of the month.

Have a pleasant July, and lets hope its a productive one in the transfer market. See you in a few weeks.

Powell leaves with a heavy heart

2006-06-30T23:07:00.000+01:00

Chris Powell left Charlton's playing staff for the second time in his career today and has signed a one year deal with Premiership newcomers Watford. He's been an absolute legend during his two spells at Charlton, and I'm sure that his personality and passion will be missed as much by the rest of the squad as it will by those of us in the stands.

Murray has left the door open for a return in a coaching role once he hangs his boots up, but I thought that was the point in re-signing him anyway, Why not just offer him the deal now? The manager must have had the final say as to whether or not Powell was offered a new playing/coaching deal, so perhaps the two of them just don't see eye to eye.

No one truly expected Powell to play as many games last year as he did, but it is a testament to the stamina and skill of the man that he rose to the challenge once again and performed admirably in the Premiership. In short, he is a consumate professional who stands for all that is good in football, and I'm gutted that he's leaving us. The full story is here, and an email sent round on the bulletin promises that a full interview with Chris will be up on the official site tomorrow.

With regards to the squad Powell leaves behind, we have now lost Murphy, Smertin, Kiely, Powell, Perry, Bothroyd, Spector, Jeffers, Johansson and Bartlett, and signed only Marcus Bent and Cory Gibbs to replace them. According to this article Gibbs isn't likely to start training until November at the earliest, and he will likely require at least a month in order to get his match fitness back so we might as well rule him out until 2007. Luke Young has had a new deal on the table for a month now which he still hasn't signed, and if he does decide that his future lies elsewhere then as far as I am concerned, we will be in the midst of a defensive crisis.

Dowie tells of transfer plans

2006-06-28T16:59:00.000+01:00

Iain Dowie has this afternoon warned Charlton fans that although new signings are in the pipeline, they aren't likely to materialise until after the Word Cup. I think we all kind of assumed that really, but it's nice to actually hear the man confirm that 'friendly talks' has taken place with other clubs, and the ground work has already been laid down behind the scenes.

"Very few clubs have completed any transfers so far this summer because of the World Cup, and the situation we are in is no different. One of the reasons I have been out at the World Cup was to see at first hand a number of targets from clubs both at home and abroad that we are actively pursuing, and we're getting close on several fronts. We've had a series of friendly talks and we're close to sealing some deals that I believe will be exciting for both the fans and the club itself.
We're looking at a number of players, including some younger acquisitions. I'm very much into joined-up thinking and planning for the longer term so supporters can expect some good buys for the future as well." - Iain Dowie

See the Official site for the full story.

The most commonly linked named remain Sidwell, Mears, and Jason Roberts, while other less touted possibilities are the likes of Trinidad and Tobago midfielder Carlos Edwards, and even veteran Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink if you believe Clubcall.

With regards to Sidwell the more I hear about him the less bothered I am about actually signing him. Reading fans who I speak to regularly have told me that they aren't too bothered about keeping him at the Madejski because of his tepid form last season, and the comments he made a couple of weeks ago about wanting £16,000 per week because he has a wife and kid to feed also didn't go down particularly well with me. I know that we need a ball-winning midfielder, but do we really want a contract rebel who has always maintained throughout the pay dispute that his primary wish is to remain with the Royals? I remember posting a while ago about only signing players who view Charlton as a dream move, and I'm not quite sure Sidwell fits that bill. I wouldn't moan if we signed him mind you, but I do have the odd reservation or two.

Here are his latest comments.

"Charlton are the only team to have tabled an official offer. We spoke to them and they offered me a certain amount. I have since told Reading to try to match that because my preference is to stay, but they haven't done that, so that's why it's all in a bit of a limbo at the moment.
I'm a South London boy and Charlton would be closer to home, if it works out great, but as I say, I want to stay at Reading and if I can do a deal I'll be very happy.
I've done a lot to get Reading into the position they are in today and should be rewarded for that. I'm a bit disappointed the club don't value me like I think they should. And it's not just me. A few of the lads should be rewarded with contracts. I am making reasonable demands that the club can pay. Reading are in the Premiership now, not League 2 where some people at the club think we still are. The whole club needs to be run like a Premiership club." - Steve Sidwell

That partial statement is taken from his latest diary entry on icons.com. To read the rest of it, go here. You will need to log in to view the diary. Just choose username cynicathletic and password cynicathletic. It may chuck you back to the main page once you are logged in, but find Sidwell on player A - Z, and then click the diary link to access the members content.

Another date with Scolari

2006-06-26T01:33:00.000+01:00

Well we rode our luck on occasions in the first half but we're through, and once again England have done the bare minimum amount of work required in order to get the job done. The BBC sum it up pretty well in truth, "England looked comfortable and clumsy in equal measure on a strange afternoon in Stuttgart."

It's boldly obvious to all football fans that we have gone just about as far as we can go in this tournament unless the standard is upped, Portugal will rip us to pieces if we continue with this type of disjointed and boring style of football. The first change that I would make would be to drop Michael Carrick again, why he was considered the be the right man to slot into the holding role on the strength of his showing against Belarus last month I will never know. Perhaps even being linked with a transfer to one of the top 3 clubs is enough to earn you a chance in the England squad these days.
Hargreaves acquitted himself well as the holding player against Sweden, so what is the point in moving him to right back in order to accommodate Carrick? Why didn't we just let Carragher continue in that position and leave Hargreaves where he was?

In truth the whole formation changing thing is really starting to annoy me. No matter how much you move the players around them, Lampard and Gerrard cannot play together and both perform to their maximum, they are just too similar. It's got to be time to stop trying to arrange the rest of the team around that central fulcrum and just deal with the problem itself. Drop one of them, bring Beckham into the middle to orchestrate the play, and give the boy Lennon his chance out on the right. I know it's difficult to bench one of the three or four truly World-class players that we have but we can't keep playing like this. We need to find a system that works for us and then fill it with the best players available, not choose a system which might not work, but accommodates all of the players that we have.

FIFA's statistics claim that Frank Lampard has had more shots on goal than any other player in Germany, and he has yet to find the net. Is it really feasible at this stage of the competition to keep him in the side just because he is getting into the right positions? He might be due a goal, but that's no guarantee that he is actually going to get one...

So Phil Scolari's Portugal are next on the list. At least they won't be at full strength when they take to the field against us. Red cards for Costinha and that little poison dwarf Deco mean that they will both have to sit out the Quarter Final, and if there is any justice FIFA should give Figo a retrospective red card as well in light of a blatant head butt. Couple that with an injured Ronaldo and with any luck Portugal will have to play with almost their second choice midfield. I'm not going to get too excited though, Scolari has put paid to England's chances in the last 2 major tournaments and you can bet your bottom dollar that he will have a plan B which actually works.

Interesting little statistic I found about Phil today. His various teams have won every single World Cup game that they have ever played in. 10 games, 10 victories. No wonder the FA wanted to sign him up so badly...

Addicks set for a rough start to 06/07

2006-06-22T17:43:00.000+01:00

Traditionally, one of the greatest moment of the close season is the announcement of next years fixtures. It's the day when key dates can be penciled into diaries, annual leave can be booked, and away trips can be arranged. A sign that football is back.

This year however I don't feel the same tingle up and down my spine as I have in previous years. Perhaps part of the reason for this is the fact that football hasn't even finished yet, or maybe it's just that I'm now growing accustomed to life in the Premiership and used to the fact that we have to play the best teams in the land twice a season. Either way, when you look at the fixture list for 2006/2007 the first thing that you notice is the horrendous start that we have been handed. West Ham away on the opening day, swiftly followed by Manchester United at the Valley, bogey side Bolton, and then Champions Chelsea...

Those first couple of games with Dowie in charge were always going to be hugely important to the club. A couple of early wins would help to get the doubters off of his back, placate the cynics among the fans, and breed confidence throughout the team but when I look at the fixtures (yes I know I'm a pessimist), I can't see us getting more than a point from those first four games. Four out of our first seven fixtures are London derbies, and out of those seven encounters at least five opponents will be targeting a top six finish. Dowie will certainly have his work cut out if we are to be in a mid table position after that little lot.

The best month for us looks to be a November in which we face Man City, Wigan, Reading, and Everton. The run in doesn't look to bad either but I suppose we can't really judge that until we have seen everybody in action. Each Premiership season has thrown up a couple of surprise packages, like Everton a couple of years ago when they finished fourth, or the leagues underestimation of Wigan and West Ham last year. At the moment I don't feel too confident about the coming campaign (neither does New York Addick by the looks of it), but I suppose that's to be expected right now. The new guy in charge has released players without signing any replacements so far, so hopefully when the signings finally begin to roll in, my confidence in the squad will grow. The link with Jason Roberts is definitely a step in the right direction.

Other notable dates next term are a home tie with Fulham on Boxing day, the Champions visit to the Valley on February 3rd, and a last day trip up to Anfield. The full fixture list can't be printed on a site like this for copyright reasons, but it can be found here.

England remain in lukewarm form

2006-06-21T02:27:00.000+01:00

Well by hook or by crook we've managed to finish top of Group B, but once again the performance from England has raised so many more questions than it answered. This was supposed to be the game in which we really stretched our legs and showed the rest of the footballing world that we have come to win this tournament, but in truth we were lucky to escape with the point we needed in order to seal our second round date with the South Americans.

Sweden were the better side for long periods, and while we proved we are still capable of scoring (wonderful) goals, some of the defending we exhibited was nothing short of shocking. I have tried to dwell on the limited number of positives thrown up by the Paraguay and T&T matches, but now that knockout football is on the way and one mistake can throw you out of the tournament, it's plainly obvious that we just aren't playing well enough right now to cope with any of the top sides in the competition, sides that are now on the horizon as paths towards the final can begin to be mapped out...

As far as I can make out from the BBC's World Cup wall chart, we are likely to face either Portugal, or the loser from the Holland/Argentina match tomorrow in any hypothetical Quarter Final, and if we were to progress a stage further, then it is likely that we would run into Brazil, Spain or France. This is assuming that we dispose of Ecuador in the last 16, of course.

The Ecuadorians aren't really a side to be feared on paper. None of their players would get into the England squad let alone the England team, and of their three games so far they have only been the better side in one of them; that was against Costa Rica where they won 3-0. Poland walked all over them and somehow contrived to lose the match 0-2 back on the 9th June, whilst Germany should really have hit them for 6 yesterday.

They strike me as the sort of side whose heads would drop if they go a goal behind early on in an important game, and I don't envisage any problems for us on Sunday. Our players are vastly more experienced than theirs when it comes to pressure situations and as long as we are tight defensively, we will prevail. Gerrard will surely slot back into the centre of midfield in place of Hargreaves, whilst Owen's injury will more than likely mean Peter Crouch also returns. Walcott should come off of the bench at some point, and if he doesn't we really need to wonder why we bothered taking him in the first place.

With Owen out, Rooney unfit and Crouch just rubbish, the fact that Walcott continues to be overlooked by Eriksson is just an insult to The Premiership's top English striker, who could be forgiven a wry smile or two in light of the fact that the strike force he was omitted from has scored just one goal in three World Cup games.

Brighter times are ahead

2006-06-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

You could be forgiven for thinking that England had crashed out of the World Cup yesterday due to the amount of negativity broadcast across the internet this morning by our nations journalists, and whilst it is obvious to all that there are problems within the side at present, I’m trying to keep the faith and cling to the few positives we can draw from 2 lacklustre performances in Group B thus far.

We have two clean sheets, we have two wins, we are top of the group, Rooney is back, Lennon played well when he came on, Terry looks in commanding form, Gerrard’s found his shooting boots, and we have no players who are one booking away from missing a second round match due to FIFA’s decision to wipe the disciplinary slate clean once the group stage is complete.

I find it so much easier to be optimistic with England than I do when it comes to Charlton, and yes, I know there are plenty of negatives that I have just chosen not to mention but will it really do our chances any good if we dwell for too long on those negatives? Bottom line: Played 2, Won 2, Scored 3, Conceded 0.

One of England’s failing over the last few years has always been an inability to easily dispatch inferior sides who play negative and defensive football. Contrariwise, one of our strengths has been that we tend to raise our game as soon as the standard of opposition goes up. Perhaps this is due to the fact that our players are almost solely based within The Premiership, a league in which there aren’t really any teams that will play an entire match without the slightest intention of scoring against you. Trinidad were such a team in my opinion, a team who didn’t care for scoring goals and didn’t care for winning the game, they just wanted to keep a clean sheet.
It isn’t easy to steamroller a team intent with this kind of notion. People can harp on all they like about courage, organisation and safety-first strategy, but England were in a no win situation yesterday against opposition playing ‘the game of their lives’, so the fact that we did win is all that should matter in my opinion.

Brighter times are ahead. England’s first team have now chalked up 8 straight wins. Ok, we lost to Northern Ireland and Belarus, but we have also beaten Argentina on the last 2 occasions in which we have faced them. Lets have a bit of positive attitude from all who have the Three Lions in our hearts, and we’ll see where we go from there.

As for Charlton, things are still pretty quiet on the home front. Two longish term transfer saga’s are still in the offing. Jlloyd Samuel is again rumoured to be on his way back to the Valley for a shade under £1.5m, while the Sidwell story also continues to rumble on, the latest being these comments from their chief exec Nigel Howe:

“We've made it clear that Steve is not for sale. We have no intention of selling him whatsoever.

Whilst a lot of clubs have intimated that he has a 'talk clause' in his contract, they can talk to him as much as they like because he's not leaving.
We've had no official bid for him. It's all conjecture. It's about money. If I had an agent working for me I would want to get the best deal possible. I would do everything in my powers to do that. Footballers have short careers and want the best contract they can. But there's a fair price for everything.
We've had an on-going discussion with Steve's agent and we're confident we will agree terms, it's just a matter of fine tuning.”

But in the Reading Evening post, Sidwell doesn’t seem so sure about whether or not he’s staying…

“My agent had a meeting with Hammo (director of football Nicky Hammond) last week. We were offered a new deal and I will meet my agent to discuss that today.
I don’t think what Reading have offered is really what we’re looking for, though. It’s a platform to work from but I’m sure there is room for negotiation and improvement on that. I’m certainly not saying I would leave. It depends on the club and their ambition.
It is down to Reading. This contract has got to be the right one for me. I have told my agent that because I have a baby boy and a wife to look after.
If I can’t get what I could get somewhere else then I might have to look elsewhere. Reading say they have ambition and they have certainly been saying the right things, but we’ll see if they put their money where their mouth is and talk the talk.
Every player wants to be the best and play at the highest level possible.”

We should have signed him last summer really. He had just been named as the 3rd placed player in the CCC's Player of the year awards, and his contract was in its last months. A year down the line and his side are in the same league as ours, he has 3 years left to run on his current deal, and Reading fans who I know claim that he hasn't been the same player this term as he was last. The fee being talked about will have to be a minimum of £2.5 in order to activate the talk clause mentioned by Howe, but in reality the final figure will probably be a little more than that if we are to beat off competition from Everton.

Bring Brazil down a notch

2006-06-13T21:39:00.000+01:00

"If we were watching any other team in the world, I'd say that they just aren't at the races today" - Mark Lawrenson

As I write this there are 35 minutes gone in the Brazil vs Croatia match and I have been drawn to my keyboard thanks to continuous comments like the one above from the BBC's commentary duo. We already know that Brazil are a great side with talented individuals, but they are not Gods, they are not unbeatable, and they do not deserve this consistent and sickening adulation from those who watch them play.

Why the 'if they were any other team' Mark? Are Brazil not capable of having an off day? Motson is guilty of this misguided worship aswell; upon the South Americans winning their first corner of the tournament he was heard to utter "Oh do Brazil have to bother taking corners now?" Well yes they do actually John, because those are the laws of the game. What about this one; "When the Croatians broke then, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kaka and Adriano didn't even bother chasing back, they were sure enough to say 'Oh well, we can just let the defence deal with it'." Well, that's just poor and irresponsible football in my book, not an opportunity to manufacture another compliment.

They have just been built up so much by all and sundry that I was almost disappointed when they took to the field in their traditional yellow shirts as opposed to long flowing capes and luminous Spandex with the letter 'B' emblazoned upon their chests. Yes they are capable of producing moments of magic (Kaka has just put them in front), but to be honest I haven't seen anything in this World Cup so far that England should be quaking in their boots over, and that includes this first half performance from the reigning Champions.

I love watching great teams play great football and I'm not anti-Brazil by any means, just anti the incessant talking-up of a side we are likely to have to face eventually if we want to go all the way in this tournament.

None of the favourites have set the World alight. Argentina, Holland, Italy, Portugal and Germany have all looked good in patches but in my opinion they have all missed the opportunity to lay down a marker that says 'we are the team to beat this year'.
Granted we didn't perform to the heights of which we are capable during our first match, but the World Cup is a marathon not a sprint, and the pundits who were so quick to criticise the performance were the same pundits who have been telling us all season that the mark of Champions is the ability to win games without playing well.

The actual performance aside, the tournament couldn't have gone much better for us so far. The draw between the Swedes and Trinidad and Tobago means that a victory on Thursday will see us qualify for the knockout stages after two games, add a draw against Sweden next Tuesday and that will be enough to see up top Group B and go on to face the Group A runners up. Ecuador look likely to fill that position at the moment, and I'm not too frightened about the prospect of playing them...

Make your mind up, Luke

2006-06-08T11:16:00.000+01:00

It's been a quiet week down at Charlton considering the fact that a new manager has just been installed. Not much transfer speculation, no further players have been released, and the only official comments to come out of the club are from Murray, firstly affirming that Dowie was always the first choice for the managers job (not quite sure I believe that), and secondly revealing that Luke Young has been offered a 'lucrative' new three year deal.

Frankly, I'm a little bit annoyed with Luke Young and the whole new contract situation. The club announced the fact that the contract was on the table at almost exactly the same time that Sky Sports News broke the news that the player himself had handed in a transfer request. That smells a little bit off to me. The club must have known about Luke's transfer request before Sky Sports did, and it seems to me like a contract was then thrown together and made public as quickly as possible in order to muddy the waters surrounding his availability. You can't blame the cub for this, and so far it's worked. There have been no further developments on the story since the new contract was announced.

The only comment from the player so far has been to chastise the club for allegedly overlooking a contractual obligation to review his current deal. He states that this is the reason that he has handed in the request. He also claims in the same statement that "he is aware that there is a change in management", but that this change doesn't give the club an excuse not to fulfill their obligations. If this was the only reason that he announced his desire to leave, then why didn't he sign the new contract as soon as it was put down in front of him? I can't imagine that the terms of the deal wouldn't place him pretty close to the top of the pile when it comes to the top earners in SE7, if not the very top.
Also, as he is 'aware of the change in management', surely he can understand that the new manager needs to have the final say about who's deals are extended and who's deals are terminated. We have to remember that Young is not out of contract and unsure about which club he will be at next season, he is just after a review of his current contract. The transfer request was slapped in less than 48 hours after Dowie was installed, that's barely even time for the bloke to unpack his personal belongings let alone start to assess which players are deserving of a pay rise.

The West Ham link has been around for a couple of months now and it continues to pop up in every story where Young's future is mentioned. Luke will be as aware of their interest as the rest of us are, and which ever way I look at this situation I keep coming back to the fact that the deal has been on the table now for 7 days, and yet it remains unsigned.
The guy is our Captain, and therefore a liaison between the rest of the squad and the manager. It cannot be good for the side, or the image of the club when viewed by possible new signings, to have the Captain involved in this kind of contractual unrest. I want Luke Young to stay with the club, and if the statement he made about the lack of a new deal being the only reason he placed a transfer request is the truth, then what reason does he now have not to sign?

If he does indeed decide to leave for Upton Park, I'll be fuming if it's for the paltry £3.6M that has been touted. Mills has been brought in to make sure that the club doesn't continue to get it's pants pulled down over the price of outgoing players, and if West ham want our Captain (who is an England International), then they should damn well have to pay us what he's worth.

Press Conference Audio

2006-05-31T18:32:00.000+01:00

Better late than never, here is the audio recording from Tuesday's press conference recorded directly from Sky Sports News.

The file is approximately 16 minutes long, and the size is a shade over 5mb.

Exodus continues apace...

2006-05-31T18:15:00.000+01:00

So the club bids farewell to Perry and Bothroyd within 24 hours of new manager Iain Dowie taking the reins. I can understand the release of Bothroyd, he never really had the necessary skill to make it in the Premiership and the odd powerful free-kick aside, he didn't do much for Charlton during his year at the club.

Perry is a little more difficult to understand. He's a player who many have called our most consistent centre back over the last couple of seasons and although his age is against him, he's certainly a decent option to have in the squad. I can't imagine that his wages are particularly high in comparison with what others are earning, and his departure leaves us lacking in defensive options right now. Obviously Dowie is going to bring his own centre backs into the club but wouldn't it be prudent to get them signed before releasing what we already have?

With Sorondo (who Dowie knows well from his Palace days) notoriously injury prone and El Karkouri seemingly unlikely to return from his loan spell in Qatar, HH and Fortune are just about all we have left in the middle of the back four. Gibbs is a full back, the youth players aren't up to it yet, and if Luke Young really is off to East London then shouldn't we all be a little bit worried right now?

The situation is similar at the other end of the pitch aswell. JJ, Bartlett and Jeffers leaving the club is all well and good, but they are leaving behind only the two Bent's and Lisbie. Once again, I'm sure that players are on the shortlist in order to replace what we have let go, but players were on the shortlist at this stage last summer as well and it turned out that deals we thought were in the bag hit late snags and didn't go through.
I got fed up of Curbishley constantly telling us that he was trying to spend money all summer but couldn't because other clubs wouldn't let their players go without first signing replacements. We've gone the other way, and released five of our squad players before getting the relevant staff in place to cover their positions.

It could be argued of course that last year we had the biggest squad we've had in ages and all Dowie's doing is in fact trimming it back down to size, I'd just feel a bit more comfortable if he'd given the outgoing players rolling week-to-week contracts until the new guys were in. If they were being given free transfers anyway, it wouldn't matter that other clubs could come in and pick them up at anytime they pleased. Another few weeks on the payroll wouldn’t have crippled us.

In other news, I finally renewed my season ticket yesterday through fear that there were less than 24 hours to go until the deadline, but this morning the club have extended that deadline until midnight on Friday 2nd June. They claim that there has been a real surge in re-applications over the last couple of days.

Simon Jordan has continued to give interviews to anyone who will sit there and listen to him, whilst last night the official site claimed that Charlton were ready fight fire with fire in the High Court, claiming that Jordan's antics yesterday were nothing more than a "sad and pathetic publicity stunt".
Dowie himself allegedly spoke to Simon Jordan after leaving Palace and told him face to face that he was going to meet with Charlton representatives about the Valley vacancy. Surely that fact would seem to support the claims that Peter Varney made last night. If dramatic effect wasn't an issue, why didn't Jordan say his piece to Dowie before he even had an interview?

With regards to the audio feed from yesterday's press conference, I haven't forgotten, I've just been lazy. Apologies for that, and it will be up early tomorrow morning I promise.

Jordan hits back in Dowie row

2006-05-30T13:44:00.000+01:00

"To say it has all kicked off this afternoon on Sky Sports news would be putting it mildly!" - SSN Presenter Jim White

What a classic last hour of television it has been, Jordan has just completed a telephone interview with Sky Sports News in which he let rip about Dowie's alleged "misrepresentation".

The Palace supremo claims that he released Dowie from his contract with the Glaziers and dissolved a £1m compensation clause because Dowie's reasons for leaving the club were personal rather than footballing. Now, upon hearing about his appointment at Charlton, he has attempted to serve Dowie with a writ for 'fraudulent statements'.

I don't know too much about the employment laws, but from what I read in the papers Dowie said something about needing a new challenge as well as needing to see more of his children up North. Surely if a contract is mutually dissolved between two parties, then that is their business. It's not like we approached Dowie while he was still under contract with Palace and persuaded him to leave their club in favour of ours. We apparently didn't even make contact with him until the day after he left the Championship outfit.

I thought that employees out of contract have the right to move to any company that they like, so long as an illegal approach hasn't been made by the second club. Like I said, I don't know a lot about the law governing this kind of thing, but it's shaping up to be a very interesting story.

The Sky Sports News interview is absolutely classic stuff, and well worth a click if you didn't catch it live. Download it here.

Dowie swings into SE7

2006-05-30T12:58:00.000+01:00

Well the speculation is finally over, and now we know that Ian Dowie is indeed our new manager, and that he is set to lead a four man management team comprising of himself, former Addick Mark Robson, another former Charlton man Les Reed, and ex-agent Andrew Mills.

The first impressions I got from Dowie's press conference were good if I'm honest. The gathered media seemed more intent on talking about what affect his appointment would have on Simon Jordan rather than on Charlton, but Dowie consistently batted those questions aside and talked well about what his plans are for Charlton. He claimed that the first contact he had with the club was a phone call that he received the day after he announced that he was leaving Crystal palace, and he also stated that he doesn't understand what relevance it has that he is joining us from the Glaziers as opposed to any other club in the league.

He's right aswell. It doesn't matter who he has managed or what he has done in the past, he is our manager now and because of the kind of club we are he is likely to remain out manager for a good few years, so let's not even get started on the 'Palace reject' rubbish that I'm sure certain Addicks will be thinking right about now.

He's obviously an intelligent feller, renowned for producing super-fit teams, able to handle the media, and I'm going to give him my total support from this point onwards.

As for the rest of the coaching team I think it's a good move to get Les Reed back to SE7. His name has been linked with a return in the past, and we certainly used to play good football when he was head coach.
Mills, I don't know anything about whatsoever (other than the fact that he was the reason behind the Cory Gibbs deal, and is apparently in the market for both Sidwell and Routlege aswell), so I'll refrain from further comment at this point.

I recorded the audio from the press conference that was broadcast live on Sky Sports News in full, so I'll look for a way to upload that tonight, and it should be available for download on CA by this time tomorrow at the very latest.

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Edit - Simon Jordan's first reaction to the news is up on All Quiet, well worth a look!

Three out today, Three in Tuesday

2006-05-26T17:09:00.000+01:00

The big news out of SE7 today comes in the shape of Richard Murray's announcement that the new manager (and his 2 coaches) are set to be named in a press conference at The Valley on Tuesday 12pm.
Varney also revealed that the club had interviewed over 20 candidates for the post during the course of the last month.

Also announced by the club today is the fact that Bartlett, Johansson, and Jeffers have not been offered new deals, and have left the club with immediate effect. £8.25m worth of signings walking out of the door, and all on free transfers. Alright in truth none of us expected them to be around next season, but I find it hard to believe that we couldn't find a CCC club over the last few months that would have been willing to take a gamble on one of those lads, even at a knockdown price of something like £400,000.

Best of luck in the future to Johansson and Bartlett. Although neither player is up to the task anymore we have to remember what they did throughout their careers at Charlton, not just what they've done over the last few months of it. Jeffers is just a waste of space and I couldn't care less where he goes next. What a complete waste of money he has been throughout his career. Almost £15m has been spent on the jug-eared Fox in the box, and now it looks as though he will never live up to the billing he had in his youth. Still, who cares? He isn’t our problem any more.

So, time marches onwards towards Tuesday and the first press conference from our new manager. I'll certainly be taking a break from work at Midday and switching the telly in the canteen over to Sky Sports News. Lets all keep our fingers crossed until then and hope that the diligence and dignity shown by the club throughout the recruitment process will result in the right man getting the job.

To be honest, I still don't have a clue who the right man is, and I doubt any of us will until this time next year at the very least…

Another one bites the dust

2006-05-25T14:36:00.000+01:00

The process of recruiting a new manager has taken another twist this afternoon as Preston Chairman Derek Shaw speaks out to claim that Davies will not be filling the Valley vacancy.

"I have been informed by Charlton that they are going to 'move on'.
Charlton will not be pursuing Billy Davies any more and said they would like to thank PNE for our co-operation and apologise for any disruption to our club."

I was at work when this news broke, and the bringer of bad news to my desk claimed that Davies had turned us down. I'm mightily glad to get home and read that the opposite is true because having 2 'up and coming' managers (Davies and Taylor) come to an interview and promptly reject the move might well have sent a subliminal to other managers yet to be approached. A kind of 'well both of them have already turned it down, perhaps they know something that I dont' message.

That's also twice now that the odds on a particular manager have absolutely crashed over the space of a 24 hours period, and then the crash has been proved unmerited. It looks to me like the few quid I put on Burley when he was 100-1 on Betfair (in the week of the Taylor interview) now looks a rather sound investment. New York Addick fancies him, anyway...

Parkinson is another name that refuses to go away, but after his murmurings of discontent over the fact that our first approach to Colchester was turned down, are we really the sort of club that would nip in and make a sneaky second approach to the same club, so soon after being rejected the first time? I don't think we are, but I wish that we were.

As I write this, the odds on the new man are:

Iain Dowie - 8/15
Phil Parkinson - 5/1
Sammy Lee - 8/1
Mick McCarthy - 20/1
Martin Allen - 32/1
Billy Davies - 40/1
George Burley - 40/1
Martin O'Neill - 110/1

In an ideal world my wish list from that little lot would be topped by the deep thinking man-motivator Martin O'Neill. In reality though, I would expect that one of those top two will be in place before too long. I wouldn't bet on it though, not any more.

Davies on Charlton talks

2006-05-23T14:25:00.000+01:00

Just in case you haven't seen it, this is from BBC Sport -

"I went and had a very good long meeting with Charlton. The discussions went great. From those discussions there's a lot to consider - the place, the type of club, the money to be spent - lots to think over.

"I found Charlton to be very good people, very, very good people. It's now just a matter of looking at the whole picture and making the right decision." - Billy Davies

What a contrast to Peter Taylor who walked out of the interview and promptly ruled himself out of the running. It sounds to me like he's already made his decision, and now it's just a question of how his family feel about a move South. With Dowie's interview allegedly taking place tomorrow morning, the club could well be in a position to make an official announcement as soon as the weekend...

The Charlton Skypecasts

2006-05-21T00:55:00.000+01:00

Most of the readers who frequent Cynic Athletic do so via links from Forever Charlton, so I'd assume that most of you reading this would have seen the message that Dave Roberts posted last week regarding the first Charlton Skypecast.

It was scheduled for last Sunday at 1pm and due to last for 1 hour, with the main topic of conversation being who would end up becoming our new manager. I was at work until late morning so I only managed to log on in time to catch the last half an hour, but when I logged in only myself and Dave were online.

I doubt that the reason for this was lack of interest from readers, but more likely the fact that some of the more casual internet users perhaps aren't familiar with Skype, don't know how to get it, and don't really know what it does. If you do know what Skype is, apologies for wasting your time with this article! if you don't know what Skype is, read on...

Skype is essentially a programme which allows you to speak to another internet user anywhere in the world, at any time of day, and totally free of charge. The programme is quick to download, easy to install, and very user friendly once you have it installed. Essentially it's just like being on the phone with someone. They can hear you through their PC speakers, and you can hear them through yours.

A Skypecast is like a conference call. Up to 100 people can be involved in the same conversation at the same time, and the idea is that eventually we could have a weekly Skypecast set up on Forever Charlton (perhaps on a Sunday evening) where Charlton fans from all over the globe can get together and discuss the weeks events at the club, and debate with each other the key issues facing Charlton and it's fans. Occasionally there may be a special guest from the club invited into these Skypecasts for an interview, and on these occasions the person who has set up the call has the ability to mute everyone except the interviewer and the interviewee. Once the interview is completed, the mute will be removed and the floor will be opened up for all Charlton fans to have their say.

That's the theory anyway.

I’m guessing that for the first few Skypecasts there won't be too many people involved, but the longer it goes on the bigger this can become, and hopefully in time the Charlton Skypecast will be packed every weekend with fans who want to share their opinions with other Addicks.

In order to use Skype you will first need to purchase a microphone which can be plugged into the back of your PC. These microphones don't have to be expensive, and can cost as little as a quid. Next you will need to go here and actually download the programme itself. Once you have done that, double click the setup icon, and the programme’s installer will tell you what you need to do next in order to get it all working.

The next step will be to wait for a Skypecast to begin (times will be published on Forever Charlton), simply click the link, the programme will launch by itself and it's as simple as that. You will be able to chat about whatever subject is currently being discussed, or change the direction of the conversation and bring up a Charlton related topic that you want to talk about.

Help for getting started with Skype can be found here, or if you can't find what you're looking for there, drop me an email (link is in the sidebar) and I'll do my best to help.

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Edit (9:24am) - Just a quick update on the manager situation. Although Billy Davies (set for an interview tomorrow) is still favourite, Dowie's odds have dropped to 15/8 overnight...

The saga continues

2006-05-18T23:40:00.000+01:00

"Every day I've thought about it, thinking that my heart is not in it. My heart is staying with Hull City." – Peter Taylor

If your heart wasn't in it, why did you bother estranging your chairman and alienating your supporters by claiming that you wanted to hear what we had to offer in the first place? Something smells a little off about this in my opinion. You don’t turn up for an interview if you have no interest in the job.
I reckon he either wasn't happy with whatever financial package was offered, or perhaps Charlton told him that we wouldn't allow our manager to remain as England U21 boss at the same time as managing us. Whatever his reasons, he's ruled himself out now.

The guy with the next shortest odds is Billy Davies, manager of beaten Play-Off semi finalists Preston. He's essentially evens on Betfair and he's a guy I don't know too much about. That frightens me a little bit.

Here is his management record to date courtesy of soccerbase.
(Click to enlarge)

Mick McCarthy remains second favourite if you believe the bookmakers (surely no one really wants him in charge), and third in the running is Palace manager Iain Dowie. If the next manager has to come from these three men then Dowie would be my first choice. It would almost be worth offering him the job just to see the look on Simon Jordan's face! I'd certainly read his column that week...

Taylor link now official...

2006-05-16T19:15:00.000+01:00

Hull have now officially confirmed that Charlton have shortlisted Peter Taylor, and made an official approach. The speculation has been around for days, but until now I was yet to see a meaningful quote.

This from the Hull Daily Mail...

"I am aware that Peter is on the shortlist at Charlton and that they intend to interview him. I have accepted that fact and it's now up to Charlton to make contact with Peter. I imagine that will happen soon and it will therefore depend on the talks between the two parties.
The speculation was getting a little bit high and therefore they rang me to say Peter was a name they had on their shortlist, I then gave them permission to contact Peter." - Hull chairman Adam Pearson

I suspect the club will be a little disappointed that Pearson has revealed this to the media. Especially after all of their claims that no names would be revealed until the manager is offically named by the club.

Turning down Europe

2006-05-14T05:16:00.000+01:00

So, we have a chance to be involved in next season's UEFA cup...

Our fair play rating of 9.3 throughout the course of this season has seen us win England's fair play league, and now we go into the hat with 10 other teams from across the continent, and on the 4th June, two of us will be drawn out of the hat and given entry to the first qualifying rounds of the UEFA cup.

11 teams in the hat, 2 are drawn. That's just under a 20% chance of European football at The Valley next season.

'The next level' for Charlton is widely perceived as being qualification for Europe, but there are right ways and wrong ways of achieving that goal. The right way would be to perform to a consistent standard through a 38 match league campaign and qualify for the competition on merit. The wrong way is to slip in via the back door, be it either through the Intertoto Cup, or through the Fair Play League.

Without meaning to sound too negative, I don't believe we have a strong enough squad to cope with a European jaunt next year. My mind goes back to the Ipswich side who qualified for the UEFA Cup through their league position, and then got relegated the next season. We have enough on our plates at the moment with the change of management, the subsequent changes that are bound to occur within the squad and preparing for what could well be our toughest Premiership campaign so far. Not to mention the fact that if we get drawn out of the hat, our season will be prolonged by three weeks, which will have to become 4 or 5 weeks in truth as the players will need to train and re-establish their fitness ahead of the qualifying round which take place in less than a months time.

I've always dreamed of watching Charlton in Europe, but I honestly hope that we don't get drawn out of the hat on this occasion. It might well be one distraction too many in the season of uncertainty which is coming. If we do get this back door ticket up to 'the next level', do we have the opportunity of turning it down?

On another note, the odds on Peter Taylor becoming our next manager have been slashed yet again after he claimed 'All I know about this is that I am told that I am on their short list.'
He is currently 8/11 on Paddy Power, and 4/5 on Betfair.

Riverside Revisited (Part 2)

2006-05-11T11:19:00.000+01:00

Here is the final video I took up at The Riverside. Once again, apologies for the time that it has taken to upload it but this one is almost 10 minutes long and fully 300MB in size, so it took about 5 hours to upload!

In my opinion this is the best of the videos that I have posted. It begins 10 minutes before kick off and runs literally up until the referee blows his whistle for the start of the match, encompassing the ticker tape parade as the teams come on to the pitch as well as the teams being read out over the tannoy system.

For those of you who can't sit still for 10 minutes, highlights of this clip (in my opinion) are the directors walking along the front of the stand (30 seconds), a superb rendition of The Valley Floyd Road (1 min 30 seconds), and the teams coming out (6 minutes 15 seconds). Skip to whichever part interests you.

Definitely worth a click even if you weren't in the ground that day. It was some atmosphere, and this is a video I will be keeping forever.

Travesty

2006-05-08T23:52:00.000+01:00

Eriksson explains his decision to take Walcott to Germany -

"I've seen him perhaps three times in training. (At Arsenal training) on Saturday I saw him play 11 against 11 on a half pitch.
You can see how good the technique is because space is very small. And I saw him do some finishing." BBC Sport

Oh, you've seen him 'do' some finishing have you Sven? Well, that's just brilliant...

What an absolutely ludicrous situation this is. The Premiership's top English goalscorer has been overlooked in favour of a child who hasn't even played a minute's football in this league. In fact, I think his last first team action was against Queens Park Rangers whilst he was still playing for Southampton.

Bent has taken it the news like the gentleman that he is, but inside he must be seething. What more can the man do? He has plowed a lone furrow up front for an average Premiership outfit for the vast majority of this campaign, and yet he has still scored more league goals than Wonderkid Wayne.

Bent's comments from the official site -

“I got the phone call this morning, telling me I wasn't in the squad, and obviously it was very disappointing for me. I could perhaps have handled not being in the main squad, but not being on standby as well was quite hard to take and understand.

It's difficult to take but maybe I've got to score more goals next season, I've still got plenty of years left on my Charlton contract.
The fans have always been 100 per cent behind me and I'm sure I'll carry on scoring in front of them."

If this kid takes the World Cup by Storm, it will go down as a stroke of incredible good luck for Sven Goran Eriksson. It can't possibly be foresight on his part can it, he hasn't even seen the kid play and he openly admits that fact. What an absolute joke.

Time to turn the page

2006-05-08T00:40:00.000+01:00

It's an odd amalgamation of emotions for Charlton fans at the moment. We're disheartened by our recent run of results, we're sorry to see Curbishley go, we're unsure about what the future holds, and yet still as far as I'm concerned, the future can't come quickly enough.

Manchester United slammed the door shut on our 2005/06 without so much as whimper from the XI representing SE7 today, and quite frankly our performance was nothing short of embarrassing. I don't know how many prospective managers were watching us today but however many there were, I'd be willing to wager that they made the same decision that I did, and that was to turn it off at half time and tune in to the wonderful second half scenes at Highbury instead.

I am not a fair weather supporter, I am not a Johnny-come-lately, and I don't mean to sound like an arse, but quite frankly I'm a bit fed up. We barely even showed up this afternoon and although the players motivation levels might not be at an all time high right now, I don't think there is any excuse for playing as poorly as we did. It was supposed to be Curbishley's farewell, his send off from the fans, and perhaps with a little bit of luck, the match where he finally manages to record a victory over Manchester United but we didn't even look like we belonged in the same division as them in truth. Incidentally it was our 11th defeat in our last 13 trips to the North West of England.

I didn't really expect us to get anything from the game, but something that I do expect from my team is a bit of pride in the shirt, and a bit of belief in their hearts. We were beaten before we even kicked a ball this afternoon, and at least five of them were already on their respective beaches. It just wasn't good enough.
I feel like Curbishley deserved better from the team today, and the fans aren't the only ones who have been let down.

We now have approximately 11 weeks until our next competitive fixture, and we have a huge amount to get done in that time. Lisbie, Bartlett, Holland, Hughes, Bothroyd, and Johansson should all be shown the door in my opinion, and their replacements will have to be players coming from clubs below us in the league table. We don't need any more Danny Murphy's or Francis Jeffers' arriving in SE7 with the attitude that they are doing Charlton a favour by even signing for us. We want players who will be viewing a move to Charlton as a dream, as an opportunity to prove that they can make it in The Premiership.

What Wigan have done this season is concrete evidence that if you have a side full of players with something to prove, they will more than likely go on and prove it. They aren't a great side but they play together well and thus they have become more than the sum of their parts. That is what we need to engender again, that camaraderie and spirit which came as standard when the side was full of players like Brown, Kinsella, Robinson and Parker.
Of course, it isn't as easy as all that. In order to clear out all of the dead wood cluttering up the training ground there needs to be other clubs interested in buying what we have on offer. How many of the six players I mentioned do you think would be willing to move down a division in order to play football? Maybe Lisbie and Johansson, but I think the rest of them are just too comfortable at Charlton and would be content to carry on as squad players until retirement (or the end of their contracts) comes.

My sentiments when it comes to the choosing of a new manager haven't changed really. He needs to fulfill the same criteria as the signings that we will make this summer (the whole dream move thing mentioned above), and he needs to (in my opinion) have a bit more personality that Curbishley. That isn't a criticism of Curbs by the way; it's just that I've just felt like I've known what he was going to say before he had even said it for the last 12 months. I'd like someone who dictates from the touchline a bit more, and someone who isn't afraid to drop a big player when it is obvious that he isn't pulling his weight. After Alan announced his decision to resign I wrote that night that my first choice would be Boothroyd from Watford, and my second would be Parkinson from Colchester. Since then, Colchester have won promotion to the CCC, and Watford have given Palace a royal spanking at Selhurst in the play-off semi final first leg. I suppose that Parkinson would still come if we called for him, but Boothroyd might just want to stick around with Watford if they make it through their play-off minefield and into the Premiership.

Paul Jewell up at Wigan is another man who I would like to see down here. I've already sung Wigan's praises once in this article and I certainly think that Jewell could do a job for us. Would he view Charlton as a step up though? That statement would have been ludicrous 18 months ago, and surely that fact just goes to show what an incredible job he has done at Wigan. If we could persuade him, I would definitely approve.

So, our final league position is 13th, and our final points tally is 47. When you consider that 15 of those of those points were already in the bag after only 6 games it just goes to show that the second half of 05/06 has been one big anticlimax. No away wins for 7 months is abysmal, and the way that we play football on the road will have to be looked at long and hard by the incoming management team if we truly have ambitions of becoming an established top-half Premiership outfit.

Anyway, 2005/06 is over now, and we need to draw a line under it.

Last word on the season goes to Alan Curbishley. Most of what needs to be said has already been published on various other Charlton blogs, so I won't repeat it. I've certainly criticised his decisions and his policies this season, but I've never forgotten where we have come from as a club, and for the wonderful journey that the last 15 years have been, I offer Alan my eternal gratitude.
What we have to realise though is that he has gone now, and it's over. Finished. We have to put all of the nostalgia for the good old days and sadness at his resignation out of our heads now, and open up all the doors and windows at The Valley in order to allow the fresh air to circulate. 'The Curbishley Years' is a book we all know and love, but now it's time to shelve it in preparation for what's coming next.

We will be a new club come August, and it's time to throw our collective weight behind whoever is coming in. There is a big job for him to do, and if all of us are pulling in the same direction then it's going to be much easier for him to accomplish it.

Onwards and Upwards. Come on you Addicks.

United Preview

2006-05-05T17:19:00.000+01:00

Curbishley's Charlton reign comes to an end at Old Trafford on Sunday. Ironically, the home ground of the only manager who has been in charge of a Premiership club for longer than Alan has, and also the home ground of the Premiership club against which Alan has his worst record.
Still, we look to be taking a full-ish complement of away travellers up there, and Sue Townsend's final act as supporters director has been to get a couple of thousand "Thanks Curbs" banners printed, which will all be waved aloft at the final whistle as a token of the supporters' appreciation for what Curbishley has achieved with Charlton during his tenure.

It's not really about the result or the performance on Sunday of course, but a defeat would mean that Alan will have lost five of his last six games in charge of The Addicks. The announcement he made on the pitch before the Blackburn game will mean that the wider media probably won't even notice that fact, but Charlton fans certainly will; and the fact that we have capitulated once again after threatening a top half finish just goes to show what a rebuilding job the new gaffer will have to undertake this summer. Curbishley is a hero and he will rightly leave with his head held high, but you cannot deny that the squad doesn't look particularly healthy right now and he certainly has to take part of the blame for that.

Team news courtesy of BBC Sport confirms that Luke Young misses the game along with Thomas, M Bent and Jay Bothroyd, while Hreidarsson completes his three match ban. From United's point of view both Ronaldo and Saha are facing late tests, while Wonderkid Wayne will watch from the stands.

My guess is that a number of the players on show tomorrow will be making their last appearances for their respective clubs. It's been widely touted that Ruud Van Nistelrooy is off to foreign climes in the close season, while from our point of view I'd imagine that at least 3-4 of the XI that start this weekend will be on their way out of SE7 by August.

To be honest, I just want this game out of the way now so that I can collect my thoughts ahead of what promises to be a huge summer, both for Charlton and for England.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 3-1 Defeat (V.Nistelrooy 2, Park, Bent)

Riverside Revisited

2006-05-02T12:47:00.000+01:00

I remember promising that I would eventually find a place to host the video clips I took while a part of Operation Riverside. A little bit overdue I'll admit, but when some of the files are almost 250MB in size it's not quite so easy to find somewhere that will host them for free. Anyway, better late than never.

Kings Cross - This one is just a short one I took whilst we were waiting on the platform in London. Unfortunately I wasn't able to capture just how many Charlton fans were at the station due to the fact that I didn't want to lose my place in the queue! (38 seconds)

Concourse - Taken about 25 mins before the kick off on the concourse inside the ground. (1 minute 38 Seconds)

Concourse 2 - Another short clip taken pre match (12 seconds)

Warming Up - Fans warm up their voices at the same time as the players warm up out on the pitch. This clip starts out on the concourse, and when the singing dies down I decide to enter the stadium and take a little look around. (5 mins)

Inside the Ground - This one is purely inside the stadium, about 10 mins prior to kick off (2 mins)

If you were up at The Riverside, you may well see your face on either the concourse, or the warming up videos.

There is also one more video to come and its the longest one (and the best one). Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to upload it this morning so there will probably be a Riverside Revisited Part 2 up on the site at some point within the next few days.
The final video is taken from the stands a couple of mins before kick off, while the players are walking out onto the pitch. The masses of ticker tape thrown into the air looks brilliant, so stay tuned for that one.

Edit - I'm on a 2.5 Meg Broadband connection here and the videos all run fine. I'm not sure how well they would run on a dial-up, or a slower broadband connection. You can't actually download these videos to view in media player, you will need to download the Google Video Player in order to download and store them. Just click the link on the video page - CynAth

All good things...

2006-04-29T21:31:00.000+01:00

When the announcement was made by Richard Murray, the first reaction was a moment of total silence around The Valley, which then gave way to a round of spontaneous applause as 26,000 people turned to their neighbours and said "I knew that was coming".
The truth is that we did all know it was coming, but perhaps we didn't expect it to come quite so suddenly. I certainly thought that if he wasn't going to get the England job then Alan would see out the final year of his contract before leaving the club, but I can understand why he has decided to call it a day now.

He has done wonders for us, and he will rightly be considered a Charlton legend for generations to come, but there can be no disputing that we have reached a point in the clubs development where a change of management is the only way to move things forward. My feelings at the moment are probably best described as a cautious excitement about what is coming next for Charlton. Obviously I am sorry to see Curbs leave the club, but the prospect of a new manager with new ideas about both players and tactics is definitely what we need. I have listened to the views of other Addicks all season long, and the one word which seems to crop up more than any other when they talk about the club is the word 'stale'. The symbiotic relationship that Curbishley shares with Charlton has simply grown too comfortable for both parties, and that is the reason it has now been brought to an end.

Being 23 years old I have never really known life under any Charlton manager other than Curbishley, so I'm not quite sure what to expect once a new man is appointed with regards to how quickly the squad will be turned upside down, and how quickly the players left behind will be able to adjust to life with a new manager. I can't imagine that Murray doesn't already have a shortlist of replacements in his mind, so hopefully it will just be a question of getting the new guy in quickly once the season ends, and giving him all summer to get to know the club and its playing staff.
Obviously he will also need to be given a transfer kitty of sorts in order to make his own mark on the squad, so I wouldn't be surprised if we also see the back of Darren Bent after the World Cup. He is the only player we have worth any real money, and with a time of transition ahead it surely makes sense to sell him while his value is high, rather than to keep him another season and risk the fact that he only scores 7 league goals next term. If that occurs, he will only be worth half as much next summer.

So, the next manager... One thing I do not want to see is the appointment of someone like McCarthy or another manager who has failed at another club in the Premiership. We need a man with passion; we need a man from the lower leagues who will have the stomach for a fight, and a man who will be desperate to rise to the challenge. A man with a totally fresh approach to The Premiership. My first choice would be Adrian Boothroyd from Watford, my second choice would be Parkinson from Colchester (who I've been informed was at The Valley for the Portsmouth match a fortnight ago), and I haven't really had the time to think of a third choice yet. Other names that I have heard banded around thus far are the likes of Martin Allen (Brentford), Harry Redknapp (God forbid), and even Paul Jewell (Wigan).

With regards to the match, it was a shame that the players weren't able to cap Alan's final Valley fixture with a win, but it was always going to be difficult for them to perform immediately after finding out the news about his resignation. In the back of all of their minds will be the fact that they may well have to be looking for a new club and possibly a move to another part of the country by the time next season comes around.
The reception that Alan got from the fans after the game will surely have meant a lot to him (although I can't quite understand why so many people left the ground at the final whistle), it must have been a difficult decision for him to arrive at, but in the cold light of day, it's the right decision.

Thanks again for everything you have done during these 15 years Alan. It's more appreciated by those of us who love the club than you will ever know. Best of luck for the future.

Blackburn Preview

2006-04-27T18:43:00.000+01:00

The aim at the start of the season was to make a real push for one of the lower European places. Midway through the season that goal was still semi-attainable, but as the sun begins to set on 2005/06, all that is left for Charlton is the slight possibility that we could still achieve a top half finish.

After the Reebok debacle last weekend it looked very much like 10th place was beyond us, but West Ham lost at home to Liverpool in midweek, and with their upcoming games being WBA away (fighting for their lives), and Tottenham at home (a week before the FA Cup Final), perhaps a Charlton win against Blackburn this weekend might just be enough to lift us above the Hammers. It wouldn't mask the problems that we have both at the club and within the squad, but it would certainly shed a little positive light, and bring some cheer to a fanbase which seems almost apathetic about the future right now.

Blackburn arrive in SE7 still harbouring dreams of European qualification through their league position. A few weeks ago their fans were already dusting off the passports in anticipation, but it's all up in the air now after a Charltonesque end of season collapse. They haven't won in their last four games, and with Chelsea next on the list for them, a win at The Valley is almost a necessity if they are going to cling on to their 6th place in the Premiership.

The danger men on Saturday will be Morten-Gamst Pedersen down the flanks, and motor-mouth Craig Bellamy up front; between them they have scored 27 goals so far this season, and Rovers have only failed to find the net in one of their last 10 Premiership encounters.
The main doubt for them ahead of the game is regarding the fitness of their Captain, and Charlton old boy Andy Todd. He injured a knee in Blackburn’s last game against Birmingham and must wait to see whether he requires surgery.

From Charlton's point of view, Curbishley has responded to the news that tactical genius Scolari may have been offered the England post by executing a tactical masterstroke of his own. Kevin Lisbie has been recalled from his loan spell at Derby. I expect he will be on the bench for this one, probably coming on late in the second half to record a double hattrick.

Don't forget that the kick off is at 5:15 due to the match being on pay per view, and what looks likely to be a sell-out crowd is set to be entertained pre match by pop group Amici Forever, as well as all of the usual end of season presentations. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Richard Murray was going to be addressing the crowd live on the pitch after the match, but I've had a quick look around and I can't find the link for wherever I saw that. We'll just have to wait and see what, if anything, he has to say.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 6-0 Win (Lisbie (6))

Feeling Low

2006-04-24T12:22:00.001+01:00

Getting thrashed in the North West of England is something I am getting acutely fed up with.

I remember having a bit of a rant about it before we played at The City of Manchester Stadium a few months ago, but at the time I was still confident in our ability to turn things round. It's just not that easy for me anymore, things just look bleak right now. Our record over the course of our last 12 games in the region stands:

Played 12, Won 1, Drawn 1, Lost 10. We have scored 6 goals in those 12 games, and conceded 33. There is simply no possible excuse for this run of form, It’s not as if all of the sides that play in the North West of England are entrenched at the top of the table. Forget Man Utd and Liverpool, there are still the likes of City, Bolton, Blackburn, Everton, and Wigan who simply do not compete against whenever we travel up there.

There has got to be some explanation for this, it cannot just be coincidence. Maybe there is an issue with the way we prepare for these matches? Do we travel up a couple of days before and book into a hotel? Or do we catch a flight on the morning of the game? Whichever it is we obviously need to start doing the other because the current preparation for these matches just isn't working, surely this must be looked at by the club because if things stay as they are, we might as well not even bother going next year. God forbid Leeds get promoted as well.

We are an average mid table Premiership club, we can beat these teams at home, we can win games in London, we can win games in the North East, and we can win games in the Midlands; law of averages says that sooner or later we should be able to put in a relatively competent performance at one of the North West grounds, and yet it still doesn't happen. Four goals against Bolton (twice in 2 years), three against Wigan, four against Blackburn, three against City, and three against Everton, it just isn't good enough.

Okay, so we have a few injuries, the defence is patched up, and the season is dead in terms of actually achieving something this year, but these players are still professional footballers who are defending like schoolboys and playing without passion. It shouldn't matter that the back four haven't had too much time to gel together as a unit, they train together every day. The tasks they are being asked to complete are straightforward. Win headers, win tackles, talk to each other, stay goal side of your man, etc. The midfield didn't give the back four too much protection I'll grant that, but still at the end of the day when you are jumping to win a header, it's just the defender and the striker, 1 v 1. No one to blame but yourself if you lose the header. Same story if there is a 50/50 ball to be competed for.

I'm not even going to get started on Myhre's performance.

There is no way we are going to turn our form around at Old Trafford on the final day, so we simply have to beat Blackburn now. If we lose at home next week then that will be our fifth defeat in six games and we could well end up finishing 12th or 13th in The Premiership. A few years ago that would have been fine, but not anymore I'm afraid. Not when we've got a striker banging in goals up front the way Darren Bent is. We should be far higher up the league than we are, and there is simply no denying it. We have underachieved this season with the strongest squad we have ever had. You have to ask why.

Bolton Preview

2006-04-21T18:36:00.000+01:00

News leading up to the Bolton game is that both Marcus Bent and Johnathan Spector have both played their last games of the season, and in Spector’s case, probably his last game for the club. Curbishley has given Marcus Bent the luxury of an extra month off to reward all of the stupendous work he has done for the side this year, and he hopes that Marcus will return a fitter and stronger player next term. I certainly second that.

As for players who WILL be involved at the Reebok, Sankofa looks set to make his first start for the club, and the official site reminds us that Darren Bent is bidding to become the first Charlton striker to hit 20 top flight goals in over 50 years. I’m not sure this will be the game where he reaches that particular milestone, but I do back him to break the record at home to Blackburn a week later.
In midfield, I would expect to see Ambrose come in for Thomas, which will leave Hughes out on the left, with Kish and Holland in the centre. The back four will pick itself due to the players we have available, and either Bartlett or Bothroyd will complete the XI.

Bolton are a bogey side for us there is no doubt about it. We have only ever beaten them once in our Premiership years, and they are looking to conclude a second successive double over the Addicks. Their team news shows that Diouf will sit this one out while he recovers from his hernia operation, while Ben Haim returns from his one match ban.

Comparisons can certainly be drawn between the sizes of our two clubs, and the league table shows that with a victory this weekend we could leapfrog the Trotters into the top half of the league. Why then is it portrayed by the media that Bolton have had a decent season, and we have merely had an average one? Although the football we play hasn’t exactly delighted the watching pundits this year, no one could claim that Bolton’s particular brand of industrial football has set the league alight either. I can’t think of many other teams (not clubs) that I dislike more than Bolton, they strangulate teams that try to play football against them, they use excessive force in the tackle (a polite way of saying that they’re dirty b*stards), and they will deny us both space and time on the ball. Their tactics don’t encourage football to be played, and if they really have ambition of moving their own club up to the next level they will have to add a few more craftsmen to their collection of cloggers.

Much as I would love us to beat them at their place, I can’t let the heart rule the head. They haven’t scored a goal for four games, and I can’t see our patched up defence keeping them out.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 2-0 Defeat (Stelios, Nolan)

HH takes a break

2006-04-20T01:11:00.000+01:00

The main Charlton news today relates to the fact that Hreidarsson had been issued with a three match ban for the last minute 'elbow' at Craven Cottage last week. HH apparently pleaded guilty to the charge of violent conduct, and although the club was given the right to appeal, they chose not to persue the matter further. Hermann will now miss all of our remaining fixtures, and that means that our defensive options are almost stretched to their limit.

Sorondo and Perry will be able to cover in the middle, and I'd assume that Sankofa and Powell will take the full back positions, but if we were to suffer another injury blow up at Bolton (fairly possible when you consider Sorondo's injury record), I don't know who we would turn to. I was just looking through the squad list and does anyone know what's happened to John Fortune? I don't remember reading about him getting a long term injury, but the last time I can remember seeing his name in the matchday squad was way back on February 5th at White Hart Lane. With El Karkouri gone, and Fortune seemingly invisible, we are one injury away from having no defenders fit for our last couple of games.

I'd still be interested to find out what happened with El Karkouri (incidentally, regular readers of the page will remember the email I had a while back claiming to be from Talal himself, I did reply to that email but I have not received any further communication from him). He left fairly suddenly, Smertin left fairly suddenly, Murphy left fairly suddenly, Kiely left fairly suddenly, and back in the summer the Paul Konchesky move also sprung up out of nowhere. We went into this season with what Curbishley described as the strongest squad he had ever worked with at Charlton. I find it odd that with all of the dead wood there is at the club, the five decent players mentioned above have been the ones shown the door.

Walking wounded snatch the win

2006-04-18T01:06:00.000+01:00

Credit where credit is due. Not too many of us predicted a Charlton victory today and even fewer would have predicted one after watching the first 70 minutes of this encounter, but by hook or by crook we managed to turn what would have been a hugely demoralising defeat into an unlikely victory. On top of that, both of our goals were top quality, and Darren Bent had a hand in both of them. An intelligent square pass left Hughes with a tap in for the first, and a powerful run accompanied by an unstoppable shot eventually delivered the three points.

Bent has had a few critics in the media recently, claiming that Premiership defences have got to grips with him after his wonderful start to the campaign but he answered that accusation this afternoon, and you can tell how much the goal meant to him by his celebrations. Two more goals in his remaining three games should be well enough to see him on the plane to Germany.

It was good to see Sankofa finally get his chance, but I wont dwell on the rest of the match too much. Pompey were the better side for long periods and will think themselves unlucky to be going home empty handed. For the second occasion this season, we have picked their pockets and come from a goal behind to win 2-1. While Curbishley's comments about it being a heroic effort are probably a little over the top (we should really be beating sides like Portsmouth anyway), I’ll forgive the over indulgent post match comment purely because of that patronising arm around Redknapp's shoulder at the final whistle. "Awww so close, never mind 'Arry, maybe next year eh. Oh, assuming that you're still in our league of course!"

I've been pretty gloomy over the last week or so, but I am taking some comfort now in the fact that our home form is looking rather formidable. Since New Years Eve we have played 12 games at the Valley and won 8 of them, drawing the other 4. Three of those matches were in the cup of course, but that still leaves us with a league return of 21 points out of the last 27 available at The Valley; plus we can claim to be undefeated in SE7 in the calendar year of 2006. If we avoid defeat in our final home game against Blackburn, then by the time the new season comes around we will have an unbeaten home run stretching back 8 months!

What an odd season it's been. For the first third of it we were demolishing teams away from home and losing at The Valley, the middle third saw a decline in form both home and away, and the final third has seen us losing games on the road but supplementing our league position on the back of home results. Consistently inconsistent kind of sums it up.

Still, that's football I suppose. At least a victory today means that I will actually bother watching Match of The Day this week, it's been a while since I've done that.

Portsmouth Preview

2006-04-16T20:47:00.000+01:00

Before most games we play I try to read the fans forums and unofficial sites of the team we are about to face in order to ascertain what kind of mood their supporters are in, and how highly they rate their chances against us. I am sure fans of the other clubs reciprocate this habit, and if there are any Portsmouth fans reading the Charlton web today, these are the kind of comments that they will be reading:

Portsmouth might just find us easy pickings on Monday. Anyone want my ticket? - Inspector Sands

I might find something better to do with my time on Monday. Like paint the shed again - Frankie Valley

It was just more of the same old tedium - Cynic Athletic

There was a sense of inevitability about the Addicks' most recent defeat - Official site

I make it 174 days without a {away} win (and counting) - New York Addick

Lack of any invention or prowess from a Charlton side desperate for a change of direction - Chicago Addick

Yes, things are far from rosy in The Addicks garden. If you’re a Portsmouth fan reading this, it’s not that us Charlton fans are miserable b*stards, it’s just that the football we are serving up right now just doesn’t inspire confidence or compliments from the fans.
As I have said on more than one occasion recently, I really wish I could be positive about our prospects in upcoming matches, but I just cannot find the hope to cling to. Even star-of-the-season Darren Bent has seemed a little off the pace recently. Perhaps the weight of the team and the dreams of the fans on his shoulders are finally beginning to take their toll.

Team news from the Pompey point of view shows that Lua Lua faces a late fitness test, but it looks as though both Todorov and Davis aren’t going to make it. Benjani will continue up front, and I wonder what are the odds on him getting his first goal in English football against us?
For the home side, BBC Sport claims that Curbishley has no fresh injury worries, but Curbs was so openly disappointed with our performance at The Cottage that I wouldn’t be surprised to see him ring the changes tomorrow.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 2-1 Defeat (Bent – Benjani, Lua Lua)

Defeat again at The Cottage

2006-04-15T21:38:00.000+01:00

I'm none too qualified to talk about the performance today due to the fact that I was at work from 10 until 8 and I didn't even get the chance to listen to it on the radio, but from the various match reports I have read it looks as if it was just more of the same old tedium. However, thanks to the genius of 3g phones I have already downloaded and watched the goals and to be honest, both were preventable.

The first one was just a calamitous piece of defending from a free kick, Boa Morte managed to score from a ridiculous angle at Myhre's near post without the keeper even making a dive for the ball. I'm not sure whether Jason Euell was meant to be guarding the post or not, but surely he should have sensed the danger and hacked the ball away once he saw it curling past the wall. As for the second goal, Sorondo was far too flat on his feet as Boa Morte burst past him. You have to hand it to the striker, both the run and the finish were excellent but he still managed to get past two of our players and slot it beyond Myhre with barely a hint of a Charlton challenge. No wonder Curbishley was furious at half time.

I've spoken to one or two people who were at the match and both have said that the fans were loud for the majority of the first half, but as the rain set in the noise began to drift away, and quite a large number of the Addicks had departed by the time Mr Atkinson blew for full time. We had a couple of chances to nick a point late on, but a combination of poor finishing and good goalkeeping managed to fend us off.

The fact that Jerome Thomas consistently starts on the bench is really beginning to frustrate me now. I know that I have a soft spot for the bloke, but am I really the only one who thinks that he has been our most positive attacking player in recent weeks? Sankofa again spent the whole 90 minutes watching from the sidelines (he must be wondering how badly the team needs to play in order for him to get his chance), while Powell and Hughes (2 of the better players from the Riverside) were also dropped from the team in favour of Euell and Sorondo. I suppose we don't know whether or not Hughes picked up a slight knock in the Boro match, but I honestly believe that Euell was only brought into the side in order to put him back in the shop window before the transfer window opens again. I wouldn't be surprised to see him start our remaining few games now, and then leave the club in the summer (probably to someone like Sheff Utd for 500k).

So, we have a day to lick our wounds before resurgent Portsmouth arrive in SE7. The form that they are in at the moment means that we will have a tough battle on our hands if we want to stop this run of defeats before it gets too noticeable. I don't think I can stomach another media battering about how our players 'just can't be bothered to turn up once the 40 point barrier is breached'. The papers were talking about us doing this months before the end of the season, and it's so frustrating to see it happening again.

On a separate note, the videos that I have from the trip up to Boro mentioned in this article range from about 30mb to 300mb in size. I haven't had much luck in finding a site which will allow me to host files of that size without having to pay for the privilege. I can't stick up links to the videos until I overcome this little problem, does anyone have any experience in getting such large files hosted?

Fulham Preview

2006-04-14T21:08:00.000+01:00

It will be with a heavy heart that Charlton travel to Craven Cottage tomorrow. Curbishley claimed after the Cup defeat that he was going to repay the faith of the travelling 5,250 by leading the team to as high a Premiership finish as possible. Logical then, that he has set the team a conservative target of 6 points out of our last 5 games.

Whilst Fulham's league position shouldn't inspire much fear, it doesn't really tell the story of their season. They have been superb at home and simply abysmal on the road. Only the top 6 have won more home games than The Cottagers this term and that is reflected by the fact that of the 36 points they have amassed thus far, 32 of them have been from home matches. Couple this with the fact that we haven't won at Craven Cottage for 20 years, and it's enough to make you feel downright miserable about our prospects this weekend.

I named this site Cynic Athletic because when it comes to my team I have always been a pessimist, but in the three months that I have been writing this page I have made a conscious effort to remain upbeat about the club and its prospects. At the moment I'm having a real hard time in doing that. I'm sorry, but the performance up at The Riverside has really got to me (I have now finally braved the re-run), and its shaken my confidence in our ability to win matches right now. If I'm honest, I can see us getting a bit of a hammering tomorrow. Of course, there is always the chance that the players will react positively to the criticism they have received this week, but it's blind faith that is nurturing this hope I'm afraid, not logic.

Although Marcus Bent is available again, I would like to see him start on the bench and the team switch to a 4-5-1 formation. Powell, HH, Perry and Spector if fit, (and only because we have no other option) across the back four, Thomas, Ambrose, Kish, Holland and Hughes in the middle, and Bent up front on his own. There is a growing throng of Addicks asking for the youth players to be involved a little more now that we don't have anything to play for, but other than a cameo role from the bench, I can't see Curbishley drastically changing the side before the end of the season.

From Fulham's point of view, Charlton old boy Claus Jensen is unlikely to be fit, Bocanegra is definitely out, whilst Michael Brown is beginning a three match ban. Their key man is likely to once again be Steed Malbranque, a player whom I have always rated very highly. Most of Fulham's attacking verve and inspiration comes through the Frenchman, so he will need to be well marshalled by whoever starts in the centre of midfield for us.

It's the last London derby of the season for the Addicks, and we come into it with a few bad runs to break. We haven't won in our last 11 away games. We haven't won at Fulham in the top flight since 1950, and we haven't even managed a goal there since we came up to The Premiership.

I can see us breaking one out of the three.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 3-1 Defeat (Bent - Malbranque, McBride, Boa Morte)

An Empty Feeling

2006-04-13T17:45:00.000+01:00

Although I recorded the match on Sky Plus, I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch it all again. I want to see the goals, I want to see how good Darren Bent's early chances really were, and I want to know if the wonderful atmosphere we created actually made it into the ears of those watching at home, but I just can't bring myself to press play. There is an empty feeling in my stomach this morning, I had really got myself believing that we could go up there and do a job on Boro but in truth, as soon as they got their second goal, I don't think we ever looked like we were going to get back into it.

The Journey up was great. We had a good old sing song on the platform at Kings Cross, and the songs continued to sporadically ring out all the way up to Middlesbrough. We got into the ground rather later than most because we split from the majority of Charlton fans when we left the station and opted to find a quieter pub in order to calm our nerves. Once we got into the ground the atmosphere was simply awesome. I don't know where everyone got all of that ticker tape from, but I was right on the far left of the stand and when I looked across the hordes of Addicks throwing that stuff into the air it just looked brilliant. Fair play to the Directors and Chairman for coming over to the fans before the kick off as well.

I took my digital camera to the game and I managed to get some decent video of the day. A couple of brief clips of the crowd singing while waiting to get on the train at Kings Cross, and also the 5 minutes leading up to kick off when the players came out. I'm not sure about the best way to get them all on the internet, but I'll have a play with them later on today and hopefully get the link stuck up on here so you can all have a look.

I was a little disappointed when the team was read out and it included Shaun Bartlett but lacked Jerome Thomas. There was an occasion in the first half when Bartlett had the ball down the inside right channel, he burst his way into the box and just when any natural striker would have pulled the trigger, he decided to square the ball to Gareth Southgate. There weren't even any of our players up alongside him, and It was that kind of evening for us really. I was sitting next to a kid who must have been about 7 years old, and even he was telling Spector to "F***ing look before you boot it upfield". The delivery of the ball forwards to the more attacking players was awful al evening, Powell (although he didn't play too badly) was also guilty of just thumping it out of defence when a short ball into one of the midfielders would have been a better option to take.

To be honest, although Murphy left in acrimonious circumstances, he was without a doubt the most creative midfielder we had at the club and his departure has left a bit of a void in the middle. We don't have a playmaker in there anymore. Nobody who can run along the midfield line and then spot the run of a striker and slip it through a gap for him to run onto, and that is something that we will surely need to sort out when the transfer window opens up again. Rommedahl can play creatively when he wants to, but he had a relative novice up against him last night in the shape of Taylor and he still never managed to get past him. In fact, I think the only time I saw the flying winger beat a man last night was when he was running towards our own goal, before playing it back to Thomas Myhre.

In order to win big matches your players have to be able to rise to the occasion, and in the cold light of day, we simply didn't do that. Boro totally deserved their victory on the night, and I just hope now that they can go on and beat The Hammers at Villa Park aswell. The future certainly looks bright for that club. They had a number of youth players on the field last night, and if you combine that with the fact that their chairman isn't afraid to spread a few quid about I think Boro could be a real force in seasons to come. I have been to The Riverside on four seperate occasions now and I have never seen their fans so up for a game. The place was buzzing when they got their second and third goals, and although they never managed to shut our fans up, I don't think our players truly believed that they had it within themselves to claw us back into the match when it went to 3-1. All of the 50/50 decisions were given Boro's way by Dowd and I'm starting to wonder if he has something against Charlton. Our record under him this season? Played 5, lost 5.

Man of the match was probably Mark Viduka. For such a big guy he certainly can turn on a sixpence, and our players were just afraid to tackle him for the fourth goal. The defence never really got to grips with him all night.

We were all hoping that the journey home was going to be a party on the trains, but in truth, most people just covered their heads and slept. As I posted last night, I got a phone call from someone telling me that one of the carriages got badly damaged, but seeing as how no one else has reported it this morning it looks like that may have been wide of the mark. I did speak to one fan who said that a few seats got ripped out near to where he was, but nothing that could constitute the smashing up of a carriage, and he states that he certainly didn’t see anyone get arrested.

The train managed to get back to Kings Cross 45 minutes ahead of schedule, but the coaches were nowhere to be seen, so we ended up having to hang about on the streets of London until 3am. After a brief and somewhat disheartened rendition of Valley Floyd Road we were all left quietly to our own thoughts, contemplating how disappointing the evening had been, and where the club is to go next. The season is over in truth, all that is left to play for now is that top half position in The Premiership. In years gone by that would have been more than enough to keep the fire burning in the bellies of our players, but after having the promise of something greater on the horizon for so long, they will have it all to do if we are to avoid our customary end of season slump.

Final word has to be about the fans once again (and also a final thank you to the board for all of the free travel). I was honoured to be a part of the crowd at The Riverside last night, and regardless of the score the support was unwavering throughout the whole 90 minutes. It was the best atmosphere I have heard at a Charlton game in a number of seasons and to be fair, we deserved a better response from the players than we eventually got.

Train Damage?

2006-04-13T04:23:00.000+01:00

I've just arrived home from the match, and while I don't have the energy to write a summary of the game this evening, I thought that I should post about a phone call I recieved at about 2:45AM outside Kings Cross Station.

It was from a friend of mine who was on one of the planes, allegedly not too far away from Peter Varney, and apparently he got a call to say that one of the carriages on the second train had been 'smashed up', and that 30 Charlton fans had been arrested for the damage. Over £120,000 spent by the club on free travel to the match, and then this. That's gratitude for you...

This news is unconfirmed of course, but I thought that it should be shared anyway. If it's the truth, I'm sure we'll find out more about it in the morning.

As for the game, I was fuming when I came out of the ground and was more than ready to sharpen my pencil and get stuck into the side, but a long journey home has calmed me down somewhat, and I think I'll allow myself more time to digest the day's events before I go off on a tirade.

If I picked the team...

2006-04-12T03:41:00.000+01:00

Not too long to go now... I've got about 3 hours of my night shift left, and then hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of hours sleep before it's time to get underway.

Here is the formation and team that I would like to see Curbishley put out this evening:

.............................Myhre............................

Spector.......Hreidarsson..........Perry...........Powell

.........Kishishev.........Holland.........Hughes..........

Rommedahl...........................................Thomas

................................Bent............................

Boro Preview

2006-04-10T19:05:00.000+01:00

So here we go then, the biggest game of the season so far, and a game which could effectively end the season if we were to lose it...

Before the home game with Boro I remember predicting that we would draw with them on the night, be paired with West Ham in the Semi, and then beat Boro at The Riverside in the replay, but now that the game is so close I'm starting to feel more than a little nervous.

It's so important that we don't concede a stupid early goal up there. Both fans and players have been talking about little else for over a fortnight now, and with all of the preparation that has gone into this match, I wonder how the players would react to going 1 down in the 5th minute.

I went to both Wigan and Blackburn away this season, we conceded early goals in each of those games and subsequently went to pieces, conceding 4 to Blackburn and 3 to Wigan. If things go wrong for us on such a big occasion would we be able to pick ourselves up and get back into the game? Well, It's the job of the 5,250 Charlton fans to ensure that if an early setback occurs, we don't get frustrated, we don't get disheartened, and we don't get on the backs of the players. Just keep singing the songs and have faith in our ability to turn it around. Boro are a Jekyll and Hyde team at the Riverside, and I'm entirely confident that if both fans and players go up there with the right attitude, eventually we will prevail.

As far as team news goes, Darren Bent will obviously slot back in up front presumably in place of his cup-tied namesake, and it remains to be seen whether Curbishley will stick Bothroyd up front alongside him, or whether he will leave Darren plowing a lone furrow up front, and pack the midfield with 5 instead. Powell will probably return at left back, meaning that Hermann will drop back into the centre with Chris Perry, while Spector will continue to deputise for the injured Luke Young.

Key areas are going to be the flanks, and how well we deal with the robust threat of Hasselbaink/Viduka/Yakubu. I am confident in our ability to win the central midfield battle, and I also believe that either Thomas or Rommedahl (maybe even both) will be able to make things happen on the wings for us, but the height and physical precense that Boro have up top means that it is imperative that Spector sticks close to Downing and stops him providing crosses.

I haven't been able to find out how many tickets have been sold in the home areas for this one, but I assume that the match will not sell out. They had a local derby with rival Newcastle at the weekend, and there were over 4,000 empty seats there, plus their continued involvement in the UEFA Cup should also mean that a few of the working class smog-monsters will save their pennies for an away trip to Bucharest rather than spend it on a Quarter Final Replay. Most of their official build up is only available for fans who have paid to join Boro World on their website, but from what I can gather, certain sections of their support feel that they have already done most of the hard work by getting a draw at The Valley. Perhaps that attitude will also work in our favour.

These are the sort of games that every club wants to be involved in, and the sort of game where every fan wants the right to say “I was there when…” in the event that a glorious victory is earned. If we do manage to pull it off, it’s going to be one hell of a party on the train back to London.

Come on you Addicks, we’ve done all we can to give you the advantage, now go out there and make us proud.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction 2-1 Win (Bent, Rommedahl - Yakubu)

Bent + Bothroyd = Blank

2006-04-09T06:56:00.000+01:00

I got back into the car after today's game just in time to hear Talksport's informed analysis, and the analysis was thus. "A contender for the worst Premiership game of all time".

While I'll admit that the entertainment on show was never really going to appeal to fans other than those of the clubs involved, it was hardly as bad as they were making it out to be. Reporter Ian Abrahams proclaimed to the nation "The afternoon wasn't a total loss, I got to watch the grass grow", well I'm sorry Ian, but I don't know quite what you were expecting when you came to The Valley this afternoon. Everton have scored 11 goals in 17 away games, while Charlton so clearly had their minds on other things, it doesn't take a genius to work out that entertaining the nation was not our utmost priority this afternoon.

As it happens, I think the man most directly responsible for the poor standard of the game was referee Peter Walton, the man who incidentally also took charge at the second most boring game of the season; West Brom at The Valley. He simply refused to let the game flow, and punctured it with a seemingly endless series of ludicrous and petty free-kicks. Neither team was even given the chance to gain any momentum and the football on show clearly suffered because of it. The last four Premiership games Walton has refereed have finished 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, and 0-0 again. Those four matches have produced no fewer than 17 bookings as well; I don't think I'll bother going next time he is set to officiate in SE7.

My honourable mention this week goes to the Bulgarian Beckham. Kish was all over the place, and even had the former boo-ers in the attic of the Covered End singing his name at one point. His passing was thoroughly decent, and he didn't stop running the entire time he was on the pitch. Wise move to withdraw him when we did, lets keep him fresh for the Boro.

As for the rest of the midfield, I think they were made to look worse than they were today by the static performances delivered by the front two. Its frustrating to see counter attack after counter attack fizzle out just past the half way line, but I was so conscious today of the fact that there was simply no one up front for the midfielders to lay the ball off to. If you're a striker, when you make a run you should be running into space, or drawing a defender with you to create space for someone else. It's not a difficult concept, but it's one that neither player seems to understand. Bothroyd ran down blind alley after blind alley; and as for Bent, he only ever runs for a ball when he is certain that somebody else is going to beat him to it.

On a more positive note, the defence looked solid enough for most of the game. All of them played reasonably well, and Spector's performance at right back was especially pleasing when you take into account the fact that Luke Young's season appears to be over. I don't know what it is about our treatment room, but it seems like players are taking a month just to recover from a touch of indigestion. It wasn't a surprise at all to see the club come out and state that Luke's World Cup chances are now hanging by a thread. Curbishley claims "He had a similar injury last season and was out for about six weeks but we felt we might not have treated it properly then". Why not? And why did you let him back into the side if you knew the injury wasn't treated properly? It just doesn't make sense.

I suppose the most obvious thing to come out of today's game is the fact that without our top scorer we just don't threaten teams. Just make sure that when you fill in your player of the year ballot, you underline the letter 'D' in front of the word 'Bent'.

Everton Preview

2006-04-07T21:29:00.000+01:00

If we didn't have such a huge game next week, we would probably be describing this match as one we needed to win in order to achieve our ambitions of finishing in the top 10. But, the fact is that we do have a huge game next week, so to be brutally honest I'm none too fussed about the result of this one.
Any Charlton fan in their right mind would swap a defeat tomorrow for a win up at The Riverside and the players will be thinking a similar sort of thing I'm sure. The injury that Young sustained at Upton Park goes to show that you are only ever one bad tackle away from missing the biggest game of your season, and nobody else will want to be on the treatment table when Operation Riverside takes place on the 12th.

Curbishley will bring Spector in for Young and is likely to stick to the flat back four, whereas Rommedahl will likely drop out of the first team in favour of Jerome Thomas. Marcus Bent will start up front against his former club, and the official site has dropped a hint that perhaps Darren Bent is due a rest. I don't think I can blame them for that. What is the point of him picking up a calf strain or something stupid like that so close to next week? With Marcus Bent already cup-tied, if we lost Darren aswell we would be looking at a front two of Bothroyd and Bartlett up at Boro. Hmm. Yep, I think it's safe to say that we shouldn't risk our top scorer in this one.

From Everton's point of view this campaign started disastrously, but has got better and better for them the longer it has gone on. After 12 defeats from their first 19 games, 8 victories from their next 13 has seen the club rise from 17th to 10th in the league, and a couple of their players still have their sights set on a place in Europe again. They are always difficult to break down but if the truth is to be told, playing Everton is normally a dull affair at both ends of the pitch.

Their form away from home is pretty similar to ours. They have obtained 18 points on the road so far this term, and yet scored only 11 goals from their 16 away games. Just goes to prove the way that they like to play really, nick something, and then hope to hang onto it.

Village idiot Mark Lawrenson thinks that Everton are going to snatch this one 2-1. I think that we will get a late point.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 1-1 Draw (Thomas - Beattie)

E-Mail from Talal?

2006-04-07T02:08:00.000+01:00

Not sure quite where to start with this. I recieved an email today from someone claiming to be Talal El Karkouri.

My first though when I saw that in my inbox was 'Who's on a wind up then?', but the email address looks genuine enough, and the email itself doesn't read like a wind up, so I thought I'd post it anyway and leave you all the chance to make up your own minds.

I remember thinking when I read the article this morning that it was a bit vague. Talal was quite a popular player among the Charlton fans, so it was strange to see him leave the club without even a direct quote from the man himself. The headline of the article aswell was rather strange, "competition to fierce for Talal" makes it sound a bit like there is something going on behind the scenes that we aren't aware of. Its hardly a ”Thanks for you're efforts, good luck in the future” headline is it? More of a “Talal can't face being on the bench, so he’s limping out of the club” headline. Very unlike Charlton.
Anyway, wind up or not, here is what I recieved at 12:51 this afternoon:

I am concerned that the news brief on the official website posted by my club Charlton Athletic may be misleading to the supporters.

I am disappointed that I have not been involved much this season although I have recovered full from any injuries.

I have participated in the reserve games in order to remain in top condition and ready to be recalled to the first team.

After I was told by my manager that I would not feature in any of the up coming Charlton games, I agreed to go to Quatar to play first team football for the next few weeks.

I have not discussed a permanent move with any clubs at this time.

I very much appreciate the support of the Charlton fans, and will address other concerns mentioned in the article upon reaching Quatar.

I wish my team the best of luck in their up coming games.

I am posting this to you on my way to London Heathrow for my departure to Quatar.

Many Thanks,

Talal El Karkouri
Thursday, April 06, 2006

I would appreciate it if you not post my email address or distribute it.

Draw your own conclusions, and I would appreciate some comments regarding this…

Quick Update

2006-04-06T12:27:00.000+01:00

Just a very short update to this post.

I just spoke to Boro again, and they told me that so far they have managed to sell 13,500 seats in home area for the Quarter Final replay. The deadline for season ticket holders to reserve their own seats has now passed, and the tickets are on general sale.

Tata Talal

2006-04-06T12:21:00.000+01:00

Talal El Karkouri has been sent out on loan to Quatar side Al Gharafa until the end of the season with a view to a permanent move in the summer. In situations like this, the clubs normally agree the potential transfer fee before the loan commences, but there is no mention of his price in the article.

I quite liked old Talal, he made the odd crazy challenge or two but he had good positional sense, and was able to play quite creatively for a defender. His last performance for the first team was up at the City of Manchester stadium earlier this year, when he created a goal for Darren Bent with a superb defence-splitting pass, and popped up in their box in the last minute to almost steal a point for us.

The player himself claims that a lack of first team opportunities are the reason for him wanting the move; that and the opportunity to play in 'The Asian Champions League!'
In his two years with the club, he has made a total of 48 appearances, scoring 5 goals.
I will remember Talal mainly for his committed performances, his driving runs forward, and a wonderful set piece goal against the Gunners at The Valley.

Boro urge fans to snap up tickets

2006-04-05T13:06:00.000+01:00

I was looking at the Boro official site this afternoon, and they have now made a plea to their own fans to spoil 'Operation Riverside'. The article says that we are trying to turn the match into a home game, and Middlesbrough have urged their fans 'not to be outsung by the army of 5,000+ traveling Londoners'.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that 5,250 will be the largest Addicks congregation outside of SE7 since the play off final back in 1998. There is no way that they are going to shut us up on the night.

I rang the Boro ticket office a few minutes ago to see if they could give me any indication as to how well tickets have been selling so far. Unfortunately, I think my Southern accent kind of gave the game away when I finally got to the front of the queue! The bloke was extremely unhelpful, and told me that he couldn't tell me how many tickets were available, because seats are still reserved for season ticket holders until 5pm this evening. They are aware that all our tickets were sold within the first 26 hours that they were on sale. Perhaps they are being cagey about numbers out of worry that there will be Addicks trying to gain entry to the home ends of the ground on the night. I'll just try again in the morning and put on a dodgy Northern accent.

As Inspector Sands claims, a major factor on the crowd up there will be the outcome of their second leg against FC Basel which is live tomorrow night on ITV 4 at 8pm. It's all they're talking about at the moment, and if they overturn their 2-0 defeat in Switzerland, that will put the added financial drain of another European away day into the fans minds, and perhaps a few of them will make the decision to avoid our replay and save their money for the UEFA Cup game. I'll probably watch their game tomorrow, it's a massive game for them so they should play their strongest side, and I'm interested to know what McLaren thinks that is.

From our point of view the club claim that we have been issued another 400 tickets which will go on sale tomorrow at 9am, but Varney stated that 150 of those tickets have already been reserved as the initial allocation was oversubscribed somewhat. One of my mates claims to know someone whose brother's stepmother's second cousin's roommate's girlfriend works for Middlesbrough. He told me that there are up to 2,000 more tickets available, but if we took the extra allocation from them, we would have to pay for the tickets even if they weren't all sold by the night of the game. I'm not sure I believe that, but there you go. I'm sure the club has a waiting list, and if there are tickets available we will find a way to get them sold.

4k sold on day one

2006-04-03T23:55:00.000+01:00

I Just have to say, fair play to the masses who queued outside of the Valley for a good couple of hours this morning, and fair play once again to the masses who made 08712261905 the hottest number in London all day.

I‘ve been at work all day, but the bloke getting the tickets for me via the phone line had to wait a good hour before he could even get in the queue, and it was another hour before he reached the front of it. At 10p a minute, with all those people holding for over an hour, I wonder just how much money the club made today! It's claimed that the hotline number took over 10,000 calls within the first 2 hours of the tickets going on sale. It's great to know that so many of us are going to be there up at The Riverside, it's going to be a real night to remember.
The word from the official site is that we have already sold over 4,000 tickets for the trip, and that is fantastic going.

The total number of tickets availabe is 4,800, and there can be little doubt now that we are going to sell our allocation out. Both trains are fully booked, the club have chartered two planes, and both of those have been sold out as well. There is a possibility that a third plane is also going to be made available aswell, but its likely that there is already a long waiting list for spaces on that. Free coach travel is still available from over 50 pick up points throughout the South East. Although more coaches are a lot easier to organise than more planes or trains; if you are planning on getting in on whats left of the freebies, you'll need to be by the phone first thing in the morning, and prepared to hold if necessary. I myself managed to get on the second train leaving from Kings Cross, and I count myself lucky to get that.

The club have been proved right in their decision to offer the free travel, and the fans have proved today just how up for it we are. Whether we win or lose up there the atmosphere promises to be superb, and I just can't wait.

Who did West Ham play today?

2006-04-02T20:37:00.000+01:00

I've always been a massive fan of the way Sky present their football. The coverage of the match is always excellent. The cameraman shows you what you actually want to see (take note ITV), and the commentators/pundits are the better by far than their counterparts on the terrestrial channels. However, today’s broadcast was so totally and utterly biased in West Ham's favour that it got almost embarrassing at times.

Who were the pundits in the Sky studio? Jamie Redknapp, (son of 'Arry the 'Ammer), and Rio Ferdinand (former player). The prematch coverage was all about how West Ham's fortunes have been on the up over the last 12 months, the change in their fans' attitude towards Alan Pardew, how Rio felt about their progress this season, their chances in the FA Cup, and of course, Teddy's 40th birthday.
For those of you who didn't see the programme, Richard Keys even said "Lets hear from West Ham manager Alan Curbishley" at one point, and I'm not joking.

Half time was spent talking about how Charlton had only come to defend in numbers (although they did say that we played well in the first half). Then, the post match formalities were dominated by the presentation of the man-of-the-match award to the undeserving Mullins, and a birthday cake (for crying out loud) to dear old Teddy. We were then taken through the highlights of West Ham's best attacking play, and some of their efforts on goal. Oh, and then we heard what the West Ham manager thought of the game.
Now to be fair, Sky probably did give Curbishley a chance to speak after that, but I'd turned it off in disgust by then. I'd rather wait a few hours and then hear it from our own web site. At least that way, after the interview, I won't have to listen to Rio and Redknapp debate what effect Curbishley's words would have on West Ham.

Now that I've got that little rant out of my system, I can say that I was really proud of the way in which we played. The Boleyn is never an easy place to go and get a result, but we stifled the creativity they have in midfield (so much so that their captain was withdrawn as ineffective), and contained their threat down both flanks.
Our man of the match would be difficult choice; Hughes, Holland, and Kish were great, both full backs played well, and both Perry and Hreidarsson were accomplished. Rommedahl starting ahead of Thomas surprised me, but after another relatively unproductive performance he was taken off during the second half. Although he is a player capable of producing a moment of magic, producing it once a season just isn't enough.

So, honourable mentions this week go to the entire team, with the possible exception of Marcus Bent, who I am beginning to get the hump with. I know that he isn't fully fit yet, but do you need 100% fitness to chase a ball which is only 4 feet from you? Or to tackle an opposition player who is heading in your direction with the ball? I will gladly eat humble pie if he turns out to be a decent player for us over the next couple of years, but when we bought him I remember saying that it was too much money, and I still stand by that assessment.

Anyway, a draw continues our run of recent good form. I'm not too concerned that we have drawn three of our last 4 away games 0-0, its much better than losing them. Winning your home games and drawing your away's will get you far in this modern Premiership, and it's always prudent to get the defensive strategy right as an away side before you worry about going hell for leather in search of goals. We can play attractive, expansive and fluent football. We have already seen it in the earlier part of the season; it's just a shame that we couldn't produce more of it today in front of Sky.

They might have mentioned us if we had…

West Ham Preview

2006-04-01T05:34:00.000+01:00

As far as the majority of neutrals are concerned, Charlton have had a relatively poor season, and West Ham have had an relatively successful season; yet if we were to beat them at Upton Park on Sunday, we would go level on points with the Hammers. Indeed, a win by three clear goals would see us leapfrog them in the Premiership table.

On paper, there is no reason why we shouldn't feel confident about a trip to East London. We have triumphed on each of our last three meetings with West Ham, and the spirit that the players have shown during their last 2 outings really seems to have rekindled the faith of the supporters. The feelgood factor which surrounds the club at the moment reminds me of the way we used to feel during our first couple of years as a Premiership club, and Curbishley has issued an appeal to the fans to once again turn up the volume at the Boleyn Ground this weekend.

The preview on the official site claims that Curbishley has a fully fit squad to choose from for the first time in months, so it will be interesting to see what he views as his strongest XI. There are also claims in the official preview that perhaps Bothroyd will claim a starting place ahead of Marcus Bent, although personally I would like to see us stick with the side that beat Newcastle last weekend. The only change I would welcome would be the possible inclusion of Rommedahl at the expense of either Hughes or Kishishev.
Matt Holland looks set to make his 100th appearance for the Addicks.

From West Ham's point of view, it looks like Hislop will continue to deputise in goal for the injured Roy Carroll, while the form of Ashton and Harewood look set to leave Zamora consigned to the bench again, where he will have the company of birthday boy Teddy Sheringham, and possibly former Charlton winger Shaun Newton.

Etherington will surely start for West Ham, and if both Thomas and Rommedahl start for us, then there will be three out and out wingers on the pitch which could result in a very open game. Hammers captain Nigel Reo-Coker is a player whom I would love to have in our side, and whoever the central midfielders are, they will have to stick close to him if the midfield battle is to be won.

I'm confident that 'Operation Riverside' will be a success on the 12th of next month, and if it is, West Ham will be all that stand between us and our first ever appearance in the UEFA Cup next season. This is the perfect chance for us to strike a psychological blow ahead of any potential semi final. As far as I am concerned, a draw this weekend would be a good result, but a first away win in 10 games is not out of the question.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 2-2 Draw (M.Bent, Thomas - Ashton, Harewood)

-------

A crippling run of night shifts has seen me sleeping through all of the normal waking hours and working through all of the normal sleeping hours this week, so apologies to all for the lack of updates over the last few days.

Twenty for Benty

2006-03-27T03:18:00.000+01:00

Decent performance, decent atmosphere, three pigeons, three goals, and three points.
Yes, it's been another entertaining afternoon at The Valley.

I thought we played pretty well for the vast majority of the match, and if we could consistently achieve the level of commitment that we have shown in the last two matches over the course of a whole season, we would have no trouble at all in finishing as a top six side. This is the best I have felt about following Charlton in a good few months. We still have the Cup run to look forward to, some more winnable home games are just around the corner, new players will be arriving in the summer, and England are going to win the World Cup. All is well with the World.

Honourable mentions this week go to Darren Bent, Jerome Thomas (again), Luke Young, and Chris Powell. The other midfield trio didn't perform badly either. I was a little worried during the first quarter of the match because Parker and Emre were just being allowed too much time to settle on the ball and dictate play, but after we got our noses in front, (Parker's wondergoal aside), both players drifted out of the game and the midfield battle was won. Both of our fullbacks were bombing forward and overlapping the midfielders, the standard of crossing was much better, and one of our strikers scored a goal through finally attacking a ball at the near post rather than drifting deep.

Most of the match reports I have read seem to give the impression that Newcastle were the better side, and I can't quite understand that. In my opinion it was the best we have played in a while, and the crowd once again rose to the occasion and sung throughout. "We all agree, the Pigeon is better than Parker", and "Pigeon Pigeon, what’s the score?" were just inspired, as was the impressive wing-play of the bird itself. Even the East and West stands were starting songs today. Hopefully the atmosphere generated at both games this week will be replicated throughout our coming fixtures. It's an obvious thing to point out, but it's clear from our last two performances that the team really does respond when their backing in the stands is so vociferous. I really hope we can keep it up.

Congratulations to Darren Bent on his 20th goal of an increasingly impressive first season in the Premiership. Given guessed the right way, but he was beaten by the power of the strike. Now that the game is over and the points are safe, we can also give credit to Scott Parker for his 30-yarder. It was almost an exact replica of the goal he scored for us down at St Mary's a few years ago, and fair play to him for running the length of the pitch in order to celebrate it with his own fans. I can think of a number of other players who would have run towards the Covered End with one finger to their lips in that situation.
Lee Bowyer was unlucky with the own goal, but he did acknowledge the home faithful before leaving the field at the final whistle. We were linked with him quite heavily earlier this season and I think that he still wants to play for us; it's my prediction that Curbishley (if he doesn't get the England job) will snap him up in the summer. It's been reported that he would like a move back to London and although he's 29, he definitely still has a couple of years left in him at this level. We could certainly do with a player like him in the squad.

Newcastle Preview

2006-03-25T18:12:00.000Z

After all of the excitement regarding the FA Cup this week, the Newcastle match has snuck up on us almost unnoticed. Don't forget to put your clocks forward before you go to bed tonight, or else you could find yourself arriving at the ground rather early for the 2pm kick off.

Newcastle arrive at the Valley on the back of three straight defeats, but all 3 of those have come against the Premiership's current top three sides, so perhaps that isn't really the best indicator of their current form, and mood within the club.
There are no doubts that they are a more 'together' unit since Souness departed, and the results since then have seen them slowly climbing the table, and they now find themselves in an almost exact mirror image of our own position. Played 30, Won 11, Drawn 6, Lost 13, the only difference between the sides on paper this year is the fact that Newcastle have a +2 goal difference over us, and the winner of tomorrow's match will climb up to 11th, leapfrogging Manchester City.

Scott Parker is set to make his first proper return to The Valley, and I'm unsure what kind of reaction he will get from the home faithful. There have been a couple of occasions this season where he has appeared in past highlights on the big screen pre-match, and portions over the Covered End have even seen fit to boo his image on those occasions, so I assume that he will be in for at least a modicum of ill feeling tomorrow. From a personal point of view, I won't be booing. He was an absolute star for us and although we didn't part on the best of terms, we got a good price for him, and I believe he deserves a round of applause when he takes to the field. He was our player of the year on more than one occasion, and in truth, can you really blame him for wanting the chance to play for a bigger club? He gave his all while he was wearing red, and that is what I remember him for.

Worrying team news on the BBCSport website claims that Darren Bent is struggling with an injury ahead of this match, and may need a late test on his ankle problem. Everybody knows just how important he is to us, and if he doesn't make the starting XI I will be a whole lot less confident about us getting a result. Bartlett and Bothroyd up front just doesn't inspire confidence anymore purely because Bent has raised the bar for striking standards this season. His namesake Marcus is back in full training, again according to the BBC, but they claim that it is unlikely that he will be fit enough to start.
From the Toon's perspective, Elliot is suspended because of the red card he picked up against Chelsea in midweek, but Boumsong is available again after serving his one match ban. Alan Shearer will also be making his 400th appearance for Newcastle, and his final appearance at The Valley.

Much of my prediction this week rests on the broad shoulders of Darren Bent, and whether or not he manages to pass his fitness test. I'm betting that he will though, and that he will once again get onto the score sheet.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 1-1 Draw (Bent - Shearer)

Cup draw favours us again

2006-03-24T17:32:00.000Z

If a place in the Semi Final’s of the most famous cup competition in the world isn’t motivation enough for the side, the fact that we have now been paired with London rivals West Ham will surely further reinforce our desire to beat Boro in the replay.

Of the teams left in the hat, we have once again been given possibly the easiest route to progress.

There is no doubt that the draw has been kinder to us than it had been to any side left in the competition. Sheff Wed, Orient, Brentford, Boro and West Ham is possibly the easiest route to a final that any team could dream of in FA Cup terms, but before we get too carried away with the possibility of a major final, there is still the small matter of Middlesbrough to deal with. We HAVE to win this replay now. A Semi Final against The Hammers (probably at either White Hart Lane, Villa Park, or Stamford Bridge), would be a wonderful occasion for all of us. If you weren’t planning on going to the replay at Boro, do whatever you can to convince whoever needs convincing that a trip up there is crucial. You still have three weeks to negotiate time off with your employer, and we need as much support as possible up there if we are going to make the dream come true.

The club have announced free coach travel for all fans travelling up to The Riverside. Match tickets remain at £20 adults, and £10 concessions.
Tickets are going straight onto general sale, and we have an allocation of 1500.

The Semi Final draw in full:

Chelsea Vs Liverpool
Charlton or Middlesbrough Vs West Ham United

Ties to be played 22nd/23rd April

Proud to be a part of it

2006-03-24T06:21:00.000Z

Owing to the fact that I needed to be at work by midnight and have only just arrived home now, I have missed most of the initial reports and reaction to last nights result.
I presume that the national press will this morning be pulling out the old ‘bore draw’ chestnut, but personally I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and was proud of the way in which we played.

The atmosphere (especially in the J and H blocks of the North Upper) was just superb throughout. It reminded me of the Ipswich play-off game at times, everybody was up for it, not just the usual singers. I’m not sure quite how well the acoustics of the ground carried the sound, but I can categorically state that it was the loudest noise I have heard at The Valley in at least 5 seasons, so well done to all who were both loud and proud last night.

On the balance of play I think that we could argue that we deserved to win the match, but a replay is not the end of the world. At least it ensures that we will definitely be in the draw for the semi’s, and Boro will surely feel that the hard part of the tie is over for them. They will no doubt believe that they can turn us over up at The Riverside, but if we perform up there with the same passion and desire we showed last night, I have no doubts that we will prevail.

Honourable mentions go to the seemingly ageless Chris Powell, Jerome Thomas, and the much maligned on this page Brian Hughes, who I thought had his best game in ages.
Despite those good performances, what let us down was the fact that we simply didn’t work their keeper enough, (especially in the second half) despite having the lions share of posession. In truth, we are playing without a real playmaker at the moment, and although that is something Curbs will obviously remedy in the summer, playing with 3 defensive minded midfielders often leaves us lacking in options when the opportunity for a quick counter attack presents itself. Perhaps that is the reason that so many of our forays forward seem to end up fizzling out just past the half way line, before the ball is passed either backwards or sideways. We just have no fulcrum in the middle around which the side strings fluid attacking moves together.

Another observation was regarding the general standard of our crossing. We seemed to get the ball into decent positions down the flanks a number of times, but unfortunately the delivery of the final ball was lacking. Most were cut out by the first man, and whatever went over his head just seemed magnetically drawn towards the bandaged bonce of Ugo Ehiogu; perhaps that’s just good positional sense from the defender rather than poor crossing from ourselves, but either way, I thought he had a great game for them.

Anyway, when I started writing this I certainly didn’t mean it to sound negative. A big well done once again to both the fans and the players, I was proud to be a part of the crowd for this match, and my strained vocal chords this morning are testament to that. A draw keeps the season alive, and I truly hope that we can reproduce the racket that we made last night when we get up to Teeside for the replay.

I have already booked the day off!

Come on you Addicks.

Middlesbrough Preview

2006-03-23T06:24:00.000Z

This match has been covered from just about every conceivable angle over the last few weeks on the Charlton web, but it's proving far more difficult to get a handle on the way our opponents are gearing up for the clash.
Just how importantly do they view the match?

I've done more google searches that I care to remember, trying to track down a Middlesbrough site similar to our own forevercharlton, but I have now come to the conclusion that their fans either don't know how to use the internet (other than their rivals site), or that they simply don't have a massive online community. All of the relevant build up on their official page is sealed under the premiumtv lock and key, meaning that if you don't pay the subscription fee, you wont get to hear any of the official buildup; so we are left pretty much in the dark as to how strong a side they plan to put out this evening.

Perhaps it works to our advantage that they are still heavily involved in the UEFA Cup as well as the FA Cup and the Premiership. A poll on their official site shows that only 11% of Boro fans consider this match to be more important than their European Quarter Final with FC Basel exactly a week today. Perhaps they will rest one or two players, especially seeing as how they also have to face Bolton in the Premiership before jetting off to Switzerland presumably on Monday or Tuesday next week.

McLaren himself has already shown recently that he is perfectly willing to sacrafice 'smaller matches' in exchange for being able to field his strongest team in Europe. When Boro came to the Valley a fortnight ago, there were 9 changes from the team that took to the field against Roma in the match before. This Quarter Final is obviously more important than that Premiership match was, but how likely is Mclaren to risk an injury to a big player just 4 days before the team leaves Teeside for a date with the Swiss?

The form book shows that neither side can claim to be at the top of their game at the moment. Boro have lost their last three matches in all competitions, whilst from our point of view, Darren Bent's goals against Boro at the Valley remain our only victory, and indeed our only goals, in our last 5 matches.
Bent will obviously continue up front, but it remains to be seen whether Curbishley will persist in utilising the 5-3-2 formation he employed at Highbury last time out, or whether he will revert back to a 4-4-2, presumably with Bothroyd or Bartlett coming in up front alongside Darren. Jerome Thomas should also start. He single handedly turned the League game against Boro when he came off the bench, and Curbishley cannot have forgotten that.

So, the stage is set. The ground is going to be mostly sold out, it's live on the BBC, Tony Christie is going to lead the pre-match clap-along, and it's over to the players to prove just how much they want it.

On the bright side, we have already done the double over the side we are facing tonight.
On the other hand, we have never beaten Boro in the history of the FA Cup.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 2-2 draw (Bent, Bothroyd - Viduka, Yakubu)

Boro match set to sell out...

2006-03-21T19:41:00.000Z

A couple of days to go until what has been widely described as the most important Charlton game in years. Middlesbrough at home in the FA Cup Quarter Final.

Ever since the fixture was announced there has been much debate as to whether we would be able to sell The Valley out on the night. The way the club has gone about pushing the remaining few thousand tickets could almost be described as a form of harassment! The official site has had numerous interviews with the clubs staff, and all of them have stated at least once just how important it is that we all attend; also, the club have repeatedly mentioned a promise for preferential treatment when it comes to the ticketing arrangements for any potential semi final, or even a trip to Cardiff. Some fans have even had letters sent to their homes, and text messages from the club, despite already having bought their tickets.
It’s been almost relentless over the course of the last week, but now with a day to go, it looks like it has all been a success.

I have just called the ticket office for an update on how well the sales were going, (it took 10 minutes on hold at 10p a minute), and I was told that there are only 200 seats left on sale in the home areas.
The bloke I was speaking to also claimed that they were expecting some tickets back from Middlesbrough tomorrow, so some home fans will be able to pay on the gate tomorrow night. Boro’s official site claimed that they were allocated 3350 tickets for the match, and most estimates seem to be that they have sold a shade under 2,000 of them. I was unable to confirm that with Middlesbrough because their ticket office closed at 5pm, but if we take that as the correct number, it will leave somewhere around 1,000 tickets for sale on the door.

I would imagine that most it not all Charlton fans planning to attend will already have their tickets now. Seeing as the game is on the telly, and that most of the tickets have been sold, I don’t imagine that too many fans will be turning up on the night to scrap over the remaining 1,000 seats. My estimate for the attendance is 26,685 and I don’t think that is too shabby at all. Even the Massive’s had 10,000 seats left spare for their match against the Hammers last night.

Anyway, the clubs battle to get bums on seats looks like it has been a success, but I wonder how far short of capacity we would have been without all of the propaganda. Is there really a fan out there who had decided not to go, but was persuaded to buy a ticket only because of the desperate please made by Varney, Peacock, Kishishev, and Curbishley ? I rather doubt it.

Lets just hope that the team's performance lives up to the hype that the club have built for it.

-------

Update - Just spoke to the Boro ticket office. As of now, they have only sold 1400, they have 300 left to sell, and the rest have been returned to Charlton for sale on the night.

Unplayable

2006-03-19T00:19:00.000Z

“Dennis Rommedahl makes his first appearance since fracturing his rib in January - and Jerome Thomas returns to the starting line-up against his former club as Alan Curbishley reverts back to the 4-5-2 system that served him so well earlier this season.” The Official Site

So that’s how we managed to win so many away games earlier on in the season, we had 12 players!
Well someone at Highbury obviously got wise to the plan before kick off, only 11 eventually took to the field, and promptly got hammered by an ‘unplayable’ Arsenal.

We started with 2 wingers for the first time in ages, but to be honest, Arsenal aren’t the sort of opponents to play that kind of formation against. We would have done better with players in the side who can tackle a little bit more. Wingers are outlets but you need to have the ball before you can utilise them, and getting the ball off of today’s opponents is often difficult when they are in full flight.
I have a feeling that Curbishley will now drop Rommedahl again next week, citing the old ‘we tried it and it didn’t work’ chestnut. It seems to me like he has engineered himself the perfect excuse just because he doesn’t want to accommodate two wingers in the same side at the moment. Hopefully he will prove me wrong with his team selection vs Boro, but for some reason I don’t hold out much hope.

From the sound of it today, 3-0 was a bit flattering towards us so there can certainly be no complaints regarding the result. It’s one thing conceding 3 at Goodison Park, it’s another thing entirely when you concede 3 to Arsenal at Highbury. They are just such a superb team when they get going. Such fluidity, fluency, grace, and power when they attack, sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say to a team “that is how football is supposed to be played”.
I’m proud of Charlton, and proud of my history as a Charlton fan, but I’ve often found myself wondering what it must be like to have a team like Arsenal to follow around the country every week. Not just for the fact that they win more often than we do, but just because the football they play is almost a joy to watch at times. Even when they lose, you know that you’re going to see them trying to play the right way. On the deck, slick accurate passing, and done at a speed which can just be devastating.

Ah well, at least the players can take comfort from the fact that they wont have to play there again.

Just as a side note following on from the telling off we received from Peter Varney earlier this week; Wyn Grant mentioned a letter he received today from the club stating how the club needs our support for the Cup game on Thursday, and that there are still 6,300 tickets remaining. Well, I got the same letter as well, despite the fact that I have already bought my ticket for the game. Surely the club could have checked their database to see who has and hasn’t already purchased tickets before they send out a letter designed to campaign for support…

Arsenal Preview

2006-03-17T18:28:00.000Z

In all of our years in the football league, we have only visited the marble halls of Highbury 24 times, and the 25th visit tomorrow will be our last.

I made my first visit to Highbury before I even saw a game at The Valley. My first ever memory of live football was standing behind the goal with my old man as Arsenal played Man Utd. I don't recall anything about the game - I was so young. All I remember was that there was a really big clock at one end of the ground, and I was transfixed by it, probably missing most of the game whilst in awe of the minute hand clicking slowly round.

I have a real thing about football stadia, and I actually feel quite upset that we will never play at the famous old ground again. Alright, more often than not we lose whenever we go there, but there was always the odd magical day like the 0-0 draw we ground out as a newly promoted club, or Euell flicking the fourth into the net and then running towards us in the Clock End. Maybe I'm being a tart, but it's kind of sad that a lot of young football fans will never get to see a game at Highbury.
I feel the same about the old Wembley too; It may have been an awful ground, coming apart at the seams almost, yet it remains the scene of our 2 greatest triumphs, and memories seemed to echo around that concrete saucer even when there were no fans inside it. There was a gravitas about the place, a sense of history and tradition. Although both new stadiums are going to be superb, some of the charm is going to be lost. It's as simple as that.

With regards to the game, I've tried to be optimistic recently, but even an eternal optimist will have trouble in honestly believing we are capable of a victory in this match. The best we can truly hope for is a draw, and a goalless one at that. If Arsenal get their noses in front with the talent that they have in their side, the champagne football tends to flow, and teams end up succumbing to them without so much as a whimper. We are not made of as stern a stuff at the moment as we have been on recent visits, and I fear what will happen to us if an early goal or two are scored. The statistics back up this paragraph; Arsenal haven't dropped a point in any of the 13 games in which they have scored the first goal so far this season.

Robin van Persie was rumoured to be making his comeback in this match, but the latest news from BBC Sport seems to suggest that he just might miss out. Adebayor and Henry will likely continue their partnership up front.
Cole, Clichy, and Cygan (unfortunately) are ruled out.

From our point of view, Marcus Bent has been named in the squad but will need a late test in order to prove his fitness. The last two games he has played have seen him limp off during the second half. I don't think we should risk him here. He is obviously lacking match practice, so lets not worsen his injury. He can't play against Boro, so lets give him a full week or so to recuperate and train in order to get his fitness levels back up ahead of our run-in. Rommedahl and Sorondo are also back in the squad, but again are unlikely to make the bench.

Congratulations to anyone who got a ticket for this one. Make sure you get a few pictures. Your kids might ask you what it was like to watch a football match at Highbury one day...

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 3 - 0 defeat (Adebayor, Henry 2)

The points-gap table

2006-03-16T22:50:00.000Z

75. Chelsea
74.
73.
72.
71.
70.
69.
68.
67.
66.
65.
64.
63.
62.
61.
60. Man Utd
59.
58. Liverpool
57.
56.
55.
54.
53.
52.
51.
50.
49. Tottenham
48.
47. Arsenal
46. Blackburn
45. Bolton
44.
43. Wigan
42. West Ham
41.
40. Man City, Everton
39. Newcastle, Charlton
38.
37.
36.
35.
34. Aston Villa, Middlesbrough
33.
32. Fulham
31.
30.
29.
28.
27. West Brom
26.
25.
24. Birmingham
23.
22.
21. Portsmouth
20.
19.
18.
17.
16.
15.
14.
13.
12.
11.
10. Sunderland

Alright, it might not look like the prettiest thing in the world, but it’s an interesting way of looking at The Premiership Table.
A different way of showing how far behind Sunderland are, how far ahead Chelsea are, and how much of a muchness the rest of the league is.

Chelsea are going to win it (sticking my neck out a bit there), the bottom three are going down, so therefore the only real fireworks are going to come in the race for Europe.
From Arsenal to Charlton in the points gap table, there are 9 teams within 8 points of each other; and with only 9 games to go (27 points to play for) I don’t see why we can’t make up 7 points on Blackburn or 6 points on Bolton and possibly sneak into the final UEFA Cup spot. I’m not sure about the ruling, but Boro made the quarter finals last night, and if they were to go on and win the thing, the Premiership might even be allocated an extra spot in next years competition.

Looking at our fixtures yet to come with an overly optimistic view, you could argue that we could win all of those home games, and possibly Fulham and West Ham away, which would give us 18 points from our last 9 games, and that may well be enough to push us right into the European reckoning.
Of course, football can never be predicted like that, and I have no idea who the teams above us still have to face, but with so many Addicks claiming that the season will be as good as dead if we lose to Boro, it made me feel a little better about the last 9 games.

Plus we have an advantage over all of the other sides in that mid-table quagmire. We specialise in run-ins.

England Candidates

2006-03-15T14:10:00.000Z

I haven’t really paid to much attention to the recent news regarding Curbishley meeting with the England bigwig’s for an informal interview, but seeing as how I am stuck for a story to write today, I might as well give my opinions on the available candidates, and how I think they would do as England boss.

Sam Allardyce –

I’ve just never liked the man. In Premiership terms, no one can dispute the superb job he has done at Bolton, but he lacks experience of managing in Europe, and he also lacks experience in managing the egos of top class players. Bolton have a quite similar wage structure to ourselves, and although the players at The Reebok earn average salaries in footballing terms, I’m not sure that Sam would be able to motivate players at the next wage bracket up.
People say that playing for England should be motivation in itself for those fortunate enough to wear the shirt, and while a World Cup is around the corner that may well be the case, but when the job becomes available, the World Cup will have already come and gone. Would the likes of Beckham, Gerrard, and Rooney respond well to Allardyce’s strangulating safety-first style of football when the upcoming fixture is an International friendly against Bulgaria?

Stuart Pearce –

Even though he is even less experienced than Allardyce in the managerial achievement stakes, I would consider Stuart to be a better candidate, and one who would have more public appeal. Everyone remembers the courage and passion he displayed for the Thee Lions during Euro ’96, and you truly got the feeling that it meant as much to him as it did to you or I when he put that penalty away.
There is a certain level of public support for Stuart purely because of that passion. The average football fan likes him, and that gives him a certain advantage over Big Sam.
I see Stuart as an outstanding young manager who has a huge future managing in both the Premiership and International football worlds, but in my opinion it’s too soon for him to be taking up the poisoned chalice. If he were to get the job and fail, his stock would be permanently lowered. I’m certain that he will take the job one day, but not yet.

Steve McLaren –

Personally I think it’s a travesty that Steve is still the manager of Middlesbrough, and it’s only because of the seemingly unending patience of Steve Gibson that he is. I think that with the amount of money the man has had to spend, any other Premiership chairman would have shown him the door long ago.
It’s a mystery to me why he has been involved with England for so long without ever really achieving anything domestically. If he gets the job, I shall emigrate.

Martin O’Neill –

No doubts here about the man’s ability to man-manage and motivate. A manager who is respected by all in the football world, and an intelligent thinker about the game. Martin took Leicester City from relative obscurity to mid table Premiership security, and also masterminded their way to a major trophy. When given his chance at a bigger club, he delivered trophies there as well.
His availability to take the job depends very much on the condition of his wife Geraldine. Martin left the Celtic hot seat because she was still receiving treatment for cancer. It is believed that her response to the treatment has been positive, and Martin is said to now be considering a move back into football management.
Perhaps the England job will be perfect for him. Because of the length of time between International fixtures, he won’t have the day-to-day hands on responsibilities of a club manager, and that will allow him to still spend a reasonable quantity of his time at home with his wife. This is an appointment I would be happy with.

Alan Curbishley –

There seems to be a genuine 50/50 split between people who think Curbs could do the job, and those who think that he is just too tactically naïve.
My personal opinion is that although Curbishley is a hero to all of us at The Valley, he wouldn’t have what it takes to manage England.
Similar to Sam Allardyce, Curbs has little experience in dealing with players of England calibre, and there have been occasions during his tenure at Charlton where his man-management and motivational abilities have also been called into question. The likes of Euell, Jeffers, and even Rommedahl to an extent will testify that if you get on the wrong side of Alan, you will find yourselves out in the cold. England could not afford a similar situation between its manager and the likes of Rooney or Gerrard.
Alan has carte blanche at The Valley. Even if the fans or the board disagree with his decisions, we respect them, because of who he is and what he has done for us. I don’t think Alan would react well to the national press challenging and cross examining every management decision he makes, purely because he is just not used to that level of scrutiny and exposure. The situation with the Barwick meeting last week is almost proof of that. Curbs publicly stated that he was disappointed that the news about the meeting came out. Well, that is something he would have to get used to if he truly wants to take the job.

The national perception of Curbishley is decent enough. Everyone knows what an incredible job he has done with Charlton, but, and I’m sorry to say it; we are viewed by the rest of the Premiership as a team which plays boring football.
The FA cannot allow the England team to be viewed by the public in similar light. Curbishley is a star, but with the greatest respect to the man, I just don’t think that he’s a bright enough star for England.

These aren’t the only candidates of course. The likes of Hiddink, Hitzfeld, and Scolari have also been mooted, but to be frank, I don’t know enough about them to offer even a semi-relevant opinion.
I would prefer the England job to be held by an Englishman in truth, but I’m not overly adverse to another foreign manager taking the post. Eriksson has made that scenario much easier to digest and accept. When Sven took the position in 2001, all of the talk was about the fact that he wasn’t English. A few years down the line, and nationality doesn’t come into it anymore. No one talks about his origins; he is just the England manager.
This time around though, it’s a little different from previous changes in managerial staff. When Taylor left, we wanted Venables, when Venables left, we wanted Hoddle, then Keegan, then Eriksson, etc. This time, there is no truly outstanding candidate, and that worries me a little. Perhaps we will wish that we hadn’t forced Eriksson out in the first place. After all, he has been the most successful England manager in our recent history.

Bent puts Boro to the sword

2006-03-12T22:17:00.000Z

Curbishley’s tactical acumen has been called into question on more than one occasion this season, and although the first half today wasn’t much of a ‘come and get me’ plea to those watching at Soho Square, at least he made the changes at half time which turned a relative snorefest into another three points.

Late goals they may have been, but who cares about that? Darren Bent once again underlined just how much he is worth to us, and the abilities of the man were accentuated by the difference between his two finishes this afternoon. The first was a superb header where he showed great desire and hunger to beat Pogatetz to the ball, whilst the second was all about the timing of his run, arriving late in the box, and a simple finish when unmarked. Superb.

Honourable mentions also go to Myhre, who made a couple of excellent stops, and to Thomas, who once again showed why he has to be given a starting place when fully fit. I apologise to one and all if I am starting to sound like a broken record, but we just look a much more potent attacking threat when we have orthodox wingers in the side. Jerome has that ability to run with the ball, beat players, and draw free kicks in dangerous positions. We need to get both him and Rommedahl fit again.

Today’s win was important for a number of reasons. Firstly, we have now opened up a 6-point gap between ourselves and the bottom 6, whereas if we had lost this afternoon, Boro would have leapfrogged us and our position would seem far more precarious. Also, there is the psychological factor to consider ahead of the Cup game. It was nice to demoralise our opponents with such a late winner, and hopefully the fact that we did it will still be fresh in their minds when they come back to the Valley on the 23rd. Lastly, it keeps the run of home results intact, and that can only bode well for the confidence of a squad which has had more than a few knocks recently.

I’ve just been looking through our Valley form since Boxing Day, and the stats are shaping up quite nicely. We’re unbeaten, we’ve won 6 out of the 8 matches that we have played in SE7, and we have conceded only 3 goals in the process, two of which were in the FA Cup. The club have even taken to calling it ‘Fortress Valley’ again.

The facts and figures make great reading, and the players must know that although the performances they’ve turned in haven’t been brilliant, they have still been getting the results.
I can't remember which of the pundits claimed that picking up points without playing well is the hallmark of Champions, but whoever he was, we're proving him wrong!

Middlesbrough Preview

2006-03-11T21:20:00.000Z

This weekend we welcome Middlesbrough to the Valley for the first of two meetings within 11 days.

The average Addick would argue that the league game is nowhere near as important as the Cup encounter (and they'd be right), but if we were to win this one in style we could no doubt carry a psychological advantage into the crunch match on the 23rd.

Boro have been far from convincing throughout much of this season, but actually arrive in SE7 in decent form. Since the embarrassing 0-4 home defeat to Aston Villa, the club have won 6 of their last 7 games, and conceded only 2 goals in the process. A lack of genuine pace up front is made up for by the physical strength and presence offered by Viduka, Hasselbaink and Yakubu, the trio have plundered no fewer than 40 goals between them so far this season.

Their team news shows that Boateng faces a late test after turning an ankle in midweek, but other than that they are likely to remain unchanged from the side that beat AS Roma at The Riverside on Wednesday. I watched a repeat of that match, and it was probably the most boring game of football I have seen all year, including our home 0-0 draw with Villa. Yes, at least there was a goal in this game, but Boro somehow manage to remain boring even while they are putting the ball in the net. I don't know how they do it, but they seem to have an almost Boltonesque way of strangling all life from football matches. Strange really, when you consider the amount of undoubted talent that they have in their side.

Team news for us shows Marcus Bent facing a late test on the hamstring injury which forced him off last weekend, and perhaps (hopefully) Jason Euell pushing for a starting place ahead of Matt Holland in the centre of midfield. Rommedahl looks set to miss out again after his comeback match in midweek was called off.

Over the course of the Premiership years, more than half of the games we have played against the Teesiders have ended all square, but we've managed to score 5 goals in our last 2 games against them, so perhaps our strikers will be able to find their shooting boots again tomorrow.

After 3 consecutive 0-0 draws in the league, it's about time that we tried to play a little more expansively again. Especially at The Valley.

Cynic Athletic's Prediction - 2-1 Win (Bent, Euell - Yakubu)

Amarill-No

2006-03-10T21:11:00.000Z

Interesting piece in the Daily Mail today regarding the topical subject of ‘Amarillo’

It seems that in this particular case, a woman who played the track repeatedly into the Wiltshire night air was hit with as Asbo, a £500 fine, and then had the offending stereo equipment seized by the local council.
All of this because the track was audible in the house next door, and the neighbour whose delicate ears had been assailed by the racket, decided to complain to the environmental health department at her local authority.

So, there you have it, a precedent has been set.
We now have legal backing for our attempts to stop the club from making us look stupid on national television, and we can stop Tony Christie’s impromptu gig before it starts with a few well-placed phone calls to Greenwich Council. Surely the din will be heard in the local streets, just claim to be a local resident of either Harvey Gardens or Charlton Lane when you call.

Seriously though, what are we thinking with this. You can tell by the reaction of supporters on cafcfans and from the aftermath of Inspector Sand’s post on All Quiet, we just don’t want it to happen. Surely it’s not too late to listen to the views of the fans and cancel it?

I’m of the opinion that this kind of pre-match entertainment should be banned from football. We are going to see a highly charged emotional sporting event, (an event which you could argue is the clubs biggest game in years), and there is no way we need the “velvet tongued vocalist” to raise our passions ahead of kick off. We should all be up for it anyway, why would we need his ludicrous clap along routine?

The game is on a Thursday night. Everyone is going to be coming straight from work, and it’s highly likely that the ground won't even be half full when Christie takes to the microphone. Just what is the point?
If you want to get passion and vocal support from the fans, bring out the likes of Hunt, Mendonca, Robinson, Kinsella and Brown before kick off, and then once the game starts, make sure that the teams performance is worthy of the support they are craving from us.

Midfield options diminishing

2006-03-07T17:46:00.000Z

Just a quick post regarding Smertin.

Although he has never really belonged to us I will still be sorry to lose him, especially now that the midfield options available at the club are looking so Spartan.
The partnership he formed with Murphy earlier this season was the best we have had in the engine room for at least a couple of years, and although he hasn't quite been the same player since Danny left; I always feel more comfortable when he is in the middle than either Hughes or Holland.

At the start of the season the partnership with Murphy was clearly the first choice. Now, if Smertin goes, both of those players will have left the club within 5 weeks of each other, and in both cases Charlton have been powerless to sign replacements. With both Thomas and Rommedahl seemingly unable to stay fit this term, the club is left with 3 other midfielders to choose from. Marcus Bent will be able to drop back to fill one of the midfield berths, but he is banned for our FA Cup adventure, so if we can't get the wingers fit we are going to be in serious trouble by the time the quarter final comes around.

Lokomotiv president Valeri Filatov commented earlier in the week that "We're interested in signing Alexei Smertin, but only on certain terms. I've talked with Smertin and his agent but we haven't had talks with Charlton, so it's all still open to question". Why on Earth would he need to have talks with Charlton? We don't even own the player. Does this mean that we could veto any deal between Chelsea and Lokomotiv because the player is contracted to play for us on loan for the rest of the season? I was under the impression that there was no recall clause in this loan deal, just a clause to state that we couldn't field the player against Chelsea.
Curbs' seems resigned to losing Smertin anyway, and he doesn't normally comment on stories like this unless they are virtually done and dusted. However, as I write this the time is marching on towards 6pm, and apparently the Russian transfer window closes at midnight...

Displaying my own ignorance, I didn't even realise that players could still be sold to other countries while our own transfer window is closed. Obviously they can in the case of Russian clubs, because Hibs are currently involved in a similar situation with their own player Gary O'Connor, who is also on his way to Lokomotiv Moscow after apparently walking out on the SPL side.

I'm off for a night shift now. When I return home tomorrow morning I expect to find that Smertin is no longer a Charlton player. Whatever you think of the man's ability, there can be no denying that certain areas of our squad will look incredibly threadbare if he goes. In my opinion, we would be one serious injury away from a crisis.

Premiership Projections

2006-03-06T17:06:00.000Z

I found a nice little tool on the BBC website this afternoon.

It allows you to predict every result in the Premiership from now until the end of the season, and then update the league table to reflect your predictions. If you have 10 minutes spare then it's definitely worth doing.

For some reason the table I've ended up with still doesn't show as being entirely complete, (Bolton have only played 36 games for example) but I have checked through all of the boxes and I definitely haven't missed out any of the results, so perhaps the BBC haven't taken into account some of the fixtures which have been moved to Sunday or Monday for TV coverage, or maybe there are a couple of fixtures still TBA.

My table shows that the last day saw West Brom once again defy the odds and perform another last gasp escape from relegation. Their 0-0 draw away at Goodison Park mean that they edge out of the bottom three at the expense of Midlands rival and all round 'massive club' Birmingham City, whose 2-0 defeat at The Reebok consigns them to CCC, and probably Steve Bruce to the sack.

Chelsea walked away with the title, Arsenal nipped in to take the final Champions League place, while Tottenham managed to book themselves a slot in next seasons UEFA Cup. My table shows that West Ham also need to dust off their passports, but bear in mind that Bolton still have an inexplicable 2 games in hand. Lets just say that they win one and lose one, thus leapfrogging The Hammers into Europe.

As for Charlton, 15 points from our final 10 games see us finishing in 11th place, 2 places above where we currently sit in the real League Table. Hopefully, the reason that we lost 3-0 at Old Trafford on the final day was because we rested all of our best players in preparation for next weeks FA Cup Final...

Here’s the link to the Prediction page. Give it a go, and feel free to add a comment below detailing where Charlton finished in your own final League Table.

Point Proved at Anfield

2006-03-05T07:02:00.000Z

There won't be many teams in the Premiership this season that will claim four points from their 2 games against the European Champions, but Charlton have done just that, and I was extremely impressed by the calibre of our defending yesterday.
Because Liverpool dominated possession and had a large number of attempts on goal, neutrals will claim that they deserved to win the game, but I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Skilled defending is as much a part of football as skilled attacking, and our point was fully deserved for what was an outstanding defensive performance against a side who boast an impressive home record so far this term.

Spector (who I have often criticised on this page) had the best game I have seen him play for us, Hreidarsson was consistently in the right place at the right time, Perry dealt well with Crouch, and Young was his usual dependant self. Bodies were thrown in the path of incoming strikes at goal, and such commitment from the back four was refreshing to see, especially considering the way in which we have surrendered without even a whimper in so many other away trips this season.
When Liverpool did manage to find their way through our defence, they found Man of the Match Thomas Myhre in sparkling form. Three times in the first half he made excellent saves; twice from Djibril Cisse, and once when he flung himself to his left to divert a mis-hit Hreidarsson clearance wide of the post.

Perhaps the reason the defence stood out so much today was because the midfield didn't stand out at all. I don't know if I suffer from a selective blindness, but I never notice Hughes and Holland when they play. Once again today I felt that the game just passed them by, Gerrard broke through the middle numerous times and neither of them were anywhere to be seen. Kishishev was wasted out on the wing, and Ambrose was also guilty of not affording enough protection to Spector at left back.
Darren Bent suffered a similar fate to that which he suffered on the same pitch for England earlier this week. He was not involved in the game at all, starved of service, and totally isolated up front on his own. Both Bothroyd and Euell came off of the bench midway through the second half and acquitted themselves reasonably well though. There was one occasion where Bothroyd lost the ball, and then slunk away towards the halfway line when he should really have been trying to win the ball back, but other than that he did ok.

As the game progressed the Anfield crowd started to get frustrated with their side, and the murmurs of discontent from the terraces must have served to further strengthen our resolve. The post match stats show that Liverpool had 21 attempts on goal to our 3, but in truth I never really felt in too much danger. Indeed, we could have even nicked it at the end through either Jason Euell, who lacked composure in front of goal, and Spector who blazed over when in a decent shooting position.
It would have perhaps been harsh on Liverpool if they had lost the game, but there is clearly an issue with their strikers which they need to address. Fowler is not feared by Premiership defences anymore, Crouch hasn't scored for Liverpool in 2006, Cisse must surely be on his way out of Anfield, and Morientes just hasn't lived up to his billing.

We haven't scored ourselves in three games either, but to be honest I'm not too concerned about that. Our primary objective recently has been to halt the run of away defeats, and we have done that with two 0-0 draws, both obtained from grounds where I really didn't think we were capable of getting them.
I'm confident that both goals, and more attractive football will come once we get the likes of Thomas, Rommedahl, and even Marcus Bent back to full fitness. The latter is obviously struggling, he was pulled off today for the second game running nursing a hamstring injury.

So, Middlesbrough at home are next up for Charlton in an FA Cup dress rehearsal at the Valley next Sunday. It's long been a cliché that League results are much more important than a Cup run, but given our current middle of the road league position, I wonder how many Addicks would swap a home reverse next weekend in exchange for a victory in the Quarter Final.

I certainly would.

Liverpool Preview

2006-03-03T15:42:00.000Z

A tough task looms for the Addicks this weekend, away to the European Champions. A team who we recently disposed of 2-0 in SE7, but are likely to be an entirely different proposition on their own patch.

Liverpool’s home record this season is second only to Chelsea’s. They have taken 35 points out of the 42 available so far this season at Anfield, and they have conceded an average of only 0.3 goals per game during that run. The only team to go to Anfield and record a maximum was Chelsea, and if you discount the 4 goals they plundered that day, Liverpool’s defensive record at home would read played 13, conceded 1. Possibly the best defensive statistics I have ever seen from a side at this stage in a Premiership season.

A lot of things have to go perfectly if we are to record a double over The Reds. Gerrard will have to be marshalled well, the crowd will have to be frustrated, we cannot give away free kicks around the edge of our box, and we must overcome an absolutely bewildering jinx which seems to suggest that we are simply incapable of winning games in the North West of England. We have lost on 9 of the last 10 visits to this region of the country.

Darren Bent is set to make his second appearance at Anfield within 4 days. If we had been told last week that Bent would score during the course of one of these 2 appearances, I think that most real Addicks would join me in hoping that the goal was scored in a Charlton shirt rather than an England shirt. Hopefully he has been saving his Anfield goals for this encounter.

Our official website claims that Curbishley is likely to revert to a 4-5-1 formation, thus leaving our newly capped hitman up front alone this weekend. Presumably Marcus Bent will drop back to the right side of midfield, and the other midfield positions will remain unchanged unless Smertin can convince Curbishley that he has sufficiently recovered from his knee injury.
Since Spector replaced Powell at left back we have kept three clean sheets in 4 games, so he looks set to continue alongside Perry, Hreidarsson, and Young in the Addicks rearguard, and the latter of those defenders will have a job on his hands neutralising a resurgent Harry Kewell. He is the main source of crosses into the box, and with a player like Peter Crouch waiting in the middle it’s critical that Young manages to stay close to Kewell and prevent him swinging balls over.

Personally I would like to see us go 4-4-2 rather than 4-5-1. We all saw first hand how isolated Bent was up front on Wednesday, and the same thing will happen again tomorrow unless he has someone alongside him to win his knockdowns and anticipate his movement off the ball.
It’s likely that we will be under heavy pressure for long periods of this game, so the defence will need time to recuperate when they do manage to clear our lines. Up front alone, Bent is limited as to how well he can hold the ball up, and I fear that without support we will be unable to give our defence the time they need to reorganise themselves between Liverpool attacks.

The only real Liverpool team news is that both Carragher and Fowler return to the squad after missing the home game with Manchester City, and Finnan is due a late fitness test on the neck injury which stopped him representing his country in midweek. Morientes and Crouch look set to continue up front.

It’s been a good while since we recorded a famous away result in the league. The 1-1 draw against Chelsea was an excellent point of course, but it wasn’t a victory. I can’t remember the last time we recorded an away win against a side in the Premiership’s top three.
Live on Prem Plus tomorrow we have a chance to spring a major surprise, and a result of any kind would serve as a huge confidence booster going into the last 10 games. It’s well documented how adamant the squad are that they aren’t going to suffer the usual end-of-season slump, this is an ideal chance to prove just how committed we are to a big finale.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 1-0 Defeat (Crouch)

"England have gone Bent" - Cheers Lineker.

2006-03-01T22:13:00.000Z

Well it’s half time at Anfield as I write this and Darren Bent’s debut hasn’t gone quite the way he planned it thus far.

What he has done, he has done well, but the fact remains that it took him seventeen and a half minutes to get his first touch of the ball, and he only had a few brief glimpses of action in the remainder of the half. Not that it was his own fault however, as England's poor showing in the first period didn't do much to help his cause.

I’ll admit, I ended up watching Darren’s movement rather than the match in its entirety, and for the most part he was left plowing a lone furrow up front. The supply to the forwards was almost nonexistent, and because of that Rooney kept having to drop deeper in order to look for possession, leaving Darren extremely isolated up top.

When England attack it’s rare that they play with a long ball over the back four. They are much more the sort of side that will get the ball wide and attempt to swing in a killer ball; or try to pick teams off through slick passing through the defence. I’m not sure whether Bent will be out again for the second half, but if he is, he needs to come to the ball more, demand possession, and then turn and run with it. The players around him are good enough to create space via intelligent runs, and they will make themselves available to lay the ball off to. Darren would then see himself come more into the game.
He did however manage a decent effort on goal 5 minutes before the break. Turning well and firing a snap shot wide of the far post. When I saw the replay I actually thought that the shot got a slight deflection off of the defender, but a goal kick as given and the chance was gone.

Lineker has just announced that Bent will indeed be out for the start of the second half, so I’ll get back to the game, and continue this report at full time.

----------

With Crouch coming on not long after the break I was hopeful that Bent would be able to feed off of his knock downs and create more of an impact than he did in the first 45; but it just wasn’t his night. He continued to get into promising positions (and was unlucky to be flagged offside on a couple of occasions), but ultimately it was Crouch himself who was in prime position when the chance came. Joe Cole’s late winner means England turned their half time deficit around, and that can only be good for squad morale as the World Cup approaches.

I don’t think Darren will be too pessimistic about his chances of going to the Germany on the strength of this showing. Granted, things didn’t break for him in front of goal on the night, but he was constantly jostling for position and creating space with intuitive runs off of the ball; and the crowd certainly showed their appreciation for his work rate when he left the field on 80 minutes to be replaced by his main rival Jermain Defoe.

This was the last friendly to be played before the squad is announced, and if Darren misses out I will consider him extremely unlucky.
As previously stated, Defoe is his main rival for the final strikers seat on the plane, and he was totally ineffective for the duration of his 10-minute cameo.

Bent would have earned more ‘credits’ on the pitch than Defoe did this evening, and provided that both players have acquitted themselves well in training all week, the battle between the two could well boil down to a straight shootout in the remaining 11 Premiership games. Whoever is in the best form when June approaches, wins.

Bent still guessing his fate?

2006-02-28T15:25:00.000Z

The headline on the BBCsport website screams "Bent poised to make England debut", and the article says "Eriksson will decide his starting line-up after training on Tuesday, but revealed Bent would play some part", however in true journalistic style, there is not one quote from the Swede in order to support the story.

The rest of the article just ignores Darren completely, and goes on to talk about Gerrard instead! Perhaps there is a quote out there somewhere that proves the headline, but I have taxed all of my usual resource sites and not found one so it looks as though Darren, just like the rest of us, will have to wait until the actual match to find out whether or not he is going to get his chance.

Sven's usual ploy is to play his strongest XI in the first half and then give fringe players a chance in the second half. My money is on Darren playing the last half hour alongside Crouch. As for the final score, I'm going for 3-1 to England; and if Bent gets on the pitch, I honestly back him to score.

With regards to the World Cup, I wrote yesterday about the possibility of Sven taking five strikers to Germany (thus virtually guaranteeing Darren a seat on the plane), rather than four (which will leave a face off between Bent and Defoe). Unfortunately I discovered an article today which seems to show that Sven is more likely to take the latter option. Here he talks about Rooney, Owen, and Crouch already being pencilled in, and then says "its up to the players to show who is going to be the fourth striker".

In other news today, Smertin has been linked to an unnamed Russian side once his loan spell with us is completed. His agent has confirmed that there has been an approach, and in the twilight of his career, I wouldn't be surprised if the Russian decides to return home.
Smertin is a player who has done ok for us this term in my opinion. He's no superstar, but I would always prefer to see him in the side than Holland; at least he can drive forwards with the ball.

I believe that Chelsea would have been willing to let him go on a free in the summer if no interest was shown from elsewhere, and I wouldn't have minded keeping him if that was the case, but now that another club has entered the fray it looks more likely that there will be a small fee involved if we do want to secure his continued services. Wages are fine, but I don't think he is worth a transfer fee at his age. I'd rather see us save the money and spend bigger on another midfielder. World Cups always herald the coming of new players into the Premiership, and I'm sure that Curbishley will be there with his notebook looking for a midfield general to snap up this summer.

Good Luck, Darren

2006-02-27T15:44:00.000Z

After making five of the last six England squads without winning a cap, Darren Bent will be hoping that lucky call up number 7 will see him make his first appearance for the national side on Wednesday night at Anfield versus Uruguay.

Sven watched 80 minutes of the Villa match at the weekend (bet he's gutted), and although he didn't see one of Darren's best performances, he will have noticed him get into two or three terrific goalscoring positions in the first half, and must have been impressed with his low drive on the half hour mark that was thwarted only by a superb Sorensen save.
Sven has watched enough of our games this year to know what Darren is capable of, and he obviously wants to get a closer look at the lad because of his appearance in the last few England squads, yet he is running out of games in which he can test how Darren would function in a side where he gets some top quality service from those around him.

In the paper today, (I cant remember which one it was), Curbishley said, "Surely this friendly on Wednesday is about looking at fringe players. Darren wont freeze at that level because he has been through the ranks with England and if he is presented with a chance then he will take it".
Surely that chance will come this time around. Owen is out with a long term injury, Ferguson wont be happy if Rooney plays a full 90, Crouch is just rubbish, and as for Defoe, well, I just don't think Sven rates him.

I'm confident that this time around Darren will get his opportunity, and he is certainly ready for it:

"Hopefully Wednesday will be the chance I need to show what I can do because I've done quite well for Charlton and feel I deserve to be there. I'm looking forward to the Uruguay match and I am definitely hoping to go to Germany.
There are so many other strikers in England capable of doing a job, but if I keep doing well hopefully Sven won't be able to ignore me. I definitely feel more comfortable than when I went away with England for the first time at the start of the season, which was quite nerve-wracking.
I take it all in my stride now, but I am sure there will be a few butterflies before kick-off. I've had loads of people asking me for tickets. There are about 20 friends and family going up to Anfield and if I do well, it will make them all very proud and happy. But I know I still have to keep doing well for Charlton to be successful."

From a couple of sentences in that article and the way in which he is talking about the game, I think that Sven may have already told him that he will be getting a run out at some point. He will certainly have the backing of most football fans. After all, he is the still the top scoring English striker in the Premiership this season with 13 goals. Thats 3 ahead of Wayne Rooney, and 5 ahead of Jermain Defoe.

His place on the plane to the World Cup will depend mainly on his form over the last 11 games, and partly on whether Sven plans to take 4 or 5 strikers to Germany.
Assuming fitness for all players, Owen and Rooney will be the first choice pairing. Crouch will get a spot because of the "plan B, " and the "give the opposition defence something different to worry about" media chestnuts; and that will leave probably one space for either Darren or Defoe to fill. There is a chance that he will take both, but either way the door is truly ajar for Darren at the moment. A good performance or two in the warm up matches, and I reckon that'll be him on the plane.

Of course, if he does play on Wednesday night we will owe Ipswich another £350,000, but Charlton will be willing to pay it. Bent has been the ray of light for us this season, and he deserves to get his reward. I only hope that if things don't go right for him, that he will react to the setback in the correct way.
Murphy went to pieces when he failed to make the England squad after all of the tabloid talk to the contrary, and while I think that Bent is made of sterner and more professional stuff than Danny, you can never forecast with total certainty how a player will react to bad news.

It will be one thing if he doesn't make the England grade, but another thing entirely if he takes the attitude that he will never be able to fulfill his ambitions while playing for our club. Lets all pray that if he does plays on Wednesday, he plays well.

Disillusioned

2006-02-26T00:55:00.000Z

I've been trying to start writing this match report for about 20 minutes so far, but very much like the game itself, I'm lacking in both imagination and motivation.

We had the better of a tepid first half, and Villa had the better of the second, but over the course of the 90 minutes a 0-0 scoreline is exactly what both sides deserved. Perhaps on balance of chances created we should have sneaked a goal, but to claim three points through such an insipid performance would have almost been embarrassing.

Darren Bent looked lively enough early on to suggest that he could get a goal if provided with the right kind of service, but the midfield is where we were really lacking today. It is also evident that although Kishishev gives his all, age isn't on his side, and effort alone isn't enough to merit his continued inclusion in a side whose goal was supposed to be European qualification this season.
You have to ask yourself if he would still be in the first XI at Newcastle, City, Bolton, West Ham, or Blackburn. These are the kind of teams that we should be aiming to finish above, and, with the greatest respect, I don't think any of those sides would have kept faith for so long with a player who tries, but simply cannot do.
I don't mean to single out Kish with that last paragraph; the same applies to Holland and Hughes aswell. Holland's passing was simply atrocious today, and Bryan Hughes was anonymous for the best part of his 62 minutes on the pitch. No surprise that both were withdrawn.

I know that we have injury problems in midfield at the moment, and I know that Curbs never intended Murphy to leave in January, but perhaps we shouldn't have our midfield options diminish to this. We haven't had a ball winning midfielder who is also capable of playing a bit since Parker left, even though players like Steve Sidwell were available cheaply last summer. We were heavily linked with him, but decided not to take the chance, signing Smertin on loan instead... We really missed the boat there, Sidwell has been superb again this season, and is currently leading Reading's relentless charge towards our league.

The squad list for the season has been finalised, I know that; but midfield is surely the area that we need to strengthen as soon as we get the chance. There is too much dead wood at the club just drifting around and collecting paychecks at the moment.
I still just cannot get that post of New York Addick's out of my head. Unthinkable as it seemed to me at the time, perhaps he was spot on. We have a massive rebuilding/reshaping job to do over the next year in my opinion, and only one asset worth any real amount of money. How else are we going to fund what needs to be funded?

Anyway, this was supposed to be a match report, so I'll get back to the match.

The only other real talking points were Marcus Bent limping off injured, Baros making an enemy out of the Covered End, and Euell's return to action in SE7.

Jason did his best to change things when he came on. He is evidently short of fitness, and although he lost the ball a couple of times in midfield, at least he tracked back and re-won it for us. I really think that he can still play a part in the side this season, plus he proved again this afternoon that he still has the knack of ghosting into the box unmarked, and the ability to score goals from centre midfield would certainly be a welcome addition to the side. Holland, Smertin and Kishishev are never going to offer the same threat.

With regards to Baros, in real-time from where I was sat it looked as though Spector clipped him from behind, but I think what swayed the referee into not giving the penalty was the laughable way in which he collapsed. If you feel contact and you go down, fine, but for God's sake Milan, try to do it with a bit of dignity. I'll wait until I see Match of the Day tomorrow before I slag him off too much, but I do believe that players reactions are always the best way to tell whether or not a decision is correct, and no other Villa players were pleading his case. I think it's safe to say that he dived.

After rereading the above, perhaps this article reads a little harshly on certain individuals, but I don't mean that to be the case. This performance was certainly not the worst that Charlton have turned in this season, I am just utterly frustrated at the moment by players who don't seem to want it half as much as I do.
The BBC called it uninspiring, the official site identified it as frustrating, Sporting Life declared it lacklustre; but Cynic Athletic will go one step further, and label it as downright boring.

Villa Preview

2006-02-24T14:25:00.000Z

Over the last few seasons Aston Villa have struggled away from home, but their form in Birmingham has managed to keep them clear of any potential relegation scraps. This season however, for the first time in a long time, Villa have earned more points on the road than they have at Villa Park, and they will arrive in SE7 on Saturday unbeaten in their last 7 away premiership encounters.

Curiously, only Chelsea and Manchester United have scored more goals on the road than The Villains, and only Chelsea and Manchester United have lost fewer away games; yet the club still only find themselves 15th in the Premiership.

Charlton on the other hand are in the middle of our best spell at home in at least 14 months, losing only 1 out of our last 8 games at The Valley, and winning 6 of them.
It's widely recognised among Addicks that although on paper those statistics make pleasant reading, the performances turned in by the team over those 8 games have not been as convincing as the results would indicate. Brentford in the cup aside, I can’t remember the last time we were truly comfortable in registering a home win.

Team news shows Smertin and El Karkouri pushing for a recall, and the latter would be making his 50th Charlton appearance if he makes the side tomorrow. Personally I would like to see Spector dropped back to the bench, Hreidarsson filling in at left back, and El Karkouri coming into the center of defence with Perry. I think that particular pairing will be best suited to coping with Villa’s attacking threat.

Their top two scorers are Luke Moore (8), and Milan Baros (9) and both look set to continue up front tomorrow. It’s a forward line of undoubted pace and potential, and they will be looking to become the first away players in 2006 to score in the Premiership at The Valley. Kevin Phillips is also in decent form, but it looks like he will have to be content with a place on the bench.

Mark Delaney has been ruled out with a knee injury, but the return of Ridgewell to the back line will ease O’Leary’s selection headache. Mellberg, Hughes, and apparent Charlton target Jlloyd Samuel will likely complete the back four charged with the task of marshalling Darren Bent, who has scored more goals on his own than Baros and Moore combined so far this season.

According to the official site Villa are bringing 2,000 fans down from Birmingham. I’ve also just spoken to our ticket office and they say that we only have single seats left, so if you haven’t got your ticket yet, you’d best get on the phone before they close at 8pm tonight. It’s unlikely that there will be any tickets available for you to pay on the day.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 1-1 Draw (Moore – M.Bent)

A point gained

2006-02-23T02:39:00.000Z

I’m a strong believer in the old adage that any away point in the premiership is a good point, and considering Newcastle’s recent return to something resembling consistency under Glenn Roeder, a 0-0 draw this evening at St James Park is a very satisfactory return for us.

I can’t comment too much on the actual match because I was at work till midnight tonight, restricted to text updates from friends in the ground for the whole 90 minutes; and I still haven’t seen the highlights. From what I read though we were lucky to still be level at the break, but as the match wore on we came more and more into it, and could have even nicked it at the death.
Still, the point gained this evening keeps us ahead of Newcastle in the table, and it brings our away form into line with our home form this season. 17 points at The Valley, 17 points on the road.

I’ve just been looking through our fixture list, and in my opinion the six home games we have left this year are all winnable. Teams still to visit the Valley this term are Aston Villa, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Everton, Portsmouth, and Blackburn.
Over the last couple of months we have managed to pick up points at The Valley without playing particularly well (the Birmingham and West Ham results spring to mind), if we can turn on a bit of style over the coming weeks in SE7, I see no reason why we can’t make a late charge up the table.

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As a side note, I managed to avoid the Chelsea result throughout my late shift, and have just watched the rerun on Sky.
Messi’s simulation antics aside, Barcelona were superb tonight. There is nothing better than watching such a fluent and coherent attacking force when they are on form, and I found myself willing them on to win this evening even though they were playing English representatives in the Champions League.
The second half performance from the Catalan giants was just awesome. I love watching good football, whoever is playing it, and I just feel that they deserve an honourable mention this evening for their display at a ground (and on a pitch) where good football is always difficult to produce.

Newcastle Preview

2006-02-22T12:42:00.000Z

Incredible really that it has been 25 months since Scott Parker left Charlton, and yet tonight will be the first time that he takes to the field against us. A combination of being out of favour, bad injuries at Chelsea, and rearranged matches have all contributed to Parker’s long awaited ‘reunion’ with the fans of the club who made him the player he is today.
The £10million we received for him made the blow of losing him less difficult to swallow, but it is widely recognised among Addicks that we have never replaced Scott with an equally talented midfielder, and our team hasn’t quite been the same since he departed.

I’m curious as to the reception that he will get from our 6 travelling supporters this evening. The Charlton fans I have spoken to about the issue appear to be pretty 50/50 about whether they would cheer or boo Parker when he eventually plays in front of the Covered End again. Perhaps the fans that are making the long trip up to The Toon this evening will be a little more forgiving towards Scott than those who only see the home matches.
Yes, he left us, but he left us after providing years and years of incredible service to Charlton. A true product of our youth system, a 100% honest, combative, and talented English midfielder who was twice voted our player of the year. It was difficult to accept the way that he left, but time is a healer, and I have forgiven Scott. If I was going tonight I would definitely give him a cheer when his name is announced.

On the pitch he is going to be a lot more difficult to ignore than off it. Shearer faces a late fitness test, and if he fails that then Parker will continue to deputise as captain in his absence. It’s likely that the main job of shadowing Scott will fall to Kishishev, which means that a good performance from the Bulgarian is crucial this evening. When Parker plays, Newcastle play.

The other Newcastle player facing a late test is Kieron Dyer, whose form seems to have picked up incredibly since the departure of Souness from St James Park. If he makes the 7:45 curtain, then Chris Powell’s performance this evening will also become that little bit more important. He is never going to match Dyer for pace, so his positional sense will have to be excellent, either that, or stop the ball from getting to Dyer in the first place. He is definitely the kind of player who will sulk if things don’t go his way, and because he is still recovering from a long term lay off, he would likely be withdrawn at half time if he isn’t having a good game.

Marcus Bent will slot back in up front in place of Bothroyd, and Hughes is set to continue in midfield, meaning that Ambrose will again start on the bench against his former side.
We haven’t beaten Newcastle in our last 8 attempts, but there are a couple of feel good factors which could play a role this evening. Charlton tonight will be celebrating our 1000th top flight game, and the squad will also be buoyed by the FA Cup quarter final draw from earlier this week.

Current form shows that Charlton haven’t won any of our last 8 premiership away games, while Newcastle are unbeaten in their last four home matches, and have won all three encounters since Roeder took temporary charge of the side.

Cynic Athletic’s Prediction – 2-1 defeat (Parker, Ameobi – D.Bent)

Quick note of thanks

2006-02-22T01:21:00.000Z

Just a quick note to the 5639 people who have looked at the site during its inaugural month.
Thanks for your support and comments.

Use the links tab on the right to contact me with any improvements that you think I should make in order to improve what you see, or the stories that you read on CynicAthletic.

The Price Of Empty Seats...

2006-02-21T12:39:00.000Z

There is a bit of talk around today on the Charlton web regarding whether or not we are going to be able to sell out the FA cup quarter final against Middlesbrough, and it's something I hadn't particularly give much though to. The first home quarter final in 59 years, why is there even a concern that we won't sell it out?

Fair enough the game might not look the most mouth-watering prospect to the rest of the footballing nation, but that won't have an effect on the attendance, and we aren't really concerned about what they think anyway. It's a HUGE game for us, and anyone who decides not to attend may just find that Middlesbrough ticket stubs will be useful things to have in the wallet when it comes to prioritising season ticket holders for the best seats in a hypothetical final.

Incidentally, news has been broken by the BBC this morning that the final will definitely be played in Cardiff.

None of us claim to be a massive club, but most of us would claim to be bigger than the likes of Palace, Fulham, Southampton and Leicester, none of whom I could envisage not selling out in a quarter final at home, whatever the opposition. Doesn't the fact that we are even worrying about the attendance next month prove something about the apathy of The Valley crowd? Especially when the club is seriously contemplating spending £10million on expanding the stadium.

The match will be live on TV, either Sky or the BBC, and both broadcasters will point to the fact that it's been decades since an equivalent tie at home. We are supposed to be presenting the image of a club on an upward curve, looking to achieve higher league positions and attract better players. How are we going to look if we can't sell all the tickets for such a big game?

Here are the home FA Cup attendances for the last 2 years -

> Yeovil - 22873
> Rochdale - 13995
> Leicester - 23711
> Orient - 22029
> Brentford - 22098

This gives an average home FA Cup attendance of a shade under 21,000, but that average will be a little bit off because in all 5 of the above cases, the Jimmy Seed stand was packed out, and in 3 matches, the East Stand was also partly filled with away supporters.
Perhaps it's better to look at the last 2 matches for a more accurate reflection of how highly we regard the competition. Take 5,500 (the number of away fans in both matches this season) away from the totals and we are left with the home attendance for the last 2 ties being 16, 529 and 16,598. I assume that everyone who attended the earlier rounds will also attend the quarter final, as will approximately 2,000 Middlesbrough fans, which leaves us with about 9,000 seats left to fill on the day.

Being honest, a good 3,000 of those tickets will end up being sold anyway, whether it's to part time Charlton fans who want to associate themselves with relative success, or by neutral football fans who just want to see a live FA Cup Quarter Final, so although it's a huge game, perhaps the onus is on the club itself to lower the ticketing prices, or at least keep them consistent with what we have paid so far this season in order to achieve a full house.

Anything less will leave me severely disappointed, and writing a depressing article on just how big our true core support really is.

Best Possible Outcome

2006-02-20T14:13:00.000Z

Well how about that then…

Middlesbrough at home in the FA Cup quarter final; I don’t think we could have hoped for a better draw. Looking at the teams in the hat beforehand it was evident that the top two outcomes for us were either Brum or Boro at home, incredible really that the chips have seemingly fallen in our favour once again.

The tie is to be played between the 20th and 23rd March, so the floodlights are going to be on, The Valley is going to be rocking, and we find ourselves with the best chance in decades of reaching a Cup Final, perhaps even the first final at the new Wembley (although according to reports, that is looking less and less likely).

The draw only occurred 10 minutes ago, so if you haven’t seen it:

> Charlton Vs Middlesbrough
> Villa/City Vs Bolton/West Ham
> Chelsea Vs Newcastle
> Birmingham Vs Liverpool

Assume that we beat Middlesbrough for a moment. If the other three ties go to form then City will dispose of Villa to and go on to face West Ham in my opinion. City should win that match at home, Chelsea and Liverpool should both have enough quality to get themselves through their ties, so if we can beat Boro, we will have a 33% chance of facing City or West Ham in a Cardiff semi final.
With our luck in the draw this year, would you bet against that? Obviously cup football is a lot less predictable than I’m making it sound, but there can be no doubts that of all possible results this afternoon, I don’t know if I could have picked a better one.

It’s a long way for Middlesbrough to come, the match will probably be televised, so I expect that they will only bring a maximum of 2,000 fans down in midweek.
The only person I have heard react to the draw so far from either side is Ugo Ehiogu who just gave an interview on Sky Sports News, claiming that our cup form is terrible, and that they are ecstatic with their draw as well.

Frankie Valley claims that our name is on it this year anyway, and that he didn’t care who we drew this afternoon. I’m not a great believer in the old ‘name on the trophy’ cliché, but there is definitely something in the air…

Onwards We March

2006-02-19T13:23:00.000Z

Clinical, and comfortable are words that spring to mind.

Brentford arrived at The Valley geed up by their Manager Martin Allen’s curious prose, and ready to win themselves plaudits nationwide by dumping another Premiership side out of the competition. I’ve been reading their boards all week, and they fancied their chances yesterday, make no mistake.

What won the game for us was the timing of the goals. Bent’s served to knock the stuffing out of the team and quieten the fans, whereas Bothroyd’s was just a classic sucker punch a couple of minutes before the break.
The next goal was crucial, and we got that as well. Game over.
They had a few chances over the course of the match, but with all due respect, you always got the feeling that we could rise a level if needed, and in truth, we didn’t need to get out of second gear to dispose of Brentford yesterday.
I’m not sure what all the crowd trouble was about, but I have heard conflicting reports. One Brentford fan I know on a football forum claims:

“I was right in front of it all, some Bees were banging the banners (advertising boards I presume – CynAth) as I am sure loads of people do, when some thuggish bald wan#er steward thumped a fan round the face for doing so. This incensed all Brentford fans and basically a fight broke out between the stewards and the Brentford fans, which lasted for about 20 minutes.”

Not sure about all that, but I suppose I can’t comment really. A lot of Brentford fans on GriffinPark.org are talking about complaining to the club over the treatment they received, so I’m sure the facts will become known in time…

Anyhow, onwards to round 6 then.

Fair enough, we’ve had a little bit of luck with the draw in the FA Cup so far this season. But they say that you can only beat what is put in front of you, and so far in this competition we have scored 8 goals in our three games, and won them all without needing replays. What more could we have done?

Arsenal are out, Man United are out, Chelsea play today, and barring draws, 2 other premiership sides will also exit the competition before the weekends football is done.
This draw is wide open, folks. The fact that we have been at home in the last 2 rounds isn’t relevant, on Monday at 1:30pm we once again have a 50% chance of being drawn at The Valley, and if that happens, I don’t particularly care who we face in the Quarter Finals, we are capable of beating them.
I’m sure one of the statto’s will tell me when the last home quarter final took place, but I’m certain it hasn’t been within my life time. It would be a huge occasion.

Even if we are drawn away it isn’t the end of the world. We have already beaten the Champions away in the cup this season, who else is there for us to be scared of? Over the last few seasons the ‘second’ team in the cup final (ie – not Arsenal, United, or Chelsea) has ended up with a place in Europe because of the way qualification is set up in England. We are therefore quite realistically only 2 wins away from our first ever qualification for the UEFA Cup. I haven’t been looking forward to a cup draw so much in years.

Think lucky, everyone.