Charlton Athletic (A) Match Thread

[ramboy63]

2 hours ago, TexasRam said:

Possession football like this is just boring, but so was Rowettball and so was Clement. Maybe we were just spoilt by Mac and a little bit in a few games under Lampard. 

Mac 3 anyone? 

Its a yes from me

[DarkFruitsRam7]

3 hours ago, Silko said:

I’ve just got home to see the result ... stats really don’t say much 60% possession ... 1 shot on target .... it’s all very simple we pass out from the back then don’t have the players with the skill to break down any defence at all ... a lot of delusional talk of how we will be ok ... you give me one instance this season that we have played a good game for 90 minutes ... just one ... anyone ... anyone ...  I hear nothing !!!!!

People were saying that all last season too. It happened once, against West Brom. 

[Topram]

Rooney won’t play for us

[Archied]

4 minutes ago, Topram said:

Rooney won’t play for us

He should fit right in then

[S8TY]

1 hour ago, Archied said:

Harry Potter had his invisibility cloak ,for Derby players it’s invisibility grass ,, wow ,just wow at how lack lustre these players are ,

i don’t know the answer and from his interview at the end neither does Cocu ,it does make me wonder if our time in training is spent getting the back 5 to practice passing it around without ever letting the ball get out of our own half whilst the front players sit and watch on the sidelines ,

that said it’s not easy to define what portion of our woes is down to the players and what’s down to Cocu but the one thing I can tell you is either him or the majority of them have to go cause they aren’t right for each other , for me it’s the players that edge it on being outed as this stuff has been going on long before Cocu arrived , take Martin today ,he may not have had great service but he was totaly half hearted invisible in response , Lawrence is just full of blind alleys and petulance , Holmes will not be a top level championship player ,waghorn is not a winger ,Davies is never gonna play out from the back consistently , Roos is below average ,beliek thinks he is better than he is and can stroll it losing possession wherever he likes , only Shinnie and Malone came out of it today with honour ,

we have had one good/ passionate performance all season and that was Birmingham ,I think that tells us something if we are prepared to be honest and that is that somehow for some time this club is giving its players the wrong message ,we had a brief season last year where a determined winner in lampard was at the helm with 3 very hungry young prem standard players managed to drag our lot along on their coat tails  but now it’s back to business as usual

Pretty much spot on for me ....I’m still not going down the Cocu our route because you can see glimpses of what he is trying to do ...truth is we just don’t have the players to do it ...Cocu is never going to say that or they could turn ..for what it’s worth I do think they are trying but they just can’t do it ...Roos is poor Bogle was woeful today and sleeping for first goal in behind him ...Davies cannot play out from the back ...Bielik was too slow ...Waghorn is not a wide player Lawrence flatters to deceive ...Josezfoon is a waste of space and don’t even start on Mason Bennett ...he’s league 1 at best ...Holmes is not a central midfielder either ...we need new players and 2 up top in Waghorb,Marriott ,Martin 2 from 3

also the fans today if you’re gonna duck off with 20 to go at 3 down just stay away!!! Get behind the team ...streaming away for an early trip home is just rubbish!!! But no doubt you’ll be first in the queue for tickets if we are successful and got to Wembley again ...maybe not this season but we will come good ...get behind the team is was far too quiet today ...yes we went backwards and it was hard to watch at times but I’m not having it that the players aren’t trying ...they just aren’t good enough!! But get behind the team it was embarrassing seeing streams of so called fans walking out!!! We have been through bad times before and we will come good again ....Give Cocu time .....but don’t expect a silk purse from this lot ...we are missing many pieces of this squad and team and most of these won’t be here this time next season ...but we will 

[lrm14]

I think some people here are grossly overestimating our squads ability based on getting in the playoffs last year, which if we're honest was only down to having 3 Premier League quality players on loan. There were some truly horrific performances from this squad under Lampard, especially when we were missing Mount and to a lesser degree Wilson.

The fact of the matter is this squad is serverly lacking in the creativity department, be it a midfield playmaker or a productive winger. You can look at the majority of squads in this division and in those areas in particular, they vastly outclass us. How many teams would Lawrence get into? Or Jozefzoon? Or Bennett? We're relying on performances from these players to create goals and I really don't think any of them are either consistent or good enough. On top of that, the only midfielder we have in this squad who can accurately pass over 20 yards is out injured until christmas at the very least and our best centre back is out for the entirity of his contract with us. Currently our squad is mid table at best, so I'd say we're currently only underperforming by a small amount.

To all of you questioning Cocu, any manager we've had would be struggling under his circumstances. He's had the expectations raised because our previous manager scraped the playoffs due to bringing in international quality players on loan. He had half a preseason to assess the squad, figure who could play his style and who can't based on a dodgy preseason schedule in Florida where we only managed a game against some amateurs and one half against Bristol City. He's then had that same amount of time to indentify targets and bring them in, where other clubs in the division have had a month headstart on us. It's hardly the ideal start for a manager adapting to a new country that has a completely different style of play than what he's used to.

We've been chopping and changing managers for so long that we've got this mismatch squad of players brought in by McClaren, Clement, Rowett, Pearson and Lampard who all played very different styles of football. It's no surprise we look like crap at the moment, we looked awful at times last year but fortunately the loans managed to paper over the cracks. As Cocu and Holloway said in that recent interview, it's going to take time to get the squad to buy into the new philsophy and time is what we absolutely have to give him because thankfully it's not all doom and gloom. We've got an exceptional group of youngsters coming through at the moment, in particular Knight, Sibley, Whittaker and Buchanan who all look very promising. It's imperative we have continuity under a youth promoting manager to successfully integrate them into the team, rather than getting someone new who will inevitably sign a player who'll block their path to the first 11. On top of that we've got Rooney coming in January, who's just entering the play-offs a good season at DC (admittedly the MLS but still). He's a proven winner and there's no doubt he'll be a lift to the squad, at the very least he will be a tremendous influence for the crop of youngsters coming through.

I'll say what I said about Lampard last year when a lot of people were wobbling on these forums after the annual February collapse. This club is crying out for a bit of consistency and I firmly believe eventually we'll come good, we just need to give the man incharge time to put his squad together. Once it's his team fully inducted into his philosophy around this time next year, then is the time to properly assess and critique him. Until then we just need to be patient and buckle in for the inevitable rough season that we've miraculously been putting off for a while.

[Finch]

15 minutes ago, ramboy63 said:

Its a yes from me

And for me

On 30/08/2019 at 13:57, CHCDerby said:

I can't believe some people are still talking about Tuesday's game. 

Cocu knows what he's doing, you just have to trust him. 

Same as Clement a bluffer.

[Topram]

P*ssed off again but will always support Derby had great day 

anyway Shinnie was class 

[JfR]

I think another issue today's result has reiterated, and which I think is being overlooked a bit, is quite how awful we've been at times specifically when playing away. This isn't a new thing with Cocu either, Lampard got only a singular away win in the league in 2019 and only managed to pick up 2 points more in those 10 away games than Cocu has in 5 (8 for Lampard, 6 for Cocu).

I can think of many away performances in the second half of last season that were just as abject as in the game today: the battering by Villa, losing our first local Derby in 4 years, getting matched if not outplayed by rock-bottom Ipswich, scraping a draw against Preston without a shot on target (whilst having 23 shots against us), the Blackburn loss (I recall a lot saying that was the season over at the time). Even that Bristol win was perhaps our luckiest of that entire season; 23 shots, 11 on target vs. 8 shots, 4 on target, against a side a man down for 1/3 of the game. If we'd lost you could hardly have called it an unlucky result. Even earlier in the season we were rubbish against Millwall, Rotherham and Bolton and rightly got nothing from any of them.

I actually think we've looked quite steady when playing at home so far, albeit without looking spectacular. I do think 2 wins, 3 draws, 1 loss isn't a bad return when those games included 5 teams currently in the top half, including 2 of the top 3 (who have only lost 3 times between them), a side that was only 3 points off of Premier League safety last season, and a side that was only slightly weaker than we were last season. Our away performances have been inconsistent if not outright dire, though, and I think there's a fundamental underlying issue there that needs to be resolved. 

[Jimbo Ram]

3 minutes ago, JfR said:

I think another issue today's result has reiterated, and which I think is being overlooked a bit, is quite how awful we've been at times specifically when playing away. This isn't a new thing with Cocu either, Lampard got only a singular away win in the league in 2019 and only managed to pick up 2 points more in those 10 away games than Cocu has in 5 (8 for Lampard, 6 for Cocu).

I can think of many away performances in the second half of last season that were just as abject as in the game today: the battering by Villa, losing our first local Derby in 4 years, getting matched if not outplayed by rock-bottom Ipswich, scraping a draw against Preston without a shot on target (whilst having 23 shots against us), the Blackburn loss (I recall a lot saying that was the season over at the time). Even that Bristol win was perhaps our luckiest of that entire season; 23 shots, 11 on target vs. 8 shots, 4 on target, against a side a man down for 1/3 of the game. If we'd lost you could hardly have called it an unlucky result. Even earlier in the season we were rubbish against Millwall, Rotherham and Bolton and rightly got nothing from any of them.

I actually think we've looked quite steady when playing at home so far, albeit without looking spectacular. I do think 2 wins, 3 draws, 1 loss isn't a bad return when those games included 5 teams currently in the top half, including 2 of the top 3 (who have only lost 3 times between them), a side that was only 3 points off of Premier League safety last season, and a side that was only slightly weaker than we were last season. Our away performances have been inconsistent if not outright dire, though, and I think there's a fundamental underlying issue there that needs to be resolved. 

Good point. However, I think our best performance of the season was the away win at Huddersfield and we have been pretty dire at home too....Bristol City and even Luton wasn't that great ?

[europia]

1 hour ago, Saity said:

Pretty much spot on for me ....I’m still not going down the Cocu our route because you can see glimpses of what he is trying to do ...truth is we just don’t have the players to do it

 

Yes, we just don't have the players in the squad to fit into Cocu's scheme of things. Not a time to panic, but it is a potential dilemma if he has to change a club playing culture, from grass roots. It's going to be painful and at times as frustrating as the Clough days. Also 4 yrs might not be long enough in my opinion. 

[JfR]

2 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Good point. However, I think our best performance of the season was the away win at Huddersfield and we have been pretty dire at home too....Bristol City and even Luton wasn't that great ?

Yeah, I think Huddersfield and Bristol were definitely exceptions to the rule. In retrospect, it probably would have been harder not to beat Huddersfield than to beat them with how they were playing at the time, though. I didn't think Luton was our best game either, but I think defensively it was as good of a performance as we have had. There wasn't as much creativity up front as there probably should have been, and the goals scored were definitely quite lucky, but I felt we had Luton's attack fairly well nullified and didn't really look like we were going to blow it after having a huge helping hand in going ahead. It was certainly a lot better than the game today or the game against Brentford, at least.

[DazaDunn]

What a depressing day! ?

Whilst I’m not calling for Cocu’s head, I do fail to see what he’s trying to achieve. I get that keeping the ball is good, but we fail to keep the ball. Take that along with our inability to create chances when nobody makes runs of Martin, we’ll lose majority of games. 
 

losing Keogh will remove one or two major mistakes on the pitch but it will add ten or twenty. I just want to see progression and I thought I’d seen it but it’s no good taking two steps forward to take three backwards. 

[B4ev6is]

9 hours ago, Paul71 said:

Have a good day,  hope you are feeling okay.

Well I had a good day out but apart being in pain in my whole.

[Van der MoodHoover]

6 minutes ago, B4ev6is said:

Well I had a good day out but apart being in pain in my whole.

Pain in your where b4?

[Jimbo Ram]

6 minutes ago, B4ev6is said:

Well I had a good day out but apart being in pain in my whole.

Sounds painful B4 ?

[B4ev6is]

7 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Pain in your where b4?

I neve damage in my whole body.

[Birdyabroad]

A tale of two performances for me.

On Friday night I watched the U23’s play last years Premier League 2 winners Everton and saw Bird, Knight and Sibley absolutely boss the midfield second half.

Today I watched the game thanks to the jolly old, cough, VPN and turned off after the 3rd went in.

It was just so poor, other than Shinnie, where to start. I don’t want to single anyone out, so I won’t ?

So, my thoughts are, surely it’s now time for Cocu to treat this year as a free hit.

Let’s bring Bird, Sibley and Knight into midfield, see what they can do.

Let’s bring Buchanan in at the back, he surely can’t do worse than Clarke, who makes me nervous every time he’s got the ball at his feet.

Let’s bring Mitchell-Lawson in on the left and Whittaker on the right, they surely can’t do worse than Lawrence and Waghorn.

Then lets embed Rooney in in January, again he gets a free hit, learn the pace of the championship and get the best out of him next year.

Then Cocu will have had a couple of transfer windows, hopefully get rid of the players that can’t cut it.

In the meantime, we won’t go down this year, we’ll pick up enough points at home this year and I’m reasonably certain there’s at least three teams worse than us.

There you go, jobs a goodun, fixed it for you, I claim my £250,000 consultancy fees ?

[hintonsboots]

20 minutes ago, B4ev6is said:

Well I had a good day out but apart being in pain in my whole.

 

[LincsRam]

Commented during the game at times on here about the lack of energy, I switched the match off at 3-0.

Thoughts....

1. We have just had over a week off? why did we look tired throughout?

2. What is with the crappy playing the ball across the back four as much as possible inviting pressure or this where the midfield keeps playing it back to a defender when they have space to turn and drive forward? is the intention to get the ball to Roos so he can hoof it up to Charlton to give them possession. I understand sucking the attackers in and a quick break, geez Liverpool did it for years in the 70's .... we are not Liverpool, on todays showing we are not Accrington Stanley either.

3. There was no tempo from us today, that should have changed at half time, the manager & coaching staff should have seen that & sorted it out.

4. I realise the goals at times where embarrassing but I must say the 1st & 3rd where worldies, the first one he could have hit that shot 10 times and nine times it would have gone over, real quality shooting. I will say nothing about the positioning of our defence ?

5. Every time we play a team who does a high-press we get over run, all of our players have a couple of mistakes in them so end up giving the ball away in bad positions.