Tractors leave empty handed

Nicky Balily repeated his feat against Wolves and scored from distance after only a few minutes, although this time it was from a free kick. Personally I thought that the kick was a poor one, but defended even more poorly by the Ipswich wall,but hey we need some luck. My concern though with our recent record was would we be able to hold the lead against a competent ipswich side for 78 minutes. This was a fear well founded when with 12 minutes till the break Cranie was unable to avoid putting the ball into his own net.

Wyn Grant warned us about the referee in his Championship Diary Blog. Three penalty appeals turned down only one looked dodgy, the handball appeal, which could have been construed as ball to hand, but many a referee - in fact the majority - would have given it. Bouazza booked early on for a relatively innocuous tackle whilst the ref then turned a blind eye to worse offences on both sides, Ipswich scything down Bouazza when he failed to put the ball out of play for their injured player and Charlton were in the final third, and then neither Youga or the Ipswich player getting a card of anysort when there was handbags over the scything, really Youga should have got a yellow and the Ipswich player a red.

Charlton held strong in this game for the first and last third of the game, the loss of Bailey after about 12 minutes allowed Ipswich to get into the game and Campo leading up to half time was given the freedom of the Valley and Ipswich hit the bar twice. Inexplicably Magilton took Campo off midway throught he 2nd half and really Ipswich became the epitome of impotence.

Pards had made three changes Ambrose, ZZ and Todorov came in for Holland, Sam and Gray, each of whom took their place on the bench. Holland of course was soon in action. The inclusion of these three players bodes well for the future as they added composure and skill to the team, although I felt that neither Todorov or ZZ had the required match sharpness. Ambrose, of whom I am a fan was good today, his cross for the 2nd goal was something we have been missing and his return is welcome.

Our central defensive partnership looks strong, but the flanks gives cause for concern, Kelly just seems to have regressed over the ten months since he came back from Scunnny. His over elobaration puts us at risk every time he gets the ball and his positional sense or lack of it is terrible for a professional player. Today he made three critical mistakes the third resulting in the Cranie old goal. There is not a lot Cranie could do, but overall and now we have seen him in a few games we have to ask, what does pards see in cranie that is better than what we have. Semedo came on 2nd half and looked strong going forward and solid defensively, i am hoping that he is given a chance against cardiff.

The loss of Bailey meant we did not have a midfield tackler and both Holland and ZZ were muscled off the ball frequently.


For me Ambrose shone out, he seems to have added a little pace, ZZ was a bit off the pace and I don't remember him being muscled off the ball so often in a single game last season. But overall after losing to Sheffiled and Wolves in consecutive home games plus the defeat against Palace, it was nice to see the scorboard showing a victory to the Addicks at the end, despite the best efforts of the referee.