Reminders of a glorius past

Being in the third division reminders of our glorious past come quick and fast. Its not long ago that we would be talking about our forthcoming entrance in the years FA Cup competition in January rather than our second round appearance in just over a week and it was not that long ago that Yeovil were our opponents, January 2005  to be precise, when a 3-2 victory took us through to play Leicester and leave the competition after a 1-2 defeat. In 2008 Yeovil again came from the lower leagues to play this time Championship Charlton in the League Cup this time and left with a deserved 0-1 victory. Last season we finally played at Yeovil in torrential rain, a 1-1 draw was achieved with Akpoes debut goal, the quality of which has yet to be repeated by the injury prone striker. Of the 18 man squad that day only seven players remain with the club. Last seasons affair at the Valley saw a 2-0 home victory during the dourest part of the season, the period when we lost automatic promotion..

Charlton meet Yeovil in the Rose of Denmark prior to the 3-2 FA Cup. Memories when we were divisions apart.  A youthful Adrian Speller in the foreground and me in the centre, not to mention young Portchs and Montgomery's.

Tomorrow both teams are in 2nd place, us from the top and Yeovil from the bottom. On paper and following a fantastic performance performance since Brighton at home and a five match losing streak for Yeovil, we should come out comfortable winners, but life is never so predictable and the goal fest we have recently seen has come against teams coming at us, Yeovil will sit back and look to take us on the break, the onus on us will be to break them down. In years gone past this would worry me, but with Lee Martin or Smoking Joe, Waggy and Benson there is a great movement up front which should allow us to break down their defence.

So a return of Yeovil tomorrow should see us adding another 3 points and set us up nicely for the out of form Pirates, before we return to next weeks cup game versus Luton. My team for tomorrow is

Elliot

Francis Dailly Doherty Fry

Wagstaff Semedo Racon Jackson

Benson Martin

Worner, Fortune, Sodje, Abbott, McCormack, Reid, Llera

P45 returns to the draw

Well I am predicting Audley Harrison to win tonight, so based on my Peterborough 3 Charlton 1 prediction it will be David Haye first punch first round.


On the 17th October I headlined my post “The next four games – Parkies P45” , I wrote “The key to any management role in football is managing players and if Parkinson is to survive he has to manage this lot now, he needs to get them fired up in the right way and they need to be getting results. Whether they are the best players ever to don a Charlton shirt (they are not) does not matter at this level they are capable of more than the results that they are showing currently and it is the managers job to realise this. In my opinion, Parkie has four games to generate this realisation – I hope he does.”

After the debacle at the Valley of Brighton,I could not see a point coming from the next four games and my thoughts had turned reluctantly to accepting that Friends day at the Yeovil match will be anything but friendly for Parkie if he was still here. Instead our record has been:-

League

Home

P W D L F A Pts

1 1 0 0 1 0 3

Away

3 3 0 0 12 4 9

Cup

2 1 1 0 1 0

Total

6 5 1 0 13 4 12

There is no better way to respond to the “gentleman” who came onto the pitch to berate Parkie at The Valley than a record of 6 games 5 wins and a draw, a tremendous performance by Parkie and the team.

We are no longer relying one player as we have done in the past, when Reid is seen as the key man he gets injured and Anyinsah becomes the main man, he gets injured and we still turn in a performance. Goals are coming from all players Benson and Waggie at the topof the scoring charts, but supported by Jackson, Martin, two goals today Anyinsah.

Jacksons move to the left side of midfield has given us stability on the left without the flair of Reid but a sound platform for building attacks and for finishing them off.

There are many questions asking how we turned this position round, is it the players gelling, has Parkie sitting with them and talking to them done it, has Murray kicked Parkie up the bum- we don’t know but whatever the answer is Parkie takes the majority of the credit as he deserves to, alongside his coaching team.

Compared to equivalent matches last season we now have much in credit 28 points v 22 points.

(since when did they relegate four teams from Div1)
Forgetting about the cup game, and tempting fate, we have Yeovil coming up next week and Bristol Roves, neither of whom are having their best seasons, a difficult trip away to Rochdale and then Warsaw at home. Injury and form willing we could be sitting on another 9 points by the time we go to Hartlepool in December. These up and coming four games pose a different challenge from the last four. The last four last year generated 3 points, this year they generated 12, the next four produced 12 points – expectations are high, both from history and from form. Parkie is flavour of the month now, the next month will be interesting and on top of it all we could be a game closer to Wembley and another closer to a big money 3rd round FA Cup tie. 2nd place now but more importantly lets hope 2nd place in May.

No fireworks on bonfire Saturday

Despite my concerns that we would only come away from this game with a draw, I am disappointed at todays result. A draw at Barnet means that between last weeks game with Sheffield Wednesday and Bristol Rovers on 23^rd November we would have played 8 games, sufficient to stretch a squad of our resources, especially one where our second string forward line is failing to fire.

Tuesdays Southend JPT fixture throws up a quandary in selection for Parkie. Martin will be back available, but should Parkie go for broke and look to win or should we be looking to sacrifice the JPT for the greater riches of the League.

I have a view born out of experience of the League Cup in the 80's and 90's, when a number of teams reached Wembley in the League Cup, lost but then went on to win in the FA Cup. I would like a day out in the JPT at Wembley for the experience, but more for the players experience to holdin store for a potential Play Off final. If they can get over the awe of being in the stadium in the JPT then maybe there is an advantage for the Play Off final, and before anyone else says it there are a lot of if's and quite a few minutes of football to get there. That said I would like Parkie to go for it on Tuesday, but also be sensible in his selection.

Southend will face a similar dilemma having only drawn today and wanting to return to the third tier first time of asking, whilst next weeks opponents Peterborough drew at Stockport but do not have a midweek game.

Whilst I would like to take points from The Posh, that will not be easy, however after that we have Yeovil and Bristol Rovers at home, if we do not suffer from the fatigue of allthese games then I would expect 6 points from these games and anything more will be a bonus.

The next 17 days and 5 games will put our squad, which contains a number of players with poor fitness records under considerable stress and the fitness, physio and medical team are about to earn their corn.

Shock Takeover News On Charlton Life

The official takeover thread on Charlton Life has been beset by many usurpers such as "The All New Takeover Thread", "The Official Charlton Takeover Thread (For Johnny Come Latelys)" and "Talking of takeovers", to the extent that it required re branding from "Takeover" to THE 'OTHER' TAKEOVER THREAD (FOR PROPER CHARLTON), but despite this today saw the Takeover thread finally overatke the magic 3,000 plus whispers.

The achievement of 3,000 posts was forecast by Nostradamus to Herald the sun setting over the ownership of Richard Maurray and a new dawn of glorious ownership and future success at The Valley

Of course, it may not happen quite yet!!

De Ja Vue – Barnet 2010

Do you remember when as a third division club Charlton made its way to the quarter finals of the FA Cup. No ……. Hmmm, so it was a dream, damn, so history won't repeat itself, cause it never happened – damn!

So the De Ja Vue must be that last seasons pre season we were beaten and this season the same thing happened Then we were drawn in the cup (last season JPTY at home, this season FA Cup away),will history repeat it self?

Barnet are sitting proudly, holding the rest of the League up, in 24^th place in Division 4 (League 2 in modern speak). Their most recent result was a 3-0 loss to Stevenage and earlier this season they lost 7-0 to Barnet On the face of it this does not look like we are facing a Northwich Victoria, but how often have our expectations been dashed?

It is going to be an interesting dilemma for Parkie on who to pick, who to rest.

My head says we'll win easily, but my heart says we'll get a draw and get back to the Valley, but what I can't see a defeat in anyway, so roll on the draw on Sunday.

 

The numbers begin to gel

Only just over two weeks ago the Valley was a place of woe, the defenders of Phil Parkinson were devoid of excuses and the Parkie out brigade were in full voice. Like in an election decisions are not made by the majority but those shady middle grounders who are swayed from one camp to another and Parkies camp was emptying faster than a brothel during a police raid! A two and a half weeks later and morale has turned full circle 3 wins, two away nine points and we are in the play off zone with only a few points separating 9^th place from second. Benson, that useless striker is now on fire, but then again he only scores goals!!! Two clean sheets in a row, its coming together for Parkinson, but the road to the Championship is a long one and the downer tonight was that everbody around us won, even Colchester who were 2-0 down to neighbours and relegation hopefuls Orient. Having got rid of the smug bar steward, Southampton are looking string under the stewardship of Ian Adkins.

Tonights 3-0 win at the County Ground, Swindon is partial revenge for their victory in the play off semi finals last season. What has been good tonight has been that we are developing a momentum and whilst we did not have the start we had last season, in Joe Anyinsah and Paul Benson we have a partnership that is causing opposition defenders not just problems but to be scared, along with Waggy, Jackson we have as balanced attack as I can remember since Hunt and Mendonca. There are some that may only give credit to the management grudgingly but they took a lot of stick after Brighton so the praise now should be fulsome in its delivery.

When we look at the position against the equivalent opposition last season we have now overtaken the points total and the closeness of the division puts us just off the automatics. Even if we lose the next two games we will not fall below last years equivalent and whilst the next league match will be difficult Peterboro away, we should clean up against Yeovil and Bristol Rovers at home.

If you like your stats and comparisons against last season, then I can thoroughly recommend AFKA's stat attack including Sheff Weds game on Charlton Life, which reviews this seasons player performances as recorded after each game by attendees, as well as general stats which you could condemn you to being a stato or just be interesting reading.  Click here to go to the stats, These were referred to on BBC London during todays commentary.

As we move into two cup games before the next league match we have a chance to recharge some players batteries and give other the opportunity to stretch their legs. Unfortunately from a revenue perspective these cups are important, in the JPT we have a realistic chance of getting to Wembley and the revenue from that and if we can beat Barnet then we are only a game away from a potential money spinner in the third round, so Parkinson has a difficult decision to make the league is so important that it must take precedence over every thing else.
So well done tonight, but lets remember we are only as good as our next result .. roll on Barnet.

The return of the flying pig!

That nickname was reserved for the famous Tommy Lawrence of Liverpool, but at times in his career it could equally be applied to Nicky Weaver, our returning former keeper. Even before he joined us Weaver was associated with Charlton fans emotions going back to our promotion season, when he was a young immature keeper he took the rise out of the North Stand, my recollection is that Kinsella tried to get to him when he was on the coach home. In our first season in the Prem. We met Weaver early on and trounced them comprehensively, Weaver at fault for our first goal fly kicking a Johnny Robinson shot and then giving away a penalty. Following the conversion of the penalty Kinsella went over to Weaver and gave him a hell of a mouthful. On the positive side at Maine Road Weaver assisted a Charlton goal by kicking his clearance mid way in his own half against a Charlton player only to see it loop over his head and back into his own goal. His final appearance at the Valley as an opposition player came a few years later when he was merely the second choice keeper for Man City. He had matured by then and accepted the abuse from an unforgiving North Stand with good grace and a smile.

Joining on a freebee, was never totally accepted by all the Charlton fans, for his antics as a youth, for his alleged £20,000 per week for his reputation as a fatty and for, during his latter stages, keeping Elliot out of the team, until Elliot replaced him after injury and he never appeared in the home short again. Between 2007 and 2009 he made 70 appearances for us.
He recently opened his career scoring account with a penalty in a shootout in the Johnstone Paint Trophy. One would hope that this is one returning player who won't be scoring against us on Saturday, although he could do equal damage by keeping a clean sheet and I fear that maybe our fate on Saturday.
I know it irritated Pardew but I always applaud former players and enjoy seeing them play well, as long as they are on the losing side. Unfortunately for Weaver he plays in a position where I cannot hope he plays well, we are due a good win at home and it would be nice to do it against one of the promotion favourites. A win on Saturday puts us back into the promotion frame, if we can keep pace with the leading pack then we could end this season in the place from which Weaver helped take us!!