Beware The Ides Of March

Gray has gone and Dickson is allegedly on his way, there are no rumours coming out of the Valley of players coming in, other than Parkies continued comments that he would like to add players to the squad.
The assumption with Gray going is that the take over is all but done. I like the current regime, Murray has always had Charlton at his heart and Martin Simmons has always been a good guy to meet for a chat and a pint, but the demands of modern football and the failures of decisions made over the last few years have put the resources required to run a club beyond them. Not only that but the demands on them through three seasons of failure must have drawn on their own personal energies. Whatever the takeover brings, the resources, just to manage the day to day will be very welcome.
Whoever they are, the takeover consortium will inherit a team on top of its game and on top of its league. However, they will also be taking over a squad short on personnel in defence and strikers who can score. In midfield we are well served, although a winger would not go amiss, if Small is not seen as a long term prospect on the left.
In defence, we have a strong 1st choice, Dailly is proving to be solid and outshines any of the central defenders, including Ward, in his marshalling of the defence. He has also formed a strong relationship with Llera, who is rapidly becoming a cult figure. Richardson has added consistency to a position that has had a revolving door in place for two seasons. Kelly Youga continues to be the weakest link, but with the amount of coaching he receives during the game I do think he is showing signs of improvement, taking him back to the post Scunthorpe Youga. Whilst we have Solly and Basey in reserve and maybe even Mambo (No. 5), the defence needs reinforcements.
In attack, we have a plethora of forwards who cannot score. Burton has shown his quality and put away two chances already, but him apart the manager has no trust in those that are left Fleetwood, Izale and Dickson, if he stays. There are rumours of Kandol coming in, guy from Southend and of course we have put down our marker for the guy from Gillingham.
Whilst there are only 9 days of the transfer window left we then move into the loans window and whilst we prefer to have our own playing for us, I would not object to taking on a couple of Prem league youth season long loans, but no more journey men looking to get fit.
We need to get new recruits in or the results like yesterday will dryn up before our normal March time dip and in this season we want to keep going right till the end.
Charlton Wallsall Player ratings
Elliot - 6 - Rating suffers from having nothing to do
Richardson - 7 - Beginning to develop a strong attacking relationship with Sam
Dailly - 7 - Talks the players around him through the game, may not have the arm band but has the spirit of he captain.
Llera - 8 -Truly making an early stake for being a legend. He and Dailly are giving us the stability at the back that we lacked last season
Youga - 7 - 7 may slightly flatter him, but Kelly is putting in the effort and is improving game by game. He is receiving a lot of coaching from the sidelines and his defensive partners.
Sam - 5.5 - At this level Sam needs to be taking on defenders and beating them. Would he have scored Wagstaff's opportunity or would the ball have got caught under his feet. As long as we are winning his place will remain safe, especially as he and Richardson are working well together, but a down turn in form and Wagstaff maybe seen the answer.
Semedo - 8 -This player purchased as a centre half is making the defensive midfield position his own and becoming the lynchpin between defence and attack.
Racon - 7 - Playing well but not fulfilling his potential and really taking the game by the horns, once he does that he will be awesome.
Shelvey - 6.5 - Jonjo is difficult to mark, we expect him to be outstanding every game but he is still only 17. Played well but not outstanding, below par of his Orient 2nd half display, but still effective and without the recklessness of the 1st half of Orient.
Bailey - 6.5 - Busy, but fairly quiet.
Burton - 8 - If you accept that DB won't score every game but works hard and brings players into the game, could have had another lob over the keeper, just did not get the ball quite high enough.
Wagstaff - 7 - 1st time he has not looked light weight and took his goal well, will put pressure on Sam to be a more cutting edge attacker

Takeover scuppering success???

It has been a good start to the season, two league wins where performance outstripped the scorelines. The only blots have been the loss to Hereford and the continued uncertainty over the takeover.
The former can be seen as the result of the latter. To an extent the defeat on Tuesday was down to poor finishing, but it also exposed the lack of strength in depth.
We have continual uncertainty over the make up of the squad, our defence is strong today, but the frontline first choice players are becoming the walking wounded and we are only in the third week of the season. If Richardson gets injured can we expect young Solly to fill in for an extended period, who will fill in if either of the central defenders get injured (As Llera is with his opening head wound) – Semedo – Youga.
Will Gray stay or will he go, will Dickson force a move to Gillingham.
There are only two weeks till the end of the transfer window, although there is then the loan window.
There is a real danger that the continued protracted takeover talks will scupper our promotion hopes as we are unable to build the depth to our squad that we need to sustain the push in a competitive league where games come fast. Tuesday see’s a trip to Orient and then Saturday Wallsall.
So far we have played two league games unchanged, it is unlikely that we will be able to keep this up, so we need players in to ensure we are able to keep up performances and our challenge, it appears the only way we are going to do this is if the takeover completes and we need it to happen now!

Pardew watch

Pardew continues to push his credentials taking the Saints from minus 10 points, after 2 games he has reduced the defecit to .... minus 9 points. Keep it up Pards, its not your fault .. blame the fans, the players, the board, the meteor shower ... anything but Pardew

P2 W0 L1 D1 F2 A4

Charlton v Newbies

No not new players but teams we have never played in the league before. This season we will be meeting teams we have only ever met in the cup.

We have already played Wycombe and look like we are tonking'ish Hartlepool. So assuming nothing changes:-

P2 W2 L0 D0 F5 A2 Pts 6

Next up will be MK Dons in November and then Yeovil a week later.

New season, Pardew team talks revealed

As the new season begins, we exclusively reveal a re enacted team talk from Alan Pardew from last season. Before posting this we checked with Pardew on the authenticity of the re enactement, his reply was "When I was at West Ham, I used to give great team talks, however when I went to Charlton the players never listened, the fans booing drowned out the key points of my talks and the board were too split to let me get on with the important things I did at West Ham.

Home friendly, but not as I know it.

Today the mighty Addicks will be taking on the even mightier Roy Keane fuelled and Kevin Lisbie inspired Ipswich in a friendly. Oh how I remember the Premiership years when pre seasons had an element of excitement of playing exotic teams from afar ... ok the New Zealand national team were not exotic but they were from a far, seeing the new players purchased for the odd million here and there and bringing my Mother in Law, an old dyed in the wool Charlton fan and my wife (her annual pennance since she hates football .. should have married the mother .. 2nd thoughts maybe not).

This season however, I am not going to a pre season friendly to see the dross that took us down, I can do that in a couple of weeks, assuming any are left, when we play Wycome.

The only thing that I will miss tonight, by all accounts, is a protest by the fans over the delay in the completion or otherwise of the takeover. With two weeks till the start of the season we are a shambles. By all accounts Kinsella was at Barnet unpaid, with Fortune on trial at Sheffield we are likely to be down to 1 central defender our forward line has been depleted with only a rumour that a former jail bird MAY sign for us this week.

If Keane has instilled half his killer instinct into Ipswich then tonight is not so much as going to be a friendly as a massacre and I really don't want to be there for that.

Footnote: True to form Charlton won 2-1 - what do I know about football

Fortune favours the brave

And it appears that the brave are Sheffield United. News leaking out of planet Valley today is that Johnathan Fortune has rejected the potential offer of a contract to play in the third tier of English football, for a firm offer from Sheffield United to play in the second tier of English football. This has been on the cards for a while as the moulding of next seasons playing squad has been delayed by the prevarication of the takeover. It appears that we have lost both Holland and Fortune to this and whilst many may not mourn the loss of Holland (assuming that this is what will happen) it would be better if we were losing players through our choice not our inability to firmly supply a contract.

Fortune is a legend if only because of the part he played in the relegation of Palace - conceding a penalty and scoring the goal that deflated hope for the stripey nigels. As the Palace message boards say "Who's laughing now!"

We are now left with Llera and Mambo at centre half. Last season we started the campaign with only two central defenders - Fortune and Hudson - both of whom were much more accomplished than those we currently have, and that proved disastrous as injuries and new loans created confusion in defence until really Ward and Hudson partnered at the tail end of the season.

A fortnight tomorrow, we will be donning our replica shirts and probably be in our respective pubs chewing over the forthcoming match and season. For there to be any sense of positive atmosphere amongst the fans it appears that Parkinson and his team have a close season worth of work to do in the intervening time, but sadly they won't be able to start acting till the on / off takeover is sorted and that maybe why a top half finish for the addicks may be beyond us next season.
- panic ---- I'm beyond that now!!