Saturday 7 March 2015

Another win for Charlton

Charlton's run of good form under coach Guy Luzon continued with a 2-1 win at Cardiff this afternoon.

The Addicks had to stage a second-half recovery. Keeper Stephen Henderson was unable to return after the break following a knock, Dmitrovic replacing him. Federico Macheda gave Cardiff the lead early in the second half, turning in Kenwyne Jones' knock-back.

But Addicks substitute Chris Eagles cut back a cross for Tony Watt, who was lurking off his markers to fire home. (In fact, it may have been Roger Johnson who put the cross in according to a tweet from Richard Cawley of the SLP). Then Charlton substitute Simon Church went tumbling under Sean Morrison's challenge in the area, with Yoni Buyens tucking the penalty away on 87 minutes.

Charlton remain 12th: in fact, there is quite a squeezed area in mid-tale with Birmingham 14th on 46 points and Sheffield Wednesday 10th with 49 points. They are, however, 2nd in the form table.

Millwall's troubles continued with a 1-4 defeat at home to Norwich. Beleaguered boss Ian Holloway was jeered by the Spanners every time he emerged from the dugout. Holloway decided to hunker down in his bunker, explaining 'I felt if I came out from the dugout the fans would vent their spleen on me and that would not benefit the team.' Looking for positives, he said, 'I felt the lads kept going and showed a Millwall spirit, but maybe I'm the only one in the ground who did.'

A Welsh report, not surprisingly, gives a more negative view of the game: Dominant Cardiff throw it away

However, the match stats do not really support a picture of dominance by the Bluebirds. Admittedly, they had a lot of shots off target, but led only four to three on shots on target and five to four on corners. Possession was 54-46 per cent in their favour.

This morning's Football League Paper gives its highest scores (8) to Tony Watt ('should have had a penalty') and Chris 'Red Robin' Eagles who replaced Lepoint on 60 minutes and 'galvanised Charlton ... It took the former Manchester United forward less than 60 seconds to register his side's first shot on target in an hour.' Stephen Henderson got a 7 and Jordan Cousins got a 7 for 'a game of two halves like his team. Quiet before the break but lively late on.' Christophe Lepoint gets slated: 'A poor man's Peter Crouch. Brought in to offer height and presence and lacked touch.' His miserable score of 4 will give some comfort to those who doubt the quality of some of our acquisitions.

On the two halves point, Guy Luzon gave the team a telling off at half time. He said, 'We didn't play well in the first half and I told the players at half time that something had to change if we wanted to take three points back to London. In my philosophy, there is no point to play long balls. If you keep the ball and move it, then you have the chance to score goals. That is the first thing of football. We also showed character when we were 1-0 down away from home to get the goal and then to continue playing after the goal.'

By now the evidence is accumulating that he is quite a skilled coach who is able to motivate the players, but hard liners insist they will only chant his name if we beat Millwall at The New Den. Given our record against Millwall, that is a tough challenge to meet. Others point that they have no quarrel with Luzon personally, but rather with Roland.

As far as Stephen Henderson is concerned, he twisted his ankle. Normally reliable sources say that he got on the coach without any strapping on his ankle and shout be fit for the clash against the chicken farmers on Saturday.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

told u we win Cardiff home form pretty bad now for the play offs can we do it?

Anonymous said...

Need to win at least another 5 in a row to be in with a sniff off the play offs - a tall order, methinks.

Anonymous said...

With apologies to Mr Weller, but, Wish I could play like Tony Watt La la la la la, la la la la.

Unknown said...

we r going up

Unknown said...

anyway my Frankie fraser video wyn is now complete and edited so I think u enjoy it type mad Frankie fraser if can put a link up next write up

a2c said...

I don't like criminals like im meself never ave n never will.

Anyway well done to the players again n their ard graft with the win against Cardiff. Guy made the subs wot worked n we got it all sor'ed ahrt 2nd arf.

Unknown said...

a2c I only interviewed him as I was fascinated with the krays as I felt they were harshly dealt with by the law towards the end and shd have been released a lot sooner than they eventually did.He was actually very pleasant when I met him and gave me a signed kray art work which my other half accidently chucked away which is just typical fascinating meeting him as he had a lot of stories to tell.
On the mr smiths club which he got shot at I solved it doing a pshchic investigation I found out it was George cornell shooting at dickie hart hense why cornell got shot a day later by the kray twin it all fitted into place on that investigation fascinating bit of history.

On the Cardiff game have you ever seen away ground empty so fast?

Brian G said...

To get back to football, we now have 3 fewer points than the 51 pts that we finished with last year. I think that we might be forgiven for thinking that we are now safe. In this form, I can see us getting at least another 10-15 points from the remaining games. If so, mission accomplished for this season.

Anonymous said...

No way are we going up. Making up 14 points to sixth will be impossible. And frankly, if we can do it in 10 games, then Forest will get there before us.
We are however also not going down. There are a lot of positives to take from the season. For one, we were expected to go down. On top of that, Millwall are going down.

Gary said...

Apologies to 'Anonymous' above but a certain Mr R Davies needs crediting with the Tony Watt jingle, long before Mr Weller got hold of it!

Brian G said...

Well spotted, Gary. 1967/8, I believe. Ah, those were the days.