That's as maybe. Will be interesting to see the reaction if we have a poor return of points in the next few games. Have a nice easter Mr flip flop.
Early kick-off news: Scunthorpe are 0-1 up away at Oxford, almost half-time. Unless Karl Robinson can pull his head out of his arse and do us a favour, a win for Scunthorpe (their first in 9 games) will move them on to 62 points. EDIT: Oxford have equalised! I never doubted Gobbo for a minute. 1-1 draw is now a result. Scunthorpe are heading out of the top 6 at this rate, which keeps two places up for grabs. Other fixtures in the promotion race today: Rotherham United (4th) V Peterborough United (6th) Plymouth Argyle (7th) V Southend United (12th) Come on Chrissy Powell's Blue Army! Tomorrow: Walsall (18th) V Portsmouth (8th)
Sounds like Lee Bowyer and the team have Northampton well under control EDIT: 0-4 up, this is how a promotion chasing team takes care of struggling opposition. Confidence will be sky-high after this performance, exactly what we need to claim a play-off place. Only Peterborough's stoppage time equaliser against Rotherham denied us 7th place today. Well done Lee Bowyer. I know it's 'only' Northampton, but this result is surely no fluke and the Plymouth win was evidently the beginning of something better, not just a one-off. All LB and the team can do now is take each game one at a time. The Rotherham clash on Easter Monday is looking like a terrific fixture now...
What a difference a team without Karl “the Handbrake” Robinson makes. Unrecognisable. 4-4-2, and our team playing sleek attractive passing football & looking a well balanced outfit. Reeves had his best game for us today in the middle, and Ajose and Fosu proved far too much for woeful Northampton to handle. Don’t always assume that fans know nothing - everyone has been calling for Robinson to change his doomed formation for weeks, it will be solely attributable to his vanity & stubbornness if we fail to make the play offs now. Cracking atmosphere generated by the 1,200 travelling fans, and good to catch up with @ForestHillBilly in the away end. Wembley & promotion now possible, with the fans behind this manager & the players.
At the POTY evening I can see it now. "Special thanks from Ben Reeves to Mr van Gerwen for my sole vote".
Reeves had a storming game, including a headed goal against a huge but cumbersome defence. To be fair Northampton belong in L2, where they will surely be next season, but we played very very well. We actually have a manager who is pro-active during the game. Subbing Ajose seemed harsh, since he had run his nuts off, but Mavadidi was an instant threat, exposing Northampton's lack of Full-backs as they had changed to 3-5-2. . Bowyer had spoken before the game about how the Cobblers change formation, and he was ready. A special word for our fans for respecting Northampton's minute silence before the game.
We look a totally different side with two authentic forwards and Reeves, Aribo & Fosu supporting them. I’m not going to eulogise about Reeves just yet, he owes us big time. Even after 2 games it really is apparent that Robinson was a charlatan.
I really noticed Reeves today, put in the sort of performance that won him player of the season at Milton Keynes. Page, Aribo, Fosu & Ajose all worked their arses off and had good games too. Northampton were terrible but you can only beat what's in front of you!
I have to pinch myself after that. Only two games, but in both, the new manager has shown his former mentor (ha ha ha) that you need to change formation at times, and play players in their natural position. People talking about great games from Ajose and Reeves would make me want to check the calenedr for Fools day, but we actually play football again and fools day is yet to come. Not much more to add - we still have a horrible run in as Robinson wasted games against lesser opposition, but it's in our hands, and suddenly the heads are up again. COYA
I know it sounds odd, but to hope for better things after so long without hope is something I'm finding quite difficult. Even this season, which did begin better than last season, I have felt much more comfortable waiting for the wheels to come off Karl Robinson's campaign (as several of us predicted they would) than daring to hope that he might have got it right. Allowing hope to lift you, only to have that hope dashed again and again, becomes worse than not hoping at all. Now with 8 games left, only 2 points from 6th place and suddenly in good form, Charlton have perhaps a 50/50 chance of making the play-offs - better than at any time since October last year when we had 30 points from our first 15 games. Somehow Lee Bowyer seems to have unleashed new confidence and vitality among the team, who have rewarded him and us with 6 points, 6 goals and two clean sheets since Karl Robinson buggered off. If LB and the lads manage to defeat Rotherham United on Monday or even play well and gain a worthy draw against them, our caretaker manager will have truly restored the possibility to hope for something better than disappointment and more recriminations this season. But hoping for a play-off opportunity, even a fighting chance of getting to Wembley now that we have discovered we can play well, feels a lot like being asked to trust again after being let down (even betrayed) so many times before. I do trust Lee Bowyer's honest desire for the team to do as well as it can. But I am finding it very difficult to trust all the other factors currently at play. Chiefly the tortuous "take-over" saga which means nothing is certain even from one day to another, but also the possible intentions of incoming owners, whoever they are. The more that Bowyer succeeds, the greater the risk that a new administration at the Club will destroy his efforts by replacing him immediately. What this means is that in order to allow myself to hope that Bowyer can somehow guide Charlton into the play-offs and then perhaps even into the Championship, I also have to hope and trust that A) Duchatelet does not sell the Club until the summer, and B) That he then does sell it early enough during the closed season to give the new owners time to invest for next season. I'm sorry, but I cannot do that. There is no evidence at all to support any hope that RD will do those things, especially if they do not suit him. Yes, he may wish to gamble on LB succeeding so he can ramp up the price for a Championship Club and get his money back. But why should he then sell quickly in the early summer? Once Charlton have Championship status again he will have time on his side. Even if he allows only peanuts to be spent in the summer transfer window he will still have maybe three or four months to play possible buyers off against each other. Only when our 2018-19 season begins to melt down will he know he had better cash in at last. Even if Lee Bowyer's team wins a Wembley Play-off final and restores Charlton's Championship status, should Duchatelet then decide to take his time selling the Club and so still be our owner by August, there will be no better future for our Club. Even if new owners eventually come in late next year, the damage will probably already have been done. League One is not a very difficult league to do well in if the basics are done right. Bowyer is proving that even now. But the Championship is packed full of teams with good squads and the resources to tear a struggling team apart. Because I will never trust Duchatelet, I find it almost impossible to convert my happiness at the new lease of life Bowyer has given us into hope and belief that the future will be better because of it. I don't want it to be this way but I cannot help thinking that the next few weeks will more likely lead to more disappointment and more cause for recrimination than anything positive in the longer term. I really, really want to be 100% wrong about this. Good luck Bowyer, JJ and the team. If we do fall short this season, or if we are betrayed again in the summer, I won't be blaming our caretaker manager.
but will you be at the game on Monday Lardi? I am seriously considering breaking my boycott on Monday to support Bows and the team...... plus join in the 'fvck off' songs aimed at the Belgian
Get down there AHLL I can honestly say that this is the first proper Charlton set up at the club in 4 years.
"When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?" John Maynard Keynes (1940)
No, not easily swayed at all. If you think you sulking around the minor parks of Southern England is going to force a billionaire to sell Charlton, good luck to you. The medium term survival of Charlton depends on us being in the Championship - under any owner. For the last 8 games we all need to get behind a recognisable Charlton Manager IMO.
another Keynes quote .... "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." and yet for the vast majority of the World Capitalism sort of works yet Communism clearly doesn't.... it's a conundrum wrapped in a mystery, buried in an enigma & shrouded in secrecy .. Sir Winston Churchill
