Date: Saturday, 12th September 2015 Kick-Off: 3pm **I’m away from next Saturday, so someone will have to cover off the game previews from then! Huddersfield at Home will probably be my last one. We head into the first game of September, delayed by an international break, giving some of our injured players such as Tony Watt, Simon Makienok and Cristian Ceballos, much needed rest. Our August can be drawn a parallel to the previous season under Bob Peeters, in which we started off incredibly well. We all lived that season, so the less I mention about that, the less therapy we will need. To date we have mustered eight points (seven more than I envisaged at this point in the season) currently sitting in eighth place in the SkyBet Championship, having one of the hardest run ins out of all the teams in the league. Beating promotion hopefuls Queens Park Rangers and Hull City has been the two highlights of our season so far. We see ourselves with a 100% record at home, our away form is something that will need to be addressed moving into September, having picked up two points from a possible nine in the league. Activity done in the transfer window could have seen additions to the team to help provide cover for areas we are lacking in. Only time will tell as to whether we see anyone come in on loan; due to recent comments made by Katrien Meire my gut is telling me this will not be the case[1]. The Opposition We welcome Rotherham United to The Valley, the third fixture to have occurred between the clubs since 1982. Steven Evans is hoping that a trip to Charlton could help get The Millers season started. There has been grumblings of a management replacement already (The Millers boss is the eighth longest serving managers in the football league), however Steve Evans says he “does not fear getting sacked.” The find themselves bottom of the SkyBet Championship having failed to win any of their five opening games, conceding thirteen goals, the highest amount in the league. This season will be The Millers second in the Championship, and their main objective would be survival, though all the bookies are predicting relegation for them. They have strength in their squad with players like Lee Camp, Matt Derbyshire and Danny Ward, whom scored against us for Swindon during the League One play offs, to take the game to penalties. Former Charlton player Frazer Richardson is among their current squad. Current Form We have ourselves to date 100% unbeaten record at The Valley. So far we have scored four goals (one a great last minute goal) and only conceded one, coming against promotion contenders Hull City Tigers. The Millers is a stark contrast to ours, having lost both games away from Home, conceding six goals, four coming against QPR and two against Nottingham Forest. One thing that can be said about The Millers is they do score away from home! Head-To-Head **No cup encounters have occurred between Charlton and Rotherham Other than the 2014/2015 Championship season, meetings between Charlton and The Millers have been a rare occurrence. Previous to that encounter, the last time the two teams met was during the 1982/1983 Old Division 2 campaign, Rotherham United doing the double over us scoring five goals at The Valley. In the most recent season, both games ended in stalemate (1 – 1 draws), both games Charlton leading, but conceding late on, with goals coming from ex-Leeds striker Luciano Becchio and Danny Ward. Club Updates: Rotherham United – Luzon’s Press Conference Line Up With the above in mind, I expect that we should see the following: please log in to view this image The bench will probably consist of, Jackson, Vetokele, Bergdich, Ahearne-Grant, Mitov, Holmes-Dennis, Charles-Cook Odds For once, we are clear favourites to win this match, not surprisingly given the bad start to The Millers campaign. The question is, have we learnt the lessons of the previous season? A cheeky bet on the draw could return a tidy profit. League Tables & Fixtures Outcome Providing we don’t repeat mistakes of the past, this is a game that we will win. Despite The Millers obtaining new signings during the transfer window, the hang ups of the start of the season will still be with them. We ourselves have to learn from the Wolverhampton Wanderers game and not let our lead slip. #COYR #COYA
Thanks, me ol' china! I was thinking Vetokele would start but now that he is over his injury he has some minor sickness, no doubt picked up in Africa. Not sure if Makienok will be fit enough to start, so we may see Ahearne-Grant start. He did not play in the second England match so should be sufficiently rested. We pick up where we left off, still needing another striker. Not sure why Luzon is prioritising another midfielder. Agree with the rest of your team although Bergdich could start left-midfield. But if not, they seem to prefer Cousins there and Ba in the centre.
Not sure why we need another striker, Watt, Igor and Simon will do with Grant too, an attacking midfielder is essential to me, someone to create chances for the aforementioned
Pity you're off, China. This seems to happen every time we get a good match threader. We'll see whether Big Mak is fit, but if Igor is ill Kennedy will probably get a place on the bench after scoring for the Irish U-21's. If Watt vis fit that should be enough though. 2-1 to us (Watt and Jackson)
We have never had a good match thread on this site, as everybody on here knows nothing about football. Looking at our social media, there seems to be an expectation among our supporters that we have 3 points in the bag tomorrow.
Think it's probably because Rotherham sits rock bottom of the Championship and have the leakiest defence in the league. I don't think this game is easy as people will think as they've brought quite a few "good caliber" players, ones that I wouldn't mind in our team. Our complacency will see us concede, but it's not going to be a 4 - 0 thrashing like I've heard some people say. It's going to be a tight 1 - 0 or 1 - 1.
I am a bit worried about this one as we never seem to do well against the so called poorer sides. I am slumming it in the South of France so I will not be there tomorrow. Enjoy the game, all those that are going.
Deja vu again, we beat the likes of Leciester, QPR and Hull and then lose to the Blackpools and Rotherhams. 1-1 I think
I'm going for a score draw too. I liked Luzons press conference, and in particular meeting fans expectations. Praise where it's due - I am very impressed with how GL handles himself with the media, and think the players won't struggle with motivation under him.
I am flying back for the gam from the south west of France but, as ever, worried by performance against so called easy opposition.
Potential banana skin or easy three points? No disrespect to the Millers, but I certainly hope for three points at home to a team near the bottom. Does'nt mean we'll get 'em, but I'll be peeved if we don't. I'd expect Mak on the bench at most, as we don't want to forcé the pace of his recuperation. Watt back and fit is good news, I'll be following this on the mobile as usual.
If all fit, that is a strong team and (by our standards) bench. 30 Pope 20 Solly 12 Diarra 05 Bauer 21 Fox 07 Berg Gudmundsson 22 Ba 03 Kashi 08 Cousins 32 Watt 14 Vetokele Substitutes 04 Jackson 06 Sarr 09 Makienok 18 Ahearne-Grant 19 Bergdich 27 Mitov 31 Kennedy Confident of three points if we can keep eleven on the field, though these things are never as easy as they look on paper.
Bad decision for the corner but our defending for it was appalling. We started OK but have faded, Igor looks a shadow of his former self.
Bad decision for the corner doesn't cover it, the reaction of the Rotherham players said it all. But yes the defending for the corner was shambolic. Two dropped points
The game kind of panned out how I thought. But the referee and his colleagues were so bad that it's left me feeling ****** off. Won a small amount on the correct score, but it won't mask my anger tonight
Today was really frustrating but ultimately we didn't do enough to deserve the win. The decision for the Rotherham corner was bad, but out defending for it was even worse as the man was left completely free at the back post to tap in. Rotherham couldn't believe their luck, which tells you all you need to know about their limitations. We had started positively enough and a couple of good moves led to chances for Cousins, both of which were well saved. But the creativity dried up. Whilst it's clear we're trying to play the right way by building from the back we are often very slow and can be reliant on a moment of magic from Watt or JBG, or a lucky ricochet, to break through the opposition midfield. Ba and Kashi are both technically skilful and very handy defensively but neither is attack-minded enough to drive us forward. The corner aside we were again solid defensively, albeit that Rotherham possessed little goal threat. Pope made two splendid saves in the second half, one from a powerful downward header and the other from a fierce long-range effort. Diarra gets my MOTM award for another assured display, though he got himself needlessly booked in a spat with the Rotherham defenders after the equaliser. Igor struggled to make an impact and Watt saw more go wrong for him than right. Makienok replaced Igor and almost instantly set up the equaliser for Bauer by squaring across the 6-yard box. He caused further problems for the Rotherham defence, including an ingenious dummy that put Watt in the clear, but couldn't quite repeat his heroics against Hull. JBG hit a couple of efforts off-target and perhaps that contributed to his deciding not to shoot first time when the ball broke to him on the edge of the box and it looked perfectly set up for him to curl in a beauty. He has had, and will have, better games than this. With a better ref we may well have got all 3 points today, but we still have problems translating the technical skill we have in abundance into a fluid attacking unit. And without that, mid-table is realistically the best we can hope for.
