As our season limps to a close we face a side coming right into form. Washington is sure to return, and Jacko will surely try something different in midfield with the Morgan/Gilbey not working at all. Otherwise, same again. The Under 23's play this afternoon, so don't expect any of them to feature.
Interesting suggestion from Airman Brown over on CL, that a lot of Premier League clubs don't want to loan players to Charlton as we don't pay enough of the salaries (it wasn't suggested as a dig at TS but at the same time, it did imply another problem created by him). Given the enormous gulf in finances between the PL and league 1, it's hard to see that those clubs are so short of cash that they need us to help with their hyper inflated wages as well as giving game time to their players (which should surely be the reason for the loan - the player who isn't up to PL levels gets valuable game time, and we get a player above the level we are playing at. which raises the level of the squad). On to Cambridge. Really hard to get excited now - if we finist 12th, 13th or 15th, it is of no consequence - it's been a poor season, and we need to improve dramatically on and off the pitch. If Cambridge's fine form is a result of them playng it cagey and hitting teams on the break, that should be enough to see us off, as we don't have the speed or intellegence to break down a good defence enough times in 90 minutes to cover the goals we leak at the other end. If they like to attack, we may find enough space to create danger ourselves. I'll be tuning in as usual, but this team does little to inspire, and Jacko really needs to convince the growing army of doubters that he is a bit more than a one trick pony. 2-0 to Cambridge
The Premier League has distorted the market with their massive wages - not only for the best experienced players, but for academy teenagers who have proved nothing. If they don't want to loan players to Charlton, then sod them. We should be building success from within, bot relying on outsiders. It's just another pressure on the have-not Clubs, trying to force them to over-spend in the hope of buying promotion. Players wages at the top are an intolerable disease in English football. PS: In my view our failure this season - worse than all other mediocre 3rd tier seasons since 2009 - is not down to a lack of loan starlets. It's down to iffy recruitment, interference in recruitment, and lack of strong leadership from a well liked but out-of-his-depth young gaffer. Unless all three of those things are fixed, we ain't going anywhere.
Seems more likely that we are not a good club to lend players to because we don't play them. Look at the 3 January loanees, Castillo had one start, Jacko said that he didn't take his chance, so he got frozen out. John........who?? Burstow, whose loanback was something TS insisted on, hardly featured, and seems to have gone backwards.
I think those players had better around them than what our team is now made of. In my view if we had our squad today + one of those players, we would be 10th or 11th maybe.
TS at the game. here for an extended stay apparently. hopefully to sign off a huge clear out and offer 2 or 3 a new deal. next season really needs to start now.
2-0 up now. Seems fair- Cambridge hav yet to get a shot on target. Mind you, some ofvtheir chances were very good.
Fair play to the travelling Charlton fans. Sky TV stole their Bank Holiday Monday football away day, at least they can celebrate a win on their way home tonight
I'd probably have watched it but will be watching Kilmarnock v Arbroath on Friday in a promotion decider. Arbroath have already beaten us twice this season.
More enjoyable than saturday to be honest. I always watch the post match stuff too, as I've been starved of that sort of thing here in Spain. They were chatting about how a good end of season would give us something to build on (and make us more attractive to possible signings) for next season. To be honest, if that were true, it would have made last summer a lot better, as we finished very strongly that time. Frankly, I doubt anything we do in the next couple of games will change the summer recruitment, although MacG seems intent on cutting short is time with us. I'm enjoying seeing a few wins - some of the football this season has really been excruciating. But the major point right now is who we keep and who we sign. I hope we offer Blackett Taylor a better contract - if Chelsea thought Burstow was worth a punt, CBT should be like a neon light to potential hijackers and we are hardly in a position to fight off a good offer from further up the league. We should probably look at getting Dobbo on a good contract, and I think Washington would be worth retaining as while he admits he isn't a prolific goalscorer, he causes headaches for defenders which our slow build up rarely does. We can be honest, a few more of the current set up will be here next august as we are still stabilising, but I hope we are looking at a couple of genuine marquee signings. The mentioned on the commentary last night that Houlihan for Cambridge had the ability to take on opponents and deliver great defence splitting passes, which we desperately need in the middle - I hoped Lee might do that but it never happened. And a good striker who can use his feet. Stockley has goals in the bag despite injuries and a daft red card, but we need more up front. On to Shrewsbury - yippeeee