3 excellent points. And a fun evening.
Great story about the Cardiff fan, Ted. I have never understood people like that. He can get drunk in Wales anytime he wants. I understand it is a speciality of the area.
Thanks, lads, for the three "excellent" points.
Thanks, lads, for the "fun evening".
But this was just a one-off freak match and nothing has really changed (apart from being a useful three points better off).
Sir Rabid Doctor must be more confused than ever about what his best team is.
We still need to get a left-back in as soon as possible so we can stop this nonsense of playing Solly at left-back and Morrison at right-back.
Jackson earned a stay of execution but he would have to play three matches out of every four like that to convince me he is worth his place.
Stephens showed he is not sulking because his move to Villa fell through. Play like that every week and he may earn himself a good move to the Premiership in January.
Kerkar showed he is a lot better than some people think. After watching the video of the Boro match carefully I think some of the criticism of him on here was totally unjustified.
Haynes has earned a run in BWP's place.
Despite his limitations, Pritchard continues to justify his place, at least until we can strengthen the midfield in January.
Most encouraging thing for me was the way the crowd continued to back the team even when 0-2 down and facing a humiliation. I assume that when the attendance drops to 15,000 they will be nearly all hardcore Addicks (no tourists).
Green must be realising he has no future here. CP will play anyone at RM except him. Wilson, Pritchard, Cook, BWP, Kerkar and now Haynes have all been preferred to him at different times.
I wouldn't worry about the collapse at the end. I know exactly what happened. It wasn't that they switched off, or got cocky. It wasn't even tiredness in the normal sense, apart from Kerkar who never lasts more than 80 minutes. It was that they had been playing above themselves powered by adrenaline. And once the adrenaline vanishes you are a like a zombie just going through the motions. Nothing to be learned from that because we won't play another match like that this season.
If I was CP (or Malky Mackay) I would tell my team to forget this match, come back to the real world, and prepare to grind out a result next weekend. A 1-0 win would be great, and a 1-1 draw wouldn't be too bad either. But to do that we have to get players playing in their best positions. If we don't get a new LB in, I would not be surprised to see Fox given an outing. I think that is the real reason he was on the bench (to get him used to the atmosphere and pre-match build-up) as, having played a whole tough match on Monday evening there was no prospect of him playing on Tuesday. If he didn't come on at 5-2 for the last eight minutes he was never going to come on.