Match Day Thread Charlton Ath v Wigan Ath - by Paul May

Bit empty here. Where is everyone?

 

What do you think the crowd at kick off is ?
I reckon 6,000 tops

Look at the West ...

 

about 45 down from Wigan.

got to be more people than that originally from the Wigan area actually living within a few miles of the Valley...

 

Away end now

 

Home end at kick off

 

I reckon about 6500

 

Official attendance - 10,172

I reckon that's me winning the crossbar challenge (Did Dick P predict the same crowd about a minute earlier?)

 

Just checked - it was FHB.

 

If Wigan are of the standard that will get promotion, then we are a million miles off. They totally bossed us tonight in all departments. All of our key creative players were poor, and more worryingly, looked knackered.

Thanks to that silly cow Meire, Robinson had no options off the bench. KAG didn't get a touch when he came on and we had no Plan B. I do hope we are not going to have to call upon Jackson on Saturday. It's time to unwrap Ben Reeves from the cotton wool and get him playing in that midfield.

The bottom line - which all but the congenitally thick already knew - is that our squad isn't good enough to get us up. Just like last year in fact. Tonight proved it.

Just sell the club.

 

Truly awful second half. Wigan were head and shoulders above us. Let us put it behind us and beat Gillingham.

 

Lack of depth in the squad cost us any chance of getting back into that game.

I thought we matched Wigan pretty well in the first half (until the last couple of minutes) and we thumped the crossbar on the half hour mark.
But after the break they just took over.
Ahearne-Grant was never going to be the answer, and frankly neither was anybody else on our bench.

 

Louis Moult would have turned it round for us.

 

As bad as anything I saw under Slade or even Karel Fraeye solly as poor as I've seen him desilva and Kashi hopeless very poor gutless display

 

Well that was a reality check and no mistake. Following on the updates, it wasn't clear that this game would be so one sided at half time. However, the second half sounded as if we had nothing to chase with while Wigan knew exactly how to play with the 1-0 advantage. A bad result, whether tiredness played a factor remains to be seen. A big worry tonight were the options to shake things up when we were behind. Plan B remains incognito. This was maybe the moment when our reluctance to part with the Lookman money at the end of the transfer window was exposed for all to see.

 

Strange how one defeat and everything changes.

Up till last night it seemed that we would have turned over Barcelona. Some people will never learn.

We lose Saturday and the one away game a season beer monsters will be ripping out seats and bring the mechano stand to it's knees.

 

This was a reality check, and a very important one.

However, I think only the apologist wums and their pet idiots were buying into the notion that Charlton were now invincible, or that "we now have the best squad since our Premiership years" (yes, somebody did actually make that claim - you can probably guess who).
There have been one or two optimistic posts on this forum, but I don't think anybody here was getting too carried away.

There was not a 'Jekyll and Hyde' reaction at the Valley either last night.
At least half of the North stand attendance had left by the time the full time whistle blew, but some of those who remained did applaud our players off the pitch - in acknowledgment of the sheer effort they had put in to try and get something from the game.
(the players never gave up trying, but by stoppage time they had clearly lost heart).
Our songs and chants were temporarily hushed when we went 0-2 down, but only killed off for good by the third Wigan goal. And there was no 'protest' chanting that I could hear.

Muted boos were heard at full time, but I am not sure these were for our players. The officials took some stick as they walked to the tunnel but to be honest I'm not sure why. Just a need to express frustration I guess.

I was a bit surprised to see so many Charlton fans leaving early. But it was a grim evening weatherwise, and I guess many had work the following day and decided that getting home for a bit of extra kip was more important than staying to the end.

 

First up, the crowd was over 10,000 which is a 1,000 up on a Tuesday night fixture this time last season. Overall the home gates are up by over 750 on average and the number of home fans is up by over 500. If that keeps going then we have definitely turned a corner.

Secondly that was only our second defeat in 12 with nine wins, albeit mostly against weaker sides - except for Southend (twice) and Wigan. Of course we could always do with better players and a stronger bench but KR and the club have delivered two decent windows so there is no reason to believe that they can't add to the squad again in January.

For sure there's quite a few games between now and then so this team has to improve and work for success. And our fans have to back them. We can't just expect millions to be spent to improve the side.

And third, the upside is that we only have to play Wigan once more all season! There are only a couple of other clubs anywhere near their level. Southend, Scunthorpe and Portsmouth are our typical rivals. Let's face it, we have climbed into the top six and most of us will be delighted to stay there all season. I'm not saying we can't strive for 90 points and the top two but that's a big ask given where we have just come from.

I think we just have to wait and see if the squad is good enough and consistent enough to keep us on two points a game. If we are there or there abouts in January then the club have to attract the right players to keep us on track. That's the right players to improve the options on the bench plus push one or two of the first XI.

Roll on Saturday 3pm where we return to playing a bottom half side. Three points there will do a lot to help this time around, plus put last November's game firmly in the past.

Read more: http://intothevalley.proboards.com/thread/21620/deep-breath-everybody-count-10?page=1#ixzz4sXUxzyr4

 

Two things that we learnt last night...

1) A first team squad of 11 (so Gobbo doesn't have to tell players they are not starting ... apparently?) is not enough when we play two games a week;
2) A crowd of 6,500 at the Valley does not create more atmosphere than one of 15,000

Simples... a bit like the Belgians

Cameron Stewart is currently on trial at Port Vale.... wouldn't he be a better option on the bench than Ahearne-Grant?

 

The players look shattered.

I would bring in Konsa & Reeves on Saturday for Fosu and F- Caskey.

 

Classic SeriouslyAnnoying with the second paragraph.

How to distort facts. We have lost 2 in 7 but he flowers it up with his usual s*** by including last season's results