Date: Tuesday, 11th August 2015 Kick Off: 7:45pm The season now underway, we find ourselves playing for the second time in under a week at The Valley, this time in the Capital One Cup. I cannot expect this one to be a sell out match, quite probably one of the stands will only be open to accommodate our fans. Despite Guy Luzon's philosophy of "playing every game to win" this is one match that I cannot see us taking seriously given the upcoming away match on Saturday, to this years promotion contenders Derby County, I'd expect to see quite a few of our fringe players and youth team play this one. The Opposition We welcome The Daggers to The Valley, who will only need to make the short journey through Blackwall Tunnel, to see their team in action. Manager Wayne Burnett has been at the helm now for some time, what with the managerial merry-go-round of most clubs, he must be in the list of one of the long serving managers. The Daggers were a team on the decline since their dizzy heights of League One (2010-2011), since then fighting relegation battles in League Two, until Burnett took over and has had a somewhat uphill challenge. 9th in League Two, is the highest finish they have managed to achieve, other times fighting relegation. Over the opening day of the season they suffered a heavy 3 - 0 defeat away to Portsmouth. Head-To-Head Competitive matches against Dagenham & Redbridge have been a rare occurrence. We played twice during the 2010-2011 season. I often cite (as does Powell and many Charlton fans) losing at Victoria Road was my lowest point ever over the countless years of following our club, with Danny Green sealing the win for The Daggers, a player who went on to represent us 64 times, most of which during our Promotion Campaign. Let us hope we never find ourselves back to the same position as then! Line Up As with a journey to Derby County looming on Saturday, 15th August, I suspect that Luzon will change around the line up completely. With such an important game and building on from our amazing win and second half performance against QPR, he would be looking ahead towards. We may see the following: please log in to view this image Odds The bookies seem to be favouring a Charlton Win tomorrow... Outcome Despite what the bookies believe I don't think that this is going to be as easy game as we all think. I believe that we will play a relatively weak squad, smaller teams seems to up their game during these competitions too, in order to get more much needed revenues. I have a feeling that for some of our players this will be a learning curve, and am going for a 1 - 1 draw. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COYA! COYR!
i've got millenium lounge tickets for this game. not entirely sure what that gets you, but i'm hoping for a strong team to be fielded
Reasonably sure that Moussa is injured that's why he wasn't given a squad number I guess Charles-Cook into the middle and the new left back fella onto left wing.
Problem with the youngsters, don't know what position they can play. Hear we have a few that can play several positions. Moussa has been given a number, and heard he's back training. Might be too early to tell.
gets you a coffee at half time and somewhere warm in December.The bar is decent and the food isnt bad but everything has gone up in price if saturday is anything to go by.
Is Luzon going to do a Bilic and throw the Cup match in the hope of getting a result away to one of the league favourites on Saturday? It worked for the Hammers and I doubt if any of their fans are still grieving over their Cup exit after their great win on Sunday. Nevertheless, I think it would be a mistake to follow their example for the following reasons; 1) Even if we turn up with a First XI as fresh as daisies on Saturday we will still face an uphill task at Derby. If we get through to the next Cup round then go down to an honorable defeat at Derby, I think fans and players would still be behind Luzon. 2) The individual abilities of our players are still up for debate, as we see on this and other boards. But what most would agree, given the great number of late changes to the line-up and a largely wasted pre-season, is that we need to work on teamwork and confidence. I think a comfortable win over the Daggers would help with this and it is more important than resting players at this stage of the season, when they all need matches. 3) RD likes money. We can earn money with a Cup run. I would play a strong XI (protecting only certain players) and then see who is fresh and keen for Derby. -- Pope (I am assuming in the unlikely event of his getting injured, Luzon has already lined up a keeper we can borrow at short notice for a month or three). -- Charles-Cook -- Bauer -- Sarr -- Holmes-Dennis -- Kashi -- Ba, Bergdich -- Ceballos -- Makienok, Ghoochannejhad (assuming he is up for it, otherwise Ahearne-Grant) Subs: Mitov, Cousins, Lennon, Fox, JHG, Jackson and Watt (these two last would probably benefit from 30 mins each). I would hope that team is strong enough to dominate Daggers so that it does not become an exhausting struggle. The last thing we want is extra-time and penalties. Just learned that our u21s had a great 3-0 win at Crewe today, but I do not know the team, I have assumed that Charles-Cook and Holmes-Dennis did not travel. If either of them did, Cousins or Fox would have to start. p.s. Under-18s drew 3-3 at Barnsley. Two from Lookman. He scores a lot of goals for a midfielder, I hope we get him on a long contract.
It won't be Holmes- Dennis he captained the U21s last night at Crewe. Apparently according to the Stoke Sentinal he didn't play for the U21s and will be playing tonight in the first team. If only the OS let us know the team that played for the U21s. I only know the scorers from the Crewe website.
This is the team that Ketts has put up. Pope, Charles-Cook, Bauer, Lennon, Holmes-Dennis; Ceballos, Cousins, Jackson, Bergdich; Ahearne-Grant, Harriott. I wouldn't be surprised if this is not correct. Plenty of pace in the side. One question where is our new signing Naby Sarr? He wasn't on the bench on Saturday.
I'd love to be there tonight, but unfortunately I've been dragged away to a rather plush Parisian hotel.
Looks like tonight's game is being overlooked Ponders - for how plush the hotel is, I'm sure it wouldn't change my personal opinion on Paris. We have never gotten on, and in fact probably prefer the Hilton (the blonde). Over to narbonne this Sunday to my visit my first bit of foreign property. A stone throws from the square, I seem to remember you had visited it. I shall be sat there for 7 days taking in the clean beer and oysters
