Charlton season stats 2017-18

10th March update;

I was hoping that a score draw might be the outcome here, but it was not to be.
The official website makes the game sound like an open end-to-end thriller, even implying Charlton were unlucky to lose.
Fans who traveled and saw the game themselves may tell other stories.
Personally I'm not going to bother believing that we were unlucky to lose a game with a 4-1 scoreline.

Charlton are now 20 points behind 2nd place, after playing 34 games.
We are now 3 points behind 6th place, and even 5th place is now all but mathematically beyond our reach - 7 points and a +11 goal difference.

There are those two games in hand of course, but since one of them is away to Shrewsbury I'm not putting too much store in our ability to take full advantage of them. Just not getting another drubbing in our next game now counts as an "improvement".

 

That is damning evidence of Charlton's lack of real competitiveness this season.
12 points from 15 games played against teams currently in the top half of the table. 9 defeats.

The impression from earlier this season that Karl Robinson had built a team which could use speed and width to overwhelm opposition and put in a proper challenge for promotion was a fragile illusion.
Doubtless some will lay all the blame on injuries and say that Robinson has just suffered from rotten luck.
But no team ever has the privilege of playing even most of a season with a full strength squad, everybody has to cope with injuries to some degree. And the sheer number of injuries we have suffered strongly suggests something is wrong with our fitness/training regime. That, and our notorious policy of taking risks on buying injury-prone players because they are cheap.

Robinson's formula has been effective in the past against poor sides who were lacking motivation. But at this point in the season even the struggling sides do have motivation; they are fighting against relegation.

Our current points rate is exactly 1.5 per game.
Extrapolating from that, Charlton are on course to finish the season with 69 points.
Not enough to reach the play-offs. Probably an 8th place finish or thereabouts, exactly as the bookies predicted.

However, based on our points-per-game since the beginning of November (1.1) Charlton may finish this season with as few as 64 points.
One win and one draw better off than our worst third tier season since 1926.
Probably the outcome will be somewhere between those two projections.

Apologists and naive optimists will claim this is progress over last season, but that does not account for the players we have lost from our squad this season and those we are yet to lose. Nobody believes Karl Robinson's fantasy about Charlton being able to buy anybody we want this summer because of overhead cuts. All of our loanee players will be gone, and Ezri Konsa will almost certainly be sold.
Would you trust Karl Robinson to rebuild our depleted squad again this summer - probably with no help from Duchatelet?

If the Club is not sold, that is our future. Another 3rd tier season with another Robinson 4-2-3-1 lightweight, paper thin squad. Unless KR quits of course.

 

13th March update;

Humiliating capitulation at Blackpool, handing the Seasiders their first home win this year - and a well deserved one.
6th place is now 5 points and a huge goal difference above us.
Even if Scunthorpe continue to melt down, it seems much more likely that Plymouth will profit from that, not Charlton.

Four teams are a point or two behind us in the table now. Anything less than a win against Fleetwood this weekend and we could find ourselves in mid-table where our long term poor form suggests we should be.
Even the threadbare dream of 6th place - pathetic really for a Club with our potential - will be over by Easter.

Anybody can beat anybody in this league, but we were not unlucky against Blackpool. We were well beaten.

 

17th March update;

• A goalless draw at home against Fleetwood Town.
• Our goalkeeper to thank that it was not another defeat.
• 3 goals scored in our last 5 games, and 8 goals conceded.
• No win since 17th February. Only 1 win since 20th January.
• 5 points below 6th place in League One. Millwall are 4 points below 6th place in the Championship.
• 22 wins from 63 league games under Karl Robinson.
• Still 8 points below our 2016-17 season total with only 10 games left to play.
• No striker available for our next game.

A pitiable mess.
'Embarrassing' does not cover it.

And it is set to continue into and maybe beyond the summer.
No CEO, no tickets on sale for next season, no sign of a take-over.

 

22nd March update;

Just a small update to close the dates on Karl Robinson - 2016-1018.
22 wins from 63 league games - our second worst 3rd tier manager in 90 years, with only Russell Slade below him for win ratio (but above him for defeat ratio).
And Slade was barely given enough games for his stats to have much meaning.

 

25th March update;

A good win and a positive performance yesterday - well done Lee Bowyer and the team

The growing cloud of negativity and inflexibility surrounding Karl Robinson swept away in only 48 hours after his departure.
I hear that we attacked and maybe rode our luck a bit in the first half, but then made crucial tactical changes which meant we saw out the game and even kept a clean sheet. Bowyer appears to have got things right at the beginning, and then been able to make adjustments to fix potential problems as the game went on.

Hopes are now rising that LB can revive our season just in time to claim a play-off place.
Personally I'm a little cautious about this - not because I don't believe in Bowyer, but because I'm hesitant to read too much into one result and I'm aware there are some tough fixtures standing between Charlton and the end of the season.
Realistically we still need to win 6 of our remaining 9 games to claim a top 6 place, assuming that results in other games won't always go our way.
Perhaps if I had been at the Valley to see yesterday's win I might be feeling less cautious.

Momentum can be a powerful thing, and it feels like Lee Bowyer has got our season rolling again. It's a good feeling.
I very much hope we can build on that momentum with an away win at Northamption.

 

1st April update;

Another aggressive and positive performance, one that struggling Northampton Town had no answer to.
Suddenly under Lee Bowyer Charlton have new hope of finishing in the play-offs.
A team seemingly able to adapt to circumstances, score goals, keep clean sheets, dominate games or see them out.

One great result could have been a fluke, two looks much more like a real change (albeit Northampton were poor opponents).
Monday's match against Rotherham should reveal even more about the substance behind this turnaround.
If we can give the Millers a real game then a top 6 finish is still possible.

 

3rd April update;

Three wins out of three for caretaker manager Lee Bowyer, and two of those wins against our play-off rivals.
Bowyer has truly given back the team its mojo, and fans are flocking back to the Valley.
The official figure was 11,871 and apparently this is almost correct for once.
Five thousand Charlton fans returning in the space of a few weeks is a stunning turnaround.

It's enough to make me question what I have believed for a long time now.
Clearly our squad is not too thin. Our players are good enough to potentially win this league.
All they needed was the right leader.

 

8th April update;

An away point isn't a terrible result as long as we do not lose any more momentum.
10 points from a possible 12 is still beyond most of our hopes for how well Lee Bowyer might get on as our caretaker manager.
If we can beat AFC Wimbledon on Tuesday then anything is still possible.

Plymouth will secure 5th place soon I think, they have a comfortable looking run-in.
So for me it's a three way slug-fest between Charlton, Peterborough and Portsmouth for the last play-off place (assuming Scunthorpe continue to drop away).
I honestly believe Lee Bowyer and his men can win that struggle.

 

11th April update;

Unfortunately Charlton have lost momentum, the defeat by AFC Wimbledon and the manner of it are both hammer blows to our play-off chances.
As table 3 now shows we need an average 2 points per game from here on to finish the season on 72 points - the average number required to finish 6th for the last dozen L1 seasons, and I think what will be required this season as well.

Lee Bowyer instantly freed the team from the restrictions of Karl Robinson's philosophy and they flourished for a time, but now comes the first of four huge tests of the players and of Bowyer's character and tactical ability.

The first test will be to lift the dressing room, make the right changes and pull off a critical win against Scunthorpe on Saturday.

The second test will be to win away at Shrewsbury only three days later - or at the very least avoid defeat there.

The third test will be to beat Portsmouth on their own turf - or at least get a point there if he managed to take all 3 at Shrewsbury.

The fourth test will be to defeat Blackburn Rovers at the Valley on 28th April.

Lee Bowyer's Charlton team must be looking to win three of these four games now.
That is the heavy price for taking only a single point from the Bristol Rovers and AFC Wimbledon games.
If the results of our play-off rivals are kind to us then two wins and a draw might be enough - but other results have been kind to us a lot already this season. That luck could well run out soon.

We almost certainly need to be going to Rochdale on the last day of the regular season with 69 to 71 points already in the bag.
That is a massive task now, and there is no room left for any more poor performances.
But it still can be done.

 

15th April update;

Well that's that, as far as a realistic chance of finishing 6th is concerned.
Not only because of the result itself but also the performance.

Something is obviously not right in the relationship between Lee Bowyer and the players. For that relationship to turn sour after only a few games is a cause for great concern. Looking back, some fans did say that even the third game win against Rotherham was a closer contest than the 3-1 scoreline suggested, and since then nothing seems to have gone right.

Its possible that Bowyer's style of man-management is just not working.
I did wonder whether he might never have been a popular coach from the point of view of the players, but that seems unlikely bearing in mind how they magically came to life immediately after Karl Robinson left.
Perhaps what Bowyer said or did at the time he took over did strike the right note, but as the feel-good factor of being released from Robinson's ways wore off, LB did not deal well with problems that started to crop up. The reported spat with Nicky Ajose suggests this might be the case.

Not entirely Bowyer's fault - some players behave incredibly immaturely sometimes and LB has no experience of being a manager (rather than a coach). He has had no time at all to learn the ropes.

But for whatever reason, the damage is now done.
Charlton's chance of finishing 6th is now only mathematical bearing in mind our last three woeful performances.
LB has said on the official website that the players "need to stand up and be men" for the last four games. Harsh words and true ones they may be, but sadly I think the sting of them is unlikely to have the right effect on many of those in the dressing room.

 

Bowyer was bigged up after his first three games.

It may well be that in time he has the credentials and who knows, if it is true regards Kewell being our next manager and Bowyer being buddies with him. It might work with Bowyer being a number two.

 

17th April update;

Fantastic away win tonight, puts Charlton right back in the play-off running.
If we can beat Portsmouth this weekend anything is possible from that point onwards.

I'm not sure if we will have Jake Forster-Caskey available though, he was booked this evening and I think that's his 10th yellow this season.
I don't know yet whether that means he will miss the Portsmouth and Blackburn games...

Still, it's great to be in the play-off tussle still. Had we not won tonight our season would have been as good as over.

 

If JFC is out that would give Kashi his chance. He's a classier player, but would he be motivated, that's the question for Bowyer to ponder.

 

I think Plymouth are certs for 5th and because of our loss to them last Saturday... Scunny must now be favourites for 6th their run in is simples!

 

21st April update;

Another fantastic win for Lee Bowyer and his team - Charlton are still 5th for the moment, and we are all now eagerly awaiting the results from Tuesday evening's games. If they are kind to us Charlton will have our play-off destiny in our own hands going into the Blackburn game next weekend.

Plymouth have two games in hand over us and are only 4 points behind, but they still have to play Scunthorpe.
A draw in that game would be the best result for the Addicks - even a Scunthorpe win would not be a disaster, even though it would push us down into 6th place. The important consolation would be that Plymouth could not overtake us unless we drop more points.

We have a real chance now of extending our season. Lee Bowyer is in the process of pulling off a minor miracle.
Even if we do ultimately fail to get to the Championship this season, he has my gratitude for all the effort he has put in against daunting odds.

 

29th April update;

A terrific home win, a gutsy and courageous performance in the face of very good opposition, an incredible climax to our season.
Charlton's play-off chances are now 100% in our own hands - regardless of what happens between Scunthorpe and Plymouth on Tuesday.

One more win against Rochdale next Saturday and we are in the play-off semi-finals, guaranteed.
Lee Bowyer has achieved the almost impossible.