Be great to score first - even better to score a few more and not have to cling on as in other games, but our scoring record lately is bang average.
Blame Bowyer for that? Oshijala with a silly penalty early doors, which meant we were always chasing. Bonne back to his ineffective worst, and William's brought on very late. But we had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside (Aneke had another bad offside decision from the same linesman a few minutes later) and a clear penalty turned down late in the game. We appear to lack the ability to make our own luck, and bad luck was all we got. Radio Berkshire claimed all the decisions were in favour of Charlton. It's another point of view I guess, but we now need a few results today to keep our noses above water. I do want to see Bowyer try more creative players though. Williams, maybe Otzumer and Field. Oshijala can have a rest, and try Aneke with Hemed up front, with Bonne as an impact sub. We need wins now.
Aside from a few questionable sub decisions, nothing this season has been Lee Bowyer's fault. He is of course, the only reason we are in the Championship. Today's game was the second since the re-start where the stats show we were the better side (the other one was against QPR) But we cannot score enough goals. Macauley Bonne is doing his best, but 3 leagues is too big a step up and he can't really be expected to save us single-handed. Our other so-called forwards are plainly not good enough. We MUST get a 0-1 win at Birmingham, or I fear other results will go against us and it will be L1 next season (assuming there is money to even build some kind of squad again). If we do go down, at the moment I expect nothing more than a struggle against another drop, this time to the 4th tier. Bigger Clubs than us have suffered that fate. And would Lee Bowyer stay for yet another potless slog through a 3rd tier season? I doubt it.
The offside decision yesterday was a tight call. We were more annoyed with Bonne’s miss a minute later. The decision not to give us a penalty at the end was an absolute disgrace. No lack of effort but no strikers worth their name up front is concerning with 3 games to go. On the plus side results bar Luton have gone our way this weekend
