Match Day Thread Charlton Vs Scunny.

Time for Charlton to get their push for the play-offs back on track. We'll probably have to rely on other clubs dropping points if we're to make top 6, but if we can't get 3 points at home to Scunny the end of the season is nigh. I'd like to see Big Josh back, see what he can do with Zyro as partner, rather than lone striker, which he can't play. Bowyer has been praising KaiKai, so it looks like he'll play. There should be a decent crowd, and a good atmosphere, to start with at least.

 

I'm looking forward to 4-4-2, with Magennis as one of the 2.
2 games 2 wins at the Valley under Lee Bowyer, we must extend that great home form.

 

2-0 to Scunthorpe.

 

Scunthorpe have won only once in their last 15 league games (2-3 away at Fleetwood), and have gone the last 10 without a win.
They have not kept a clean sheet since New Year's Day.

I think tomorrow is a good opportunity for us to start scoring goals again but we must cut out the mistakes at the back. Scunthorpe have become draw specialists recently, but they haven't drawn 0-0 in the league since September.

 

2-1 Charlton

 

Mmmmm, they have to win sometime.

On the flip side this is a great opportunity to get three points before a very difficult last four games.

 

11th August 2007 - first home match day of the post-Premiership era.
Scunthorpe United were the visitors, Champions of League One the previous season.

5,000 fans from our 2006-07 Premiership relegation season had not returned to the Valley but Lardiman had finally come home, after an absence of well over 20 years. With his brand new season ticket book zipped up in an inside pocket of his jacket he climbed one of the stairways into the lower West and took his seat to watch the first game of Charlton's 2007-08 campaign to regain their top-flight status.

The rest as they say, is history.

A coincidence then, that the steepest decline in Charlton Athletic's history began on the day Lardy returned to the Valley?
You betcha. Life is full of them.
And of course the Club's decline had actually begun well over a year earlier with the mistakes that were made around the time that Alan Curbishley moved on. But that's all water under the bridge now.

We have had one chance to reverse the long term decline, one fantastic promotion season. But for several reasons that turnaround eventually faltered.
Now today we face Scunthorpe United again, with some fans including myself still clinging to a slender hope that this could be another step on the road to a second promotion from the third tier and a second chance for a better future.

If we fail, then so be it. But let's at least give Scunny a real game today and perhaps we can improve on the 1-1 draw back in August 2007.
We need that win.

Up the Addicks!

 

As I will be out for the rest of the day I have brought my charger with me. Just in case we lose today and Ivor goes into overdrive!

I wonder if he'll travel 1/2 hour down the road to watch us on Tuesday night.

 

To be honest the decline began some 14 months PRIOR to your return to the Valley Lardi..... it began with the appointment of Dowie as Manager for non-footballing reasons

Another in the long long list of disastrous calls by Dicky 'Just Another Fan Like You' Murray!

 

Absolutely, 100% this. Appointing Iain Dowie & letting Dowie spunk the millions Curbs had saved up.

Apart from the 101 points season in League One - which you could argue wasn’t really a triumph at all as we should never have been in that division in the first place, it’s been 12 years of almost unparalleled dross and failure.

It will be interesting to see which Bowyer side turns up today. KaiKai must be dropped. He is sh1t.

 

Much to my shame I have a work contact who is a Palarse ST holder... when I asked him about Kaikai he said "He's got all the tricks but absolutely no end product, he's not Premiership quality" .... seems Kaikai is not L1 quality either!

 

Sums up the player pretty well. He has made no impact whatsoever. A very poor man’s Fosu.
Would hope to see Magennis & Mavidi start up front today.

 

Going by what Bowyer has been saying Kai-kai will start, unfortunately. I'd rather see Marshall. He hasn't been great, but he's our player

 

We have lost to a load of teams with an appalling record and I think the same thing will happen today. I think we will lose to Scunthorpe, Shrewsbury and Blackburn. If it will accelerate Duchatelet exit from the Club I will take that.

 

We’ve been a Jekyll & Hyde team so far under Bowyer. 3 good performances followed by 2 poor ones. At this stage of the season you need players with bottle, so I’m not sure why Forster-Caskey is in the Newshopper appealing for the fans to get behind the players? The support since Bowyer took overhas been excellent, home and away. It’s up to the players to deliver now.

 

Some players think they can win games by just having 100% support from the terraces? ..... then why are Palarse near the relegation zone from Prem and why were Pompey in L2 last season?.... A teams results are based on how well the players perform, week in, week out. ....... simples!

 

CHarlton's promotion push this season is very much like Scotland's attempts to qualify for a major tournament. You keep working out the permutations to try and convince yourself it will happen, then it might happen, then last of all it's still mathematically possible. Then it's over, as you knew all along it would be.
Then a good win when it doesn't matter any more.

 

Could have been much worse than 0-1. We're being outplayed. I don't know where a goal is coming from.

 

Not a great first half for us. The team looks light weight and short of ideas, movement is patchy. We are also slipping over and miss-kicking too much. Also not getting tight or even showing much desire to get stuck in.

Scunthorpe don't look very scary but they are closing us down quickly and breaking fast on us. Frankly they deserve to be a goal up. Lee Bowyer needs to give the players a rocket and think about changes. Kaikai is still not doing it but others are struggling too. And we still look vulnerable at the back.

But at 0-1 the game is not over yet.
We have to fight harder, stay on our feet and hassle them more.

 

Outclassed.