Current form Dec. 18

I just saw this on CL. Really depressing, and for those who want to claim we are going well, it should be the equivaent of an ice bucket. I imagine a few out there will claim it is entirely the fault of injuries/bad referees/CARD. You may need to scroll down to find us.

Pos Team P W D L GF GA W D L GF GA GD Pts

1 Blackburn Rovers 6 2 0 0 4 1 4 0 0 14 6 11 18
2 Portsmouth 6 3 0 0 3 0 2 0 1 5 4 4 15
3 Wigan Athletic 6 2 1 1 6 2 2 0 0 7 1 10 13
4 Scunthorpe United 6 2 1 0 5 2 2 0 1 5 2 6 13
5 Bradford City 6 1 0 2 5 6 3 0 0 5 2 2 12
6 Plymouth Argyle 6 2 0 1 4 5 1 1 1 2 2 -1 10
7 Oldham Athletic 6 2 1 0 8 2 0 2 1 1 3 4 9
8 Gillingham 6 1 2 0 5 2 1 1 1 3 3 3 9
9 Walsall 6 2 0 2 5 4 1 0 1 3 3 1 9
10 Oxford United 6 1 0 2 4 6 1 2 0 5 1 2 8
11 MK Dons 6 1 2 0 3 2 0 2 1 5 6 0 7
12 Shrewsbury Town 6 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 -1 7
13 Northampton Town 6 1 1 1 2 4 1 0 2 3 8 -7 7
14 Bristol Rovers 6 2 0 1 6 4 0 0 3 2 7 -3 6
15 Doncaster Rovers 6 1 2 0 4 3 0 1 2 0 4 -3 6
16 Rochdale 6 1 1 0 2 0 0 1 3 6 10 -2 5
17 Peterborough United 6 1 0 2 4 5 0 2 1 4 6 -3 5
18 Rotherham United 6 0 1 2 3 6 1 1 1 4 4 -3 5
19 Blackpool 6 0 1 2 4 7 1 1 1 1 1 -3 5
20 Southend United 6 1 1 1 4 3 0 1 2 1 5 -3 5
21 AFC Wimbledon 6 0 1 2 3 8 1 1 1 3 2 -4 5
22 Charlton Athletic 6 1 2 1 6 6 0 0 2 0 4 -4 5
23 Bury 6 1 0 2 1 4 0 2 1 1 2 -4 5
24 Fleetwood Town 6 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 3 4 9 -5 3

 

Enough of this negativity. If we win the next 6 games we're top!

 

Can we just not wait to see where we are at in 2029? Such negativity.

 

Charlton are 21st or 22nd in the 'last 6 matches' form tables (depending on which ones you look at).

When you are trying to sustain a promotion push, it helps not to lose three of your four most recent games. and draw the other one.
5 of our last 7 league games have been at the Valley, but we have only won 2 of those 5 home games.

Exactly what we feared has come to pass.

1. We had an easy start to the season; only one other promotion competitor in our first 11 matches.
2. Our starting XI played well until they began to tire and pick up injuries. But the squad has no depth.

Both of these things we knew before a ball was even kicked back in August.
I'll admit the start we got off to was even better than most of us expected. But the weaknesses in the squad were still there in the background.
And our good start has not brought anybody back to the Valley.

Those fans who do attend have been nothing but positive. No protests, no negativity or toxic atmosphere.
Yet still mistakes were made back in the summer, simple things that we could all see were not addressed, and now the consequences are coming home.

Those mistakes are 100% the responsibility of the manager and the board. Not even the most swivel-eyed loony apologist can blame the fans this time.
Not that Charlton's decline since 2014 was ever our fault.

EDIT:
And here's a view of our league form under Duchatelet, compared to our last two owners
(beginning from our first season after relegation from the Premiership)

 

A table showing attendance figures under the different owners would be quite interesting.

 

This table shows average attendance each season since the Premiership years.
The RD era is the red tinted dates on the left.

Note: The figure for this season is only 0.2% up because of the 25th anniversary attendance.
Before that figure was added, average attendance was down this season.

 

Well, after the Blackpool result we can pretty much kiss the automatic promotion places goodbye.

Charlton are now 11 points adrift of second place and it isn't even Christmas yet. That indicates we will probably finish the season more than twenty points below those top two places.
Even the higher play-off places are beginning to look unattainable now. Our list of ambitions/hopes this season are dwindling to just one - hanging on to 6th place.

A slowly accumulating injury problem has now become a full-blown injury crisis.
And not enough squad players are stepping up.
Aribo did well against Blackpool but how many other players stood out, against arguably the poorest team to come to the Valley this season?

 

I posted back in August that a “squad” has got to be a lot better than Jackson and raw kids - yesterday we were forced to rely on Jackson and the raw kids.

This really isn’t rocket science. The Wigan chairman David Sharpe has funded their manager Paul Cook with a Championship strength squad, including 2/3 decent goalscorers. It was these promises that lured Cook away from Portsmouth last summer. Guess what? Wigan are ripping up this league, including a 7-0 away win yesterday, and will be promoted easily. Meanwhile our mega rich owner, useless CEO and hapless manager plough on with the same doomed experiment which is guaranteed to deliver what it delivered in his previous 3 seasons - abject failure.

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

 

Monkey see, monkey do

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