I read that Charlton are hoping Stephy Mavididi will be fit to play by Saturday March 24th. NOT so he can play for he Addicks against Plymouth at the Valley that day, but because they hope Mavididi will then be called up for International duty in the England U20 squad. This would give Charlton the 3rd international call-up player required to postpone their home match with Plymouth. To call off a home game on a Saturday. To tell the thousands of Charlton fans who would have been looking forward to that weekend that there will be no match at 3pm, no need for them to come and support their team. The Club would rather ask those fans (and the Plymouth supporters) to come in on a working day evening several weeks in the future (which many of them will not be able to do) and watch Charlton play just three days after a Saturday game, and four days before the next game. What happened to KR's love for the fans? And all because our squad is so weak that we are afraid of facing Plymouth Argyle at home with Josh Magennis and Ezri Konsa missing from the squad. So our team is so fragile that Robinson would rather we play another 3 games in 8 days and play in front of fewer than 6,000 fans on a weekday evening, than face an opponent with two players unavailable for selection. So be it, if that's the way he wants to play it. But I for one do not want to hear one word of complaint from Robinson or anybody else at Charlton because we have a fixture pile-up, or because players are tired due to having to play so many mid-week fixtures. Promotion push? Don't make me laugh. A team that is frightened to play games because its squad is so shallow it cannot cope with a couple of called-up absentees is never going to gain promotion. We need to grow a pair, not run away from a home fixture and hide behind the rules.
Postponements are also a major ball ache for the most important people - Charlton fans who pay to go to our matches (visitors from ITTV can look away now..) Midweek games at the Valley are a hassle for many, and midweek games away a virtual impossibility. How do you get to Blackpool next Tuesday night , I can’t see us taking 150 up there for that one. Every effort should be made to play the Plymouth fixture on the Saturday. Stuff the lightweight Arsenal kid Mavidi and his bloody international aspirations.
Exactly. More than anything else this is disrespectful to Charlton fans who still want to attend home games. And it's a false economy anyway in my opinion. All the extra hassle of arranging another mid-week fixture, further tiring players who are already having to play other Tuesday evening matches for other reasons, and playing at home in front of an almost empty stadium because many Addicks fans cannot attend mid-week games because of work. Also denying many travelling Plymouth fans the opportunity to support their team and add to the atmosphere. Fans always come last in modern football, but few places more so than at Charlton. Like many Clubs, Charlton Athletic under this owner and this manager don't give a toss about the fans - despite Robinson's nauseating lip-service to them. Does he not trust those fans he claims to love to get behind the team on a Saturday afternoon and help to compensate for the missing Magennis and Konsa? Of course not. He'd rather p*ss on the fans and get the game rescheduled, on the presumption that he will have his players back. Never mind the increased fixture congestion or the possibility that other players who are fit right now might pick up injuries and be unavailable for the rescheduled Plymouth game anyway. Too frightened to play Plymouth Argyle on a Saturday afternoon at the Valley. That's how timid we are now, and how far we have fallen.
Indeed. From the tone of his piece Ketts doesn't seem bothered by the prospect, and I accept other fans may well think it the wisest course of action. But in my opinion it's a cowardly move based on timidity and shaky logic. What is lost could well outweigh what is gained, and as usual the inconvenience to fans is at the bottom of the list of considerations.
Apparently it was also no bad thing that we did not play AFC Wimbledon yesterday, since Forster-Caskey and Tarique Fosu are suffering from 'minor knocks' and may not have been able to play. F**king diddums. For Pete's sake. If we are going to have to wait for every important player to be 100% fit in order to face a team in 19th place, it will be May next year before Charlton finish this season. If we aren't good enough to beat Wimbledon with a few of our first XI out then we don't deserve to be anywhere near getting promoted. All this fussing about players with broken fingernails or a bit of a headache, and who is still not available and whether we can get another game postponed. It is frankly pathetic. What happened to momentum, to ambition, to basic hunger for success? Why does our Club display less desire to conquer our opponents than a bunch of frightened sheep trying to hide behind each other? Other teams in the promotion race are surely up for it aren't they?
I see the AFC Wimbledon away game has been rescheduled for April 10th. If Charlton do get their home game against Plymouth postponed, there will only be two dates available to play it; Tuesday 24th April Tuesday 1st May That will mean that starting from the Northampton away game on Good Friday (30th March) Charlton will play a match every 3 or 4 days for the remaining 10 games of the season, except for one 5 day gap (Monday 2nd to Saturday 7th April) and one 7 day gap (either 21st to 28th April or 28th April to 5th May). Now, putting aside the strain that will place on our team... If any of our remaining 10 matches is then postponed - possibly due to a waterlogged pitch somewhere - Charlton will lose that last remaining 7 day gap. Spring weather can be notoriously unpredictable. Being in the 3rd tier as we are, it is not impossible that one or more matches may have to be postponed. In a nutshell, if the Plymouth game is postponed then from 30th March onwards Charlton will only have one midweek slot available for a rescheduled league game, with 10 games still to play. Personally I don't think the EFL should allow the Club to choose to create that situation.
I didn't know Mavadidi was in the England youth squad. And if he's only just back from injury he's unlikely to get called up. With DaSilva injured that only leaves 2 call-ups. So we might even see Zyro.
Josh Magennis has been called up to the Northern Ireland squad for their friendly game against South Korea on Saturday 24th March. In its report of this on the official website the Club specifically mentions that 3 players called up for international duty are required in order for Charlton to postpone the match against Plymouth Argyle at home. This clearly indicates that the Club will postpone the game if it can. Cold weather with a distinct possibility of snow is being forecast for this coming weekend. It seems unlikely that Charlton's home game against Fleetwood Town on Saturday 17th will be postponed unless very harsh weather hits London, but if that game is called off then after tonight the team will not play again until Good Friday (March 30th) if two more of our squad players are called up for internationals. That would be a gap of 17 days. From March 30th onwards Charlton would then have to play mid-week / Saturday / mid-week / Saturday for the whole of the rest of the season. (8 games in April and 2 games in May). There will be no more mid-week slots available to re-schedule matches if any more are postponed for any reason.
To be honest, it all feels academic to me. We don't have the squad to get promoted, though a different manager might get a better return from the players we've got available. Like all good Addicks, I won't give up till the club snuff out the hope, but the reality is games like Peterborough, not MK Dons. Most of us thought the squad would suffer this season, and so it has proved. For me, barring a surprise run of wins starting tonight, the only big outcome is when and with whom the takeover is done, and what the new owners ambitions are for the club. We could have a run in with saturday games only, but it wouldn't affect us as much as the damage we have self inflicted in our transfer windows.
I do wonder if a Club commitment should have priority over an International call-up if that call-up is for a friendly game, and the nation concerned has not qualified for any tournament. Northern Ireland's game against South Korea is effectively meaningless. In my opinion Magennis should be helping his Club against Plymouth at the Valley instead.
