BFTG Charlton (H)

[Oilroyal]

Some people, even supporters, are never happy. We won the game and go second in the second tier of English football, if that cheers them up!

In my days of League 3 South, we would have chaired Ronnie Blackman round the pitch in such circumstances.

This: I remember Bury being our boogie team but that was when Charlton played in the top flight while we scrapped away in division 3. Good result today although not the best of games but not all games are going to be pretty. 3 points, 2nd in the Championship with a lot of games to come with different formations/players to play and watch. Be happy.

[Westwood52]

If Charlton were playing possession football-=well they can keep it.
Until they went down to ten men we never really looked like scoring-but at least we managed to up the tempo in the 2nd half.
Charlton applied exactly zero threat to our goal in 90 mins.

Habsi :Unclassified had nothing to do-apart from one very easy gather-it wasn't even a save.
Gunter : 6 A bit patchy.
Obita : 6 Caught out badly once -for a former winger not a totally effective attacking full back-but this season much better than last.
Mc Shane : 7 Couple of dodgy passes but absolutely rock solid.
Hector : 7 Poor start, but then got better & better.
Tish : 7 Apart from on one occasion;managed to rectify his mistakes-a real prospect-and for his age shows a lot of maturity.
Norwood : 6 His passing radar was off a bit, but the teams heartbeat.
Piazon : 5 Amazed he wasn't taken off -a real show pony-but one bit of measured class won us the game.
John : 5 Some intuitive passes -but not a patch on G Mac.
Sa : 6 Not quite at his best-but some clever play at times-his first touch could be better.
Blackman : 9 MOM the improvement this season is staggering-he gives the team the X factor.

Williams 5: really should have scored a couple-woeful finishing.
G Mac 7: A real threat when he came on.
Fernandez 6: Neat & tidy.

Ref: Apart from losing control on the Charlton time wasting -thought he was quite reasonable.

[Wycombe Royal]

Whoscored.com's match report sums up the match.

Reading - showed no significant weaknesses
Charlton - showed no significant strengths

Maybe they should have looked at our shooting accuracy stats......

[Esteban]

We need to get used to playing teams at home who sit deep and keep it tight, it almost a compliment to how well we're playing at the moment. However, I don't think I've ever seen an away team at the Madejski try harder not to score than Charlton. I'm not one to complain about teams parking the the bus, as long as they make an effort to get forward when they can. At times I thought I was watching the rugby, there was so much backwards passing. I know they had a lot of injuries and are looking for a result they can build on, but that was unforgivable if you're an Addicks fan.

As for us, we missed some industry in midfield and some guile out wide. Piazon doesn't look particularly suited to the position he played today, so struggled a little bit. We found it hard to get John into a 1v1 situation against their full back, so his pace and directness wasn't effective. That said, we did put some good passing moves together and created chances we should have done better with.

A dull game that we just had to get through and get a result, but we did play well and can go to Rotherham feeling very confident.

[Royality creeps In]

As much as I am going to get shot down by this, I thought that Piazon hd a really good game. His intricate passing /one two's had Charlton chasing shadows.

Oh and by the way he set up Blackmans goal!



Would you prefer Pog and Guthrie back.............................








Thought not!

We really do have some real numb nuts as fans.

[Jagermesiter1871]

Did anyone actually rendezvous with the Charlton fans who seem more interested in meeting up outside than the football?

[strap]

Am I the only one who didn't like that 10 minutes of passing sideways?

Well I for one agree with you. Went to the game with my younger son who is Leeds' Academy Analyst and he was wetting himself saying it was perfect game management. I countered by saying that scoring a second would have been far better "game management" as it would give us a cushion, and in addition, GD may play a role come the end of the season. However, apparently, the done thing nowadays, (and I blame Moronyo for this - which probably explains why Clarke uses the tactic), is to "protect the ball", i.e. keep it amongst your own players, as when attacking, it is easy to lose the ball with a misplaced pass and hand the initiative to the oppo!

I think I was proved right as had we got a second, (and could you see Charlton scoring in a month of Sundays?!), our goal difference would have been +11 and we would have been 2nd by rights. I don't know why we are currently second with an identical record to Middlesbrough. I can't find anything in the rules to say, if in the event of identical records, the team shading the head to heads is deemed the better of the 2 teams. In "the old days" ti was always based on alphabetical order.

Anyway, aside from Ola John who I thought was atrocious, (did anyone else notice after the first 2 minutes - literally - Obita simply didn't trust him enough to pass to him!), the team seemed to gel very well. When McCleary replaced him we were immediately far better. Our shooting was abysmal today though and in more difficult games that is going to cost us unless we sharpen up.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable game, and least stressful 1-0 win I have seen in years.

[tidus_mi2]

Anyone should realise alphabetical order is a terrible way to do a tie-breaker anyway, glad they don't use alphabetical order anymore if they did in the past.

[Nameless]

Alphabetical order works OK preseason, and is also fine mid season. If footballing stats don't give you a means to differentiate you need something so they can print a league table.

[Royal Ginger]

As much as I am going to get shot down by this, I thought that Piazon hd a really good game. His intricate passing /one two's had Charlton chasing shadows.

Oh and by the way he set up Blackmans goal!



Would you prefer Pog and Guthrie back.............................








Thought not!

We really do have some real numb nuts as fans.

What a stupid thing to say, your Piazon opinion aside (you're entitled to that, no problems) clearly i'd not rather go back to a failing team, however, I would rather McCleary started or Williams, or had they been fit HRK or Vydra. Thinking Piazon was poor does not equal wishing we had Guthrie and Pogrebnyak in the team.

[Berry]

A grinding result....A poor Charlton team wanting a draw...MOTM....McShane....A leader of men

[Lower West]

As much as I am going to get shot down by this, I thought that Piazon hd a really good game. His intricate passing /one two's had Charlton chasing shadows.

Easy to forgot that he is not even 22 until next January. Having seen him play a few times this season now. He has grown on me. Obviously listens to SC 's instructions and plays in whatever role he is asked to. Obviously lacks experience and makes mistakes. But the teams winning. He'll only get better. The shame is he'll be gone at the end of the season whatever.

[Vicky Pollard]

Alphabetical order works OK preseason, and is also fine mid season. If footballing stats don't give you a means to differentiate you need something so they can print a league table.

I believe in this situation it comes down to the number of Waitrose branches within a 10 mile radius of the stadium. Hence we find ourselves 2nd.

[bcubed]

Piazon 6 everything he does is almost brilliant, but isn't.

Very harsh giving him just a 6. There were quite a few moments of brilliance from him during the game and he did, of course, set up our goal.

A lot of what he tries won't come off but I just hope he keeps on trying to do brilliant things because when he does get things right it tends to pay off with big dividends. He could well prove to be critical when other teams try to park the bus against us.

This^

Like him a lot
hes a pretty classy player and reads the game very well.
Some of his first time touches are sublime
And did anyone mention he cruised for the goal?!

[marlowuk]

We were not at our best but Charlton were only ever there for a point. We had 23 shots on goal and only 4 on target and that tells its own tale and it was only when Charlton went down to 10 men that we were able to get ahead. There was too much sloppy play and, like others, I was amazed that Piazon was not the first to be substituted. I appreciate he supplied the cross for our goal but, apart from that, he contributed very little. He is too easily eased off the ball, rarely competes for high balls and bottles out of 50-50 challenges. Williams is a better choice for me in midfield.

Norwood ran the midfield but his set-piece deliveries were poor today. Crosses were easily taken by their keeper and his attempts on goal never threatened! Our defence was solid and Al Habsi had little to do except get down to save their only shot on target. Although, to be fair, Pope had little to do in the Charlton goal as so many of our efforts went high or wide!

MOTM? Difficult to select anyone. Blackman maybe? Hector? McShane? No-one stood out in what was a pretty boring and frustrating game. And I'm guessing we will have more of the same as teams come to the Mad Stad in defensive mode. We need to be able to break these teams down so, hopefully, a fit Vydra will be able to provide the 'ALF' effect and share the goal-scoring with Blackman who has, rightly, become a fans' favourite right now.

[Woodcote Royal]

As much as I am going to get shot down by this, I thought that Piazon hd a really good game. His intricate passing /one two's had Charlton chasing shadows.

Easy to forgot that he is not even 22 until next January. Having seen him play a few times this season now. He has grown on me. Obviously listens to SC 's instructions and plays in whatever role he is asked to. Obviously lacks experience and makes mistakes. But the teams winning. He'll only get better. The shame is he'll be gone at the end of the season whatever.

So, about the same age as Blackman when he arrived and here we are getting lumbered again with forking out for an expensive "dud"

As if there was more chance of hell freezing over than Chelsea allowing us to buy or, us being able to afford Piazon, FFS

[Maguire]

Sometimes you get games like this (an away team who comes for a 0-0) and finding a way to pick the lock is all that matters. On this occasion Blackman drew two yellow cards from the centre-half with good skill and then exploited the space to head home a nice cross.

I thought John and Piazon were both ineffective despite the latter's assist. Game was crying out for the introduction of Williams and McCleary, both of whom are stronger and understand their role in the side.

Blackman - he's obviously on fire at the moment but why is he still acting like a bitch? Seems very angry with the world, remonstrating with teammates and snarling at the fans. Cheer up m8 and reign that ego in.

Keep ball - absolutely the right thing to do as evidenced by the fact Charlton didn't get near our goal and we walked away with the W.

[Stranded]

Alphabetical order works OK preseason, and is also fine mid season. If footballing stats don't give you a means to differentiate you need something so they can print a league table.

Head to head record is a footballing stat, so is used here as we have one with Boro. All tie breakers are applied where available throughout the season. If we hadn't played Boro they would be shown as ahead of us but we would currently be classed as in a tie.

[Nameless]

Alphabetical order works OK preseason, and is also fine mid season. If footballing stats don't give you a means to differentiate you need something so they can print a league table.

Head to head record is a footballing stat, so is used here as we have one with Boro. All tie breakers are applied where available throughout the season. If we hadn't played Boro they would be shown as ahead of us but we would currently be classed as in a tie.

You have to be correct, the table doesn't lie !

[Sutekh]

1. That game was awful, trouble is we're going to have to endure a good many more teams coming down to the Mad Stad and playing like that

2. Charlton were very well organised and had great movement and energy but nothing else. However what they did have made it very difficult to effectively play against.

3. That said felt Reading's game was a little off with passing, esp. the final ball, not being as accurate as we have recently come to expect. Also felt they were ignoring Gunter too much as lost count of the number of times he appeared to be in acres of space/the best option and yet the more complex option was attempted.

4. Don't get the Piazon scapegoating, did a lot of good out there yesterday. Yes he is a bit lightweight but he is just starting out on playing in a fast and very physical league with little time allowed on the ball, consequently he is getting caught out on occasions. However some of his touches were sublime.

5. We missed HRK