HOW MUCH FOR A CARLING?!

The Good Stuff is Evil

I do my best to get to as many away games as I can. I mean it’s a bit expensive for your average skint student type to go to every away game. Nothing touches this manly frame that ain’t 100% pure silk and Hugo Boss threads cost serious dollar. Don’t start me on the exorbitant fuel costs for the limo either. Scandalous I tell thee. Scandalous.

So whilst Luton tomorrow night in the Carling Cup is merely up the road in the grand scheme of footballing away days for this Bromley Boy, fuck me if the tickets aren’t a little on the pricey side. £21.50 for a Carling Cup game on a Tuesday night means we should be taking one man and his dog to Kenilworth Road. Hey one man and his dog at Kenilworth Road. Good one liner that. But who is going to fork out that for a cup fixture that not too many fans really give a flying one for a week after Norwich on Tuesday and Leicester on Saturday. Luton might have financial problems, after all the club charge on average £22.00 for seats for their League games which seems expensive for a League One side considering Charlton were charging that for Premiership Football.

So will North Stand Addick be seen at Luton tomorrow night? Well to be honest I doubt it. I ain’t forking that out when I can go to Coventry for £1 extra and watch a game that might have some relevance on the future league status of my club. Plus I’m missing Sloth so might go and see him give his managerial David Brent impersonation on the touch line. Amazing that he was able to hold down a career as a centre forward and star in the Goonies at the same time really. No more impressive than the bloke that owns Man City starring as that evil Gestapo geezer in Raiders of the Lost Ark though. How come he was in the Gestapo anyway? Hardly an Aryan? Maybe they had an exchange programme with that lot from Tora! Tora! Tora! They were allies so that seems feasible. No less feasible than the German Army attempting to recover the Lost Ark of the Covenant from the middle of Egypt in 1936. Madness.

By the way did I mention that the Pistols are reforming for a few shows? Fucking result that! Saw them at Palace but you can never have enough of the Lydon even if he is a gooner. Now that’s worth forking out some filthy lucre on, not watching the couldn’t care less cup. Now if Faith No More reform I’ll be laughing. Never happen though.

But £21.50 for a Carling? Think I’ll stick to Cobra thanks mate!

FOX HUNTING. CHARLTON ATHLETIC 2 - 0 LEICESTER CITY

Christ! Back to back wins with another clean sheet! We’re turning into AC Milan!

Now I’ll be honest. I like Leicester. Decent club with a decent fan base, barring one or two pricks that I’ll discuss later, and a decent history. That little Irish bloke with the glasses was good. Made a name for himself in fact with the creation of a hard working side that was reasonable to watch. Won the League Cup on two separate occasions, which you can only admire even if the League Cup is somewhat two bob. Still he was my choice for England manager not that he ever had a snowballs chance of getting the appointment on account of him being too outspoken.
But with martin O’Neill’s departure came the arrival of football’s answer to Richard Ramirez. Now whilst Ramirez raped his victims then robbed them of cash, Taylor decided to do the robbing before he raped them. Peter Taylor cost Leicester Football Club a frankly staggering £23 million and their place in the Premiership. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when O’Neill left. But what Taylor did to Leicester was staggering. £5 million for Ade Akinbiyi was bad business. £1.6 million for Dennis Wise was fucking insane considering he was pushing 35 and an established cunt that was inclined to decimate whatever harmony existed at the club.
So history lesson aside, Leicester are a decent enough side that have been cruelly treated by fate really. Let’s hope for their sake that Mandaric doesn’t prove to be an addition to the list of people that have done the club over. Sacking Allen was idiotic. I’m not convinced that hiring Megson was much better to be honest.

The match between a Charlton side high on confidence and a Leicester side that have had an uneven start to the season was one sided. Leicester were shit pure and simple. Little or no incisiveness, lacklustre defence and worst of all, Carl Cort who looks a shadow of the player he did at the Dons. Megson needs more than a nice suit to convince people he has the managerial skill to get Leicester anywhere besides mid table. That was a damn nice suit though. Wonder if he’s related to Steve McClaren? Similar style in mens fashions and both capable of standing for long periods of time on the touchline doing nothing besides the obligatory push up gesture every five minutes. Christ I could do that blindfolded. Literally. So basically we were very decent whilst Leicester were very shit. They have one or two talented pro’s namely Ian Hume, who looked threatening on occasion, but the rest were lacklustre. Charlton were knocking it around the pitch well, Reid was good, Mills was outstanding even though I still refuse to cheer the bloke for the moment, and Iwelumo and Varney are starting to look like genuine class in this division. Still reckon neither of them are 20+ a season strikers but both are nonetheless more than good enough so long as the midfield gets in on the goals.
No complaints from me. Though the sight of Leicester fans getting hauled out of the ground by the scruff of their neck was amusing. Seemingly a bunch of them either decided to have a punch up between themselves in the corner by the screen or were anxious to be decimated by the Metropolitan Police. Newsflash. The day of the firm is over you fucking morons. Guess the message hasn’t sunk in yet though.
I’m sure PC Woods will be willing to educate them.

WHAT A MONTH THAT WAS

Amazing how a few results can change so much isn’t it ? Drawing at home to Scunthorpe and getting done away at Stoke doesn’t seem so bad now. We can put that down to blooding a new team . Yeah that’s a good enough excuse . We were blooding a new team .
But now we’re starting to look decent . Todorov in the 44th was nice for a start even though I did miss the fucking game for an afternoon in Lakeside with the missus . Disgraceful . But so much for the promises of us getting a good kicking . No one was there for one thing . The Palace faithful filled 15’000 of their 26’000 seater stadium . You can’t blame them though can you ? I mean we’re not rivals are we ? Nah of course we’re not . Charlton are too big a club to have a rivalry with a team who counts a bunch of shirt lifters based at an athletics track as their biggest foe . The fact we beat them each time we play them seems not to matter much either . Good for them .

So 18’000 turned out to watch the game . Guess everyone else had decided to do some shopping in House of Fraser too . I mean there are some fantastic deals on interior soft furnishings to be had . You can get them in Ikea too by the way . That’s down the road from Selhurst isn’t it ?
Still you can never have enough fur rugs . Who can blame them for not wanting to go .

So we won and Todorov became the new darling of the Charlton faithful who were calling him a big cunt for the first three matches of his career with us . Does life get better than that ? Fuck yes it does ! Marcus bent goes on loan to Wigan and Amady Faye fucks off to my Rangers . Hmm . That’s about 400 and 800 miles further north respectively isn’t it ? Still the fact that the Gers go down 4-2 to Hearts the moment the Senegalese answer to footballing arsenic arrives is purely coincidental I’m sure . Since Marcus will be closer to the cast of Hollyoaks it’s decent business from start to finish for everyone . Wonderful . Well aside from Faye whose gone to the one other team aside from Napoli I give a genuine flying one for . There goes that title challenge .

The 2-2 draw at Colchester was interesting . Lisbie scored which takes his career tally to about 30 in ten years . That’s the sort of goal scoring that can get you a promoted by anyone’s estimation . I wasn’t heart broken when we released him . Dancing around the room with delight is one way of describing it . He’s not shit but he’s not a centre forward . Talented but not mentally cut out for football me thinks .
So then we have Norwich kicking off at 8pm . Too fucking late it might be but what a game ! Norwich were on the back foot for most of it but it was without a doubt one of the better games I’ve seen at the Valley in the last few years . We dominated; they were shit; Dion Dublin is still their best player and we deserved to win . No doubt . Nice to see Izale come on and cause trouble to create two penalties . Even better to see Monty Panesar refereeing . What a multi talented pro . The fact I wasn’t sat on my fucking own for once was a welcome change with the addition of 2P’s and Murph . Expert footballing knowledge and cutting edge insights . We provided none of that . But numerous chants of boo-urns and a mention to Marco Boogers cannot be knocked .

Leicester tomorrow .

OWLS THAT? CHARLTON 3 - 2 SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY

Don’t I just miss all the fun?

Now whilst the Reading Festival was all kinds of frolics, seeing us come from 2-0 down to beat the Owls would have been fantastic, not to mention the sight of Deon ‘Pow Pow’ Burton. Missing our second home game of the season (in the League at least), was a pain in the proverbial, but at least the result was decent. But let’s not kid ourselves we should be beating teams like Sheff. Wed without them scoring twice and making us look like total and utter mugs for 45 minutes.

The star of the show was, according to all accounts, Big Chris Iwelumo, whose just about starting to look like a genuine threat, our most convincing one in fact. He’s big and tough as nails, an essential element in a division where people will kick lumps out of us for fun. We’re looking for a new star, or I suppose to be more specific a new Darren Bent. The defence is of course the main element of concern though. We need to get that sorted out first and foremost, otherwise we’re down here for another season.

UGLY AND THE BEAST. STOKE 2 - 1 CHARLTON.

There be Gremlins in the works. First of all the big screen at the Valley is on the blink, and now it seems that even the Sky TV in Bartram’s is suffering from post-relegation burnout after a series of cut-outs during the Stoke game. Has relegation cost cutting meant we can’t afford to renew the warranties on our big screen electrical gadgets? What next? Floodlight failure?
Bartram’s was bustling for the Stoke game. Unable to make the game in person, and with the missus in tow, I headed for SE7 to watch the game on the big screen; the next best thing. I’m starting to wonder whether I should have even bothered doing that, and I’m not talking about the set top box trouble which made the screen cut out and freeze half a dozen times.

Stoke are a good side, the Britannia Stadium intimidating. Stoke manager Tony Pullis has put together a tough, physical side that is perfect for scrapping to get back into and win games, and doggedly defending even the narrowest of leads. Be warned, head up there and expect to play a cultured passing game, and you’ll be liable to get roughed up, beaten senseless, and lose. With people like Liam Lawrence, Rory Delap, Dominic Matteo, Clint Hill and Ricardo Fuller, you’re in for a rough ride. Into this maelstrom of heated football, we unleashed a midfield that included Darren Ambrose. We were doomed from the start.

Now I’m somewhat loathe to repeat the same old litany of errors we made. It’s far easier to sum up the side, and our style of play, like this. We’re playing mediocre Premiership Football in the Championship, and that’s the biggest criticism that is possible to bestow on us.
For starters, there is utterly nothing direct and purposeful about our style of play. Yeah, we’ll win a possession-rate competition, but when it comes to getting the ball into areas where we look threatening, there’s fuck all there. When Andy Reid managed to deflect a free-kick off Jonathan Fortune to take the lead, we were lucky. There was nothing lucky about Stokes equalizer barely minutes later; a brilliantly taken right footed shot from Ricardo Fuller from outside the area which left Weaver with no chance, and the rest of the team clueless, and those of us in Bartram’s with that familiar sinking feeling.
Now please step up please, Stoke substitute Jonathan Parkin.

Now Alan Shearer he is not. Parkin, a man mountain of a centre-forward is nicknamed ‘The Beast’ for a reason; it’s because he’s a walking human rights violation standing at 6ft 4’ and full of muscle. When he put the ball through substitute Paddy McCarthy’s legs after only minutes of coming on, powered his way into the penalty area and scored into the bottom right hand corner past Nicky Weaver however, you got a first class lesson of what a big, brick shit house target man is when he gets proper delivery, and proper support. Route one football.
Parkin was signed for Stoke for mere peanuts, around £275’000. But he’s exactly the sort of substitute, and dare I say it exactly the sort of centre forward you want to batter your way out of this division, and use as a foil for a natural finisher, which Stoke luckily don’t really have. And here in is the lesson. Charlton, for all the errors of the past, need to learn that to not only win but to survive in this division you have to get your sleeves up and work hard, being physical and dogged.

At the moment we’re simply not doing that.

Charlton are slow at releasing the ball, giving it to wingers who can’t cross let alone get the ball airborne. Sam is a fast, mobile winger with excellent technique for this division. But my five year old sister could get it further off the ground than him, and even when he does play it onto the box, there’s nobody there. Ambrose again bottled half of the 50/50 balls yesterday and looked like a total non-entity, whilst Reid and Semedo both looked solid, if unspectacular. At least in the middle of the park we look better than we have done for a while. Losing Yassin however, is a sizeable blow. He’s different class.

If getting the ball in the air to our forwards is the best policy, there is little doubt that we need to get it onto the head of Big Chris Iwelumo. He’s a huge, powerful bloke, better on the ball than Parkin and other target men in this division, and I’ll stick my neck out on the line to say that he’ll be our best centre forward by the end of the season. He simply wins everything in the air. The trouble is that there’s no one there to pick up the knock ons. Bent’s positioning is terrible, he’s rarely anywhere near him to take advantage of the space he creates, whilst Izale McLeod is being played far too deep, acting as almost an attacking midfielder. Whilst he’s best coming from deep, I don’t think anyone means from besides Semedo. Get him further up field, hovering off Iwelumo, and he will score goals. Bent, for all the talk of him being our main man, just doesn’t have it in him.

There are however reasons to be somewhat cheerful about the Stoke debacle. For starters, we played fairly well in spurts, but again that was at keeping possession, not playing it forward into dangerous areas quick enough. Thomas looks dangerous, whilst Bougherra and Fortune show increasing signs of being a very solid central pairing at this level.
On a final note, a big ‘thank you’ to all those who made the trip up to the game. You did us proud; especially the likes of away regulars like Ricey who are a credit to the club week in week out with their support all over the country.
The team should look to them for some inspiration.