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Sunday, March 04, 2007

Watford match analysis

Addick Kap Varma offers his analysis of yesterday's draw at Watford:

Despite the first half, what a great day. We met up in Watford meeting up at the "Moon under the Sea". Whilst not a serial away game attendee I would say this is the best atmosphere pre match in a pub I have experienced, absolutely superb and breath taking. I met Ben Hayes, who was checking in with Glynne on appearance on Charlton Radio, actually it was nice to meet him and also said hello to MR Jim Charlton Nil Davidson. Off to the ground and the crowd continued where it had left off in the pub.

Two early'ish strikes by Watford dampened the spirits for a short while before the addickted sang up a again. So with everything going swimmingly well on the "terraces", what had changed from last week?

The enforced changes had done us no favours two new faces and Fortune and Sankofa drafted in with the latter playing out of position at Left Back . My theory is that we have seen central defensive solidity in the last few weeks. Elks occasional but huge mistakes have been swept up by his adept defensive partner, today he had Fortune, who thrives when he has a solid dependable and consistent partner, a la Jorge Costa (Central Defender not a coffee), that is not Elk. So Fortune looked unsure and was hesitant, along with the inexperienced Sankofa and across the defensive line was Right back Luke Young - insecurity reigns. Additionally, we have been playing the ball from central defence through midfield (Song) through to the forward line, the problem this week being that Fortune and finesse are diametrically opposed, so the ball would be hoofed over mid field to the forward line, where brick shittu house would simply mop up and clear, not to mention JFH going back to type. Song got very little of the ball in the first half as he has failed to grow 20 ft, Holland meanwhile, despite being a nation of 12 million, was too light weight to play against this limited but tough Watford side and was too easily brushed off the ball, I would have been tempted to play Faye in the role today.

2nd half we performed better, ZZ came on for JFH but a two goal deficit was always going be hard to turn over, and with 24 mins to go it looked like we would fizzle out as we had improved but with the exception of a glaring Holland miss had really failed to threaten England's number 1 replacement, then Song on the edge of area threaded the ball into the area for Luke to run onto and score - a replica of his first goal for Charlton against Aston Villa. Then we went back into our shell and played as if the 1st half had never ended. Then with only a few minutes to go, Thomas was replaced by Romm, moments later the ball Song sublimely sent the ball to Romm just in the area, he crossed, the crowd stood, there was a slip a steadying and by the time I was stable on my feet apparently Ambrose had scored (it was only when I watched MTOD I realised it was a header) and then at the death Lisbie got the ball tooktoo long to "aim" and the chance rebounded to him via Romm and he snatched, Lisbie will be castigated for this, but as a talentless player, who has played very little real football for 3 years and had only just come on, the real culprit was Elk, his two errors were catastrophic in the first half. Wigan beat City, Sheff dropped two points and we have a further two weeks to mend the ailing. Bring on the
toon!!!!

The view from Canada

Bob Miller regularly puts round an E mail after matches for the benefit of the Addickted in and around Hamilton, Ontario (a city I have visited many times):

Whether it was a bit of over-confidence (Why?), a patchy pitch, a somewhat make-shift back four or whatever, Charlton came out flat and soon found themselves down two goals and in serious trouble.

A totally different team came out for the second half and darn near pulled it out for three points, with Kevin Lisbie, a true fan favourite, who seemingly has goal-repellent permanently sprayed on his boots, failing to pot what would have been the winner with time running out on the clock.

I would think pretty well all Charlton fans were expecting three points today, based on the great momentum going forward after the great show against West Ham. But this is the Premiership and there are no givens. There is always the strong likelihood of results from certain large clubs, but with the rest, one never knows.

Manchester City is now the next immediate target for Charlton to overtake as they now sit six points ahead, with Sheffield United at 31, Wigan at 32 and Fulham and Villa at 33. Any one of these sides could potentially fall on bad times down the home stretch, but Charlton must just keep picking up as many points as they can possibly garner and do the job themselves with no anticipation of assistance from others. We get to play Sheffield and Wigan at home and Manchester City away, so much can be achieved in those three games alone. It is clearly a tall order, but still more than attainable.

Having said that, they cannot again come out as they did today and expect to pull it off. As great as the comeback was, it should never have been necessary and we simply blew two extraordinarily valuable points which should have seen us sitting at 26 points on the table.

What one has to hope for is that the unexpected will come into play and not only do we pick up points where one would expect, but rather we pick up a win or a draw where the chances do not look so good.

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