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Match day thread: Charlton

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  • So who would you have brought on?

  • I’ve no issues with the Frempah substitution or the idea of sticking a big defender up front for the last five minutes.

    We’d tried everything else for 85 minutes why not give it a go, it can work.

    In the end we didn’t manage to get enough balls going into the box to see whether the tactic would work but it certainly wasn't “embarrassing”.

  • Here's what I find amazing, in his head Richie is the expert on here and we're all idiots

    Imagine that!

  • to quote the mighty John Gorman, "och we were so unlucky", but for sure we never let heads drop and we were creating chances, just the finishing was lacking. Let's hope we get the rub of the green at Roots Hall, and a bit less falling over the ball when we get into good attacking positions.

  • He should have removed samuel when he removed scotty k - he wont score a goal while he has a hole in his arse !!!

  • But for as long as you've got one you'll continue to talk out of it

  • Good one eric, that made me chuckle.

  • Agree on the comments about both Pompey and Charlton fans. Both produced an impressive din from the away end.

  • Can we get Kashket into the box a bit more? My eyesight isn’t great but he seemed to be back in midfield quite a bit. Certainly his work rate was as high as I can remember and he came through one or two batterings without apparent harm but we need him to be in the box more often. Trouble was Charlton really “parked the bus” in the second half and I’ve rarely seen a 6 yard box so congested so often. Despite that, according to BBC stats we managed 7 shots on target to Charlton’s 4.

    I was surprised to see Kashket with socks down from the kickoff and apparently minus shin pads.

  • That’s the first time I can recall us playing Kashket on the right side of a 4-4-2.

    I thought it worked pretty well and that it naturally led to him drifting inside to support the two given his left footedness. Ultimately our best chance of the night fell to him inside the box.

    I’d be happy to see the same again on Saturday.

  • Our other subs were Ma-Kalambay, Jacobson, > @rmjlondon said:

    He should have removed samuel when he removed scotty k - he wont score a goal while he has a hole in his arse !!!

    Samuel goals this season: v Shrewsbury (H)=3 points;
    v Accrington (A)=3 points; v Sunderland (H)=1 point.
    That’s not to mention assists, work rate and free kicks gained.

  • I agree, Samuel should be in the team just for his work rate, and chances he creates from that alone, we just need others to start finding the net as well as him. To say he won't score is a ridiculous comment... as he has done.

    Also, Dev... can you just simply say "I don't agree" rather than type out a 10 point essay every time ?

  • I said take him off not not play him !!!

  • Samuel was superb last night as epitomised by the three free kicks he won inside the Charlton half just after half time.

    Yes he’ll only ever be a 5-10 goals a season type player but the difference he makes to the team goes way beyond that.

    After he left here Stuart Beavon did a similar job for Burton and was absolutely instrumental in their rise to the Championship.

    When we played at the Valley earlier this season Bayo played up front on his own and was completely dominated by those two very good centre halves. But not last night, Bayo and Alex gave them a really tough time.

    We won’t play against defences as strong as that every week and definitely won’t in our 5 remaining matches.

  • As far as I can see the effort last night was faultless. gareth seems to be trying every permutation of a small limited squad, in performance terms (but not result) with some success.

    Problem I fear is that the players collectively are not as good as those from other teams. Nobodies fault and perhaps not a great surprise given the budget constraints.

    I went through the squad list last night considering which players would earn a Lg1 contract from another club for next season if they were all available on frees in the summer.

    Gape , McCarthy, possibly Thompson. you can perhaps argue one or two more but not a long list in reality.

  • "I went through the squad list last night considering which players would earn a Lg1 contract from another club for next season if they were all available on frees in the summer."

    How many times have you seen them play?

  • I know relegation would be awful and pretty soon We will be playing on a park in the Whizzer and Chips league (south ) but this is more exciting than being safe in tenth. Small Margins. Rub of the green. Bit of luck, et c etc. I still think we will get put of it. Here's to deciding it's not wise to hang about in Southend after the final whistle!!

  • @micra saw the low sockz. Like a lot of super speedy players they wear these almost micro pads. They cannot provide much protection!

  • @rmjlondon said:
    I said take him off not not play him !!!

    You said ‘he won’t score a goal while he has a hole in his arse’. Factually incorrect and also ignoring his many other qualities.

  • Richie loves his club and players.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    Richie loves his club and players.

    Especially Diving Danny.

  • if we had signed DDH or kept Fred we would be around the 60pts mark now.

  • If we'd signed Messi and Ronaldo we'd probably be top of the league.

  • We needed Ruth's goals the second half of the season to be sure...

  • @DevC I went into the start of the season thinking much the same. I thought we hadn’t done much to strengthen a “League 2” squad and therefore every other team in the division was going to have better players than us. The more matches I’ve seen this season, the more I believe that’s not the case. I don’t think there’s much step up in quality at all between the bottom half of League 1 and the top of League 2 – for good chunks of this season I’d argue that Freeman, Samuel, Jombati, El-Abd, Bloomfield, Bayo and even Bean have looked good enough for this level, and man-for-man no worse than some of the other teams we’ve played (I’m sure I’ve missed others…).

    (Of course, some teams are clearly better – e.g. Sunderland, Portsmouth, Barnsley, Charlton etc. Dare I say it – even Oxford – who have hugely underachieved this season and had an ex-£4m striker scoring against us a couple of weeks ago.)

    Our bigger problem for me is clearly that we can’t match the teams around us for squad depth, meaning injuries and fatigue have a proportionally greater impact on us. And that we seem to tire in games a lot earlier than our opponents. I’d argue these are much bigger reasons for our slump then the players we have available.

  • edited April 2019

    The longer the season has gone on, i'd say the more a Rovers fan at my work has been shown to be spot on. He agrees largely with what @Last_Quarter says above, and that there's no "rubbish" teams in league 1, as there are in league 2. There aren't the sheer long ball outfits in this division. It was notable yesterday for instance how "league 2" we looked at times, launching tonnes of long balls, while Charlton didn't really.
    On our day, we can match most teams in the league, but the top 6 or 8 are a different quality.

    When we had the loanees, we had that extra quality that let us compete with them a bit better, but without them, we're lacking a little. That was apparent last night, as for all the talk of playing well, which we did, we didn't really have much to feel hard done by.
    Kashket could easily have scored his chance, but the rest I thought were half chances at best, or hoping for a lucky pen decision.

  • Wevare where we are because of our squad, they are all a 6 or 7 out of 10, no make weights but importantly no ‘star’ 9/10’s’ either, loosing Luke O’N, not finding another Eze, Fred’s no reshow in the window etc may, I fear, just going to tip the scales against us.
    We have run out of steam, resource and ideas, Ben F making his league debut up top out of position personifies our complete lack of options. It’s no one’s fault, it’s all part of being part of this family.
    Will Southend &/or Dons be a Torquay moment? I hope and pray, all we can do it cheer the boys on, we know they will give their all.
    BELIEVE!

  • On a slightly different tangent did anyone else enjoy the perormance from the young ball person sat on the half way line. A classic example of letting others do the hard work.

    I enjoyed the game last night. The better team won but both deserve League One status on that showing. The problem for our small and shattered squad will be can they do it again.

  • The ball retrieval operatives have been appalling this season...bystanders most of the time.

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