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- 5 Dec 2017
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Have to say I’m not looking forward to this one.
To be fair, it was a very s**t start so my assessment was factually correct.
Thanks for sharing. Sad to see MApp getting the treatment - albeit on current results it’s hard not to understand where the Charlton fans are coming from.
We know from his time here he’s not a great starter and needs a bit of time to embed his style, identity and ethos - and a few windows to get the right personnel to implement it.
Maybe he’s the kind of manager who needs the protection of a ‘long term project’ vision as there’s some short term pain whilst he puts the pieces together. Wonder whether CAFC’s ownership will give him that (and probably why he supposedly was interested in coming back to us when we recruited Manning).
We defended well today back 4 was brilliant they didn’t have many chances
We didn't play a back 4 today.We defended well today back 4 was brilliant they didn’t have many chances
Great post and I agree the 5-3-2 setup favours the available players.What a banging start to the new year. Had a good feeling about today and we didn’t disappoint.
I LOVE 3 at the back and wingbacks at this level. Warne’s sides always do it and I think it just works so well. You get to pack the middle of the park and control games without sacrificing width, and I love the positions wingbacks can take up between the lines. It worked for us under KR, it worked for us under Manning and today was the best performance of the DB era by a distance for me.
I also think that with our squad, jt just makes sense and gets the most out of our players (even allowing for our absences). Stevens is a wingback, not a fullback. He benefits from a reduction in defensive responsibility and more license to get forward. Similarly Bennett and Leigh on the left (although both are admittedly better defensively). Moore was quietly class again as the ball-winning central defender. Harris gets closer to the two CAMs and is more effective, made up for him to get his goal, looked extremely well taken. And Brannagan always has a wide option to ping jt around and stretch the oppo (he had an absolute blunder today imo, despite the attentions of the excellent Dobson). Smyth I am coming to below. It all just seems to work. I’d like to see us commit to this formation going forward, because I think, while it can be a little flat and slow, it gives us control and will see us win games.
Smyth was an absolute revelation. That’s not hyperbole. He seems taylor made for a RCB role in a 3. He was pretty defensively solid today, he’s a unit of a guy so has the physicality, he’s athletic enough and good enough on the ball to bring it out from the back (and conversely I don’t think is quite good enough on the ball to play CM), which gives us such an edge to our possession, and boy can he pick a pass. The goal was just the icing on the cake, and I absolutely loved his celebration. Clearly meant the world to him. If it’s Des who’s spotted that and put him in there fair ducking play because that is a genuinely brilliant piece of selection.
He’s had a tough ride so far and I’ve not been overly impressed, but Des absolutely nailed that today. I always think the sign of a good manager is when they can mix up their preferred style when the situation demands, and he pulled a rabbit out of the hat today. I loved how all the subs were coherent - I literally guessed each one before it happened - and weren’t made for the sake of it. Brannagan dropping deeper for Bodin to come in ahead of him allowed Bran to absolutely run the game second half. I know Charlton aren’t great right now and we still needed a thunderbastard to win it, but it was the most impressive performance I’ve seen from us in a long long while.
Charlton were absolute dog. I think our controlled passing absolutely killed them and the gaps that opened up second half must have been from pure exhaustion. We ran them ragged. Reminded me of us on Friday. You could also see that they’re clearly a side built around Alfie May. Get the ball out to the dangerous wingers, get balls in the box and give him half chances to stick away. There was a real conspicuous lack of cutting edge up top, so we perhaps played them at the right time. But still, hugely unimpressive (with the exception of Dobson in the middle, who I thought was superb. Singlehandedly playing Brannagan and MacGuane at times, he’s a class player).
I know I’m gushing and I’m probably a bit overexcited but I really was impressed by that today. A really tough festive period but one we’ve emerged from without too much collateral damage, now alls said and done. Free hit next weekend and a cup game in the week where we can rest some key players, and hopefully we can hit our next league game refreshed and with a couple of reinforcements.
Interesting thoughts @ttg17.I also think that with our squad, jt just makes sense and gets the most out of our players (even allowing for our absences).
Thanks for sharing. Sad to see MApp getting the treatment - albeit on current results it’s hard not to understand where the Charlton fans are coming from.
We know from his time here he’s not a great starter and needs a bit of time to embed his style, identity and ethos - and a few windows to get the right personnel to implement it.
Maybe he’s the kind of manager who needs the protection of a ‘long term project’ vision as there’s some short term pain whilst he puts the pieces together. Wonder whether CAFC’s ownership will give him that (and probably why he supposedly was interested in coming back to us when we recruited Manning).
We didn't play a back 4 today.
He's been excellent recently but Brown nearly cost us a couple of times in the first half with some shocking mistakes, first gifting them the ball on the edge of our box then later stepping in it and falling over allowing them a free run, thankfully Campbell s**t when a simple pass was on. On the other hand he also made a very good block to stop a goal.bound header. Apart from those couple of bits and the goal early on I didn't feel under much pressure.
You might want to look up the largest attendance at the Kassam Stadium75,000 it used to hold.
Mind you the largest attendance there was for a Lou Reed gig!
It was needed though as the passes/build up was too slow again, so good on Brannagan.Argument between Brown, Moore and Brannagan
To be fair you can still play wingers with three at the back in a 3-4-3:Interesting thoughts @ttg17.
I agree with the positives you listed. My reservation with the 3-5-2 has been the amount of our playing budget committed to the wings in Murphy, Browne, Edwards, Mills and Goodrham. Whilst they're not available, the formation today looked like a good call, but I've generally been a fan of all the wingers when they've played this season. An awful lot of our goals come from these players cutting in and looking to shoot - Tyler on Boxing Day, and Mills getting fouled for the free kick on Friday as two very recent examples.
We might be at the stage where we simply give up on hoping that Browne or Murphy are able to play enough - but I'd say that we would lose the use of Ty or Mills in their most effective positions and that does stop it being "all gain, no loss". I'm not a fan of the Karl Robinson tactic of shoving any winger in at wing back (and there wouldn't be much of an opening, at least on the left, anyway) and I have it in my head that TG can get crowded out when playing in the middle.
On the other hand, we might soon have the chance to move some of the budget about if e.g. Edwards is returning to Ipswich. If we were to sign a couple of the names being thrown about for potential strikers, then it might well be a price worth paying - and it could still give us flexibility to change things up when needed.
If my memory serves me correct are we the only club before Charlton do the obvious thing that we are the only club he hasn’t been sacked from?Unless Appleton can turn things around there I think that'll be his last job as a manager.