Saturday 19 February 2011

Charlton Athletic 1 v Exeter City 3

I predicted a routine home win here but was oblivious to history as well as the slings and arrows of good fortune.


As I have said before, we have been scraping wins against the odds and that good fortune simply doesn't last. We have been there or thereabouts all season and our luck has held. Today, we played much better over 90 minutes than we have since Chris Powell took the reigns but the first-half wasn't good enough to have established a lead and we threw our second-half opportunity away.


In front of a near 25,000 crowd, we chose to play a adventurous 4-3-3. Dailly and Doherty were joined at the back by Fry and Jenkinson. Semedo, Jackson and McCormack held the middle whilst Eccleston, Abbott and Wright-Phillips played up front in an ambitious formation. The frontline was wrong for me and Abbott effectively split the attack for the worse.


McCormack had another very average match and you find yourself wondering why he's on the pitch. He is ultra-cautious and seems capable of little more than negativity. With Semedo protecting the back four and Johnnie Jackson looking unsure about his part, we looked like a soft centre. Having said that we had a much better first-half in ages without breaking the deadlock. 


Having hit the bar and gone desperately close to scoring, we surrendered the lead to a soft ball to the back of the box and a neat finish. Doherty did his nut but I was unsure who he was blaming. Five minutes later he gifted the Grecians their second with a diabolical head-back and it was game over. Elliot managed to concede a third following a rash edge-of-box challenge but it was academic. 


Mrs Luck has caught up with us as expected and we can have no real complaints at sitting outside the play-off places in the table. It's where I think we will finish and before long we will be looking towards next season. Hopefully our new benefactors will be able to spend the sums required to give Chris Powell a better chance next season. 


The marketing of today's game was another perfect example of how clubs like ours can get it right, even if we always seem to piss on our chips. Jimenez and Slater appear to have their fingers very close to the pulse and they have made a series of very good calls since taking over. It was great to see a good number of old faces who obviously can't afford 2011 prices.

2 comments:

  1. Astute blogging, as ever. We managed to penetrate the Exeter defence with relative ease in the first half, which bodes well should one go in next time instead of hittin the bar / a giant keeper.

    I just wonder whether we can have two slow centre backs -- teams seem to just play it round them on the floor.

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  2. Ed - Dailly and Doherty are the best we've got but time is not on their side. Apart from their vulnerability to genuine pace, both look to do far more than cover the centre of defence and are often caught out of position or exposed as a result. If we are going to get the best out of Dailly next year, we need to pair him with someone strong, good in the air and who can do the covering. I'm not sure that's Miguel Leira or Yado Mambo, which would make a centre-half a high priority come May.

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