It should come as no great surprise that this was another scrappy affair, low on quality and chances. It's quite something for both sides that the fixture even took place given the serious survival threats each were faced with during the Summer.
Thankfully, both sides have seen the cavalry ride over the horizon in the last few weeks. Ours was actually US-lead and theirs a Spanish variety, but both appear honest, well intentioned and capable. Whilst Wigan await full completion of their saviour from the Administrators, we have finally seen the splashing of cash and an embarrassment of new playing personnel arriving over the last fortnight.
It's almost impossible to remember the names of every new signing since Thomas Sandgaard waved his wand but there have been a dozen and Lee Bowyer now has a job to work out how best make use of what he has. Four players made their debuts at kick-off yesterday; Inniss, Gunter, Shinnie and Smyth. The exuberance off it all gave Charlton an early edge as we played with a little more urgency than the visitors for the first twenty minutes and tried to prize an opening in their back line. Smyth had the only real chance after being played in to the near post but Jones smothered his shot from a narrow angle.
After that, Wigan had a decent fifteen minute spell when they should have scored. From a couple of corners, Amos punched the first before being called on to make an instinctive block from a strong Joe Garner header six yards out. Garner also missed a decent opportunity after Soloman-Ostobor had teed him up.
Forster-Caskey floated a free-kick high over the bar before the break and had me complaining at his selection. Why was he getting a run-out now when we had all this new blood? He has had his moments in a red shirt but he has been injury prone and hasn't done nearly enough for me to warrant a regular selection. The first-half was brought to a merciful close and we hoped for better in the second half.
Wigan started the brighter after the break and did get the ball in the net but it was disallowed for a push on Famewo. That was the trigger for a spell of Charlton pressure which lead to the winner. Jones pushed a Pratley effort around the post after decent work from Anneke to flick on Amos' long ball. Anneke was tiring and was replaced by debutant 5, Omar Bogle, on 62 minutes, just before Charlton won a free-kick 35 yards out from the Covered End goal. After a long wait, Jake Forster-Caskey, that under-achiever I was moaning about, stepped up and wrapped a shot around the wall which bounced on it's way towards the keeper's left-hand post. Jones scrambled across the goal and threw himself at the ball but it beat his finger-tips by inches and, somehow, clipped the post and crossed the line.
After that it was pretty much a case of seeing it out. Wigan did force a couple of goalmouth scrambles before the end and struck the bar during one but fortune was with us for once.
The victory lifts us up the table and with a game in hand we could slide into the top ten. We have played three at home and two away and now face Blackpool away and Northampton at home this week. Away games don't carry the threat of the booming home support, and hopefully, we can settle quickly and be competitive. Realistically we have to give this side half-a-dozen games, but we should expect to be collecting points more regularly in the run-up to Christmas when I would hope that we are much better to watch, can create some sustained pressure against our opponents and carry much more goal threat than we have seen.
If I am going to be critical, and I am, I am not sure I can see anything like a twenty goal scorer this season and that's what we will need if we are to seriously challenge for promotion.
Agree with you on Caskey he has been dreadful and apart from his goal, which to be honest the goalie should have saved, his passing again was poor, nearly cost us a goal early on. Watson looks like a similar player slow with also sloppy passing plus both play at a pedestrian pace and continually commit fouls as they can't keep up with any player with a bit of speed. The only two midfielders who look like they can take anyone on is Maddison and Gilby both now injured and Morgan who he won't play. Then you got Levitt again looks very poor, same as when he played for Wales. Who the hell at Man Utd said he was their best passer of the ball! Surely our own player Venn is better than him? The other big worry is where are the goals going to come from, as none of the forwards Bowyer has brought are proven goal scorers, apart from Bogle about five years ago for I think it was Grimsby. All of them together didn't muster double figures last season between them, or I believe,the season before! I agree with you as this division always provides a lot of goals and without at least one good front man who can put the ball in the back of the net regularly theres very little chance of promotion! Getting rid of Bonne was a big mistake, as hes proved he can do it and with the likes of Maddison,Gilby and Alfie he would have received plenty of decent balls into him, unlike last season, where he only got the odd one in a game and was critisied for not scoring. Even the best players miss good chances in a game, but they will normally also have quite a few others in the game as well where they will score. Any lone forward playing at Charlton last season when we were in trouble would have struggled to score with the extremely poor service into them, we couldn't even put any decent free kicks &/or corners over and that included Cullen who was one of our best players!
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