18th defeat of the season as Accrington Stanley do the Double

Pleased to say I enjoyed a long-awaited break in Italy this weekend watching Scotland beat Italy in the 6 Nations and drinking cold beer in the Spring sunshine. A break from the depressing news of Russians shelling desperately poor souls in Ukraine as well as the continuing decline and humiliation of Charlton Athletic Football Club back home.

News, when I could finally be bothered too look, was as predictable as the Russian onslaught. We had managed to score a goal (a penalty of course) but had then collapsed at the double and failed to take advantage of ten men for the final thirty minutes of the match when we couldn't even manage an attempt on goal. Just how desperate are we? I'll tell you, the latest defeat means we have lost half the games we have played and won only eleven of the other eighteen.

Jackson continues to stick with the only formation he appears to have heard about, which we can't play, even when we are losing and should be chasing the game. If I were Thomas Sandgaard I would be looking at exercising any option at the end of the season to allow Jackson to further his career elsewhere. Sadly, I think we also need to clear-out the rest of the coaching team who have demonstrably failed now for several seasons running.

As for the Summer player cull I don't think there will be many looking to watch any of these players again saving Player of the Season, George Dobson. We shouldn't even announce a runner-up because it would be disrespectful to Dobson. The size of the turnaround is massive but it can be done - Powell did it in 2011. Trouble is, Jackson won't have the heart for it, Sandgaard hasn't got the money for it and I am frightened what our starting line-up will look like in August. A team largely of losers with suntans. If that's the case, I won't be back. I have watched more matches on the box than in the ground this season and I have been giving up of late even suffering it at home after we inevitably fall behind. 

I will say once again, that when I started this blog 15 years ago, I named it after that point in so many of the depressing seasons of the past when home performances were so poor that the only pleasure left was to head down to the Covered End and drink as much Light Ale as you could before the match finished. In my heart I was hoping to look back with a sort of romantic fondness for those days safe in the knowledge that we were enjoying far better times. How wrong I was. It's been a slow and gradual suffering like someone dying from a terminal illness and it hurts like hell.