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23 March 2014

Charlton 0 Burnley 3

A man of wit and distinction tweeted after this game that "the scoreline flattered both teams". Funnily enough, I can see exactly what he means. Charlton's second half performance was so bad they deserved to lose by more. Burnley's failure to demolish Charlton when a tennis score was available meant their last goal - a silly, deflected, nobody-cares-anyway, flap in added time - made it look as if they had. They'll get promoted, for sure, but look nowhere near good enough to survive in the Prem.

Do Charlton look good enough to survive in the Cham? Not really. If the second half was utterly dispiriting for its lack of cohesion and ideas, the first half only showed up the big problem: "Our problem is our productivity offensively" as the head coach put it last week, stating the obvious in silly jargon. He dresses like a management consultant too.

Anyway, he'll probably get the sack soon: he's never yet played Thuram in goal, and the starting eleven yesterday - as on Tuesday - featured none of the imported players. M Duchatelet won't be pleased.

The one loan player who I think ought to be in the team - Ajdarevic - came on at half time to replace fans' favourite Danny Green. Green gets a hard time. On Tuesday night someone a few rows behind me shouted "Get Green off the pitch!" as the teams were coming out for the first half. Thanks. Helpful.

I can understand the view a bit. Green often messes up his final ball. Yesterday he even spectacularly messed up a long throw-in. But the sad truth is that the team, as a team, plays better with him in it. You'll have to trust me on this, because I can't quote the exact incident, but this was at least the second time I've seen it happen: he appears to be playing badly, so he's taken off; and the team then falls apart. Ajdarevic seems a good player, but he was a poor replacement for Danny Green yesterday. Be honest: you never thought you'd read those words in that order.
 
The next three games are away at Forest, Derby and Leeds. Don't have nightmares.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

One hundred percent agree on Green.