San Roque de Lepe: DON'T PANIC

The players themselves broke the news but now it's official: Ruben Bover and Tosan Popo are going on loan to Spanish side San Roque de Lepe. So I thought I'd look at the club's website and found this story.

To summarise as well as my Spanish can manage: the club is denying rumours that its owners intend to abandon the club at the end of the season, much less right now. Reassuringly, they say it has never been the club's intention not to pay its players or any other employees. Indeed it has paid the "gran mayoria" (great majority) of salaries due.

But financial problems have forced a number of decisions which might not be popular, but which are necessary for the future of the club.

"We are pleased to announce that we are close to agreeing a long term strategic plan, forming alliances with many businesses and other football clubs from around the world, which will ensure the stability and success of the club."


I've also found this story, which says that the club is managed by English (which might mean British) investors, who have put the whole playing squad up for sale (this is presumably the "might be unpopular" decision), and who are trying to reduce the squad cost to 200,000 euros. The investors are described as former Chelsea directors.

It doesn't sound like a happy place, but I hope our boys will be OK there.

Charlton 1 Sheffield Utd 0

Let's just look at this for a moment. Huddersfield are still playing as I type this, and have just taken the lead, so they could move up to second, but they'd still be 7 points behind and still have played one more match than Charlton. We've seen several teams have a crack at challenging Charlton, and any of those top 5 could have had their moment this season, but Charlton have just been so consistent that they've established this impressive lead without anyone outside SE7 noticing.

"Charlton" and "consistent": not two words you have expected to find together for a good few years. As the season goes on, it becomes more obvious how important the role of the defence is. The two fullbacks must be the best in the division, and could easily hold their own in the Championship. In the middle, Morrison and Taylor are rock-like. Only Man City have now conceded fewer goals this season. We've seen Charlton in full flood at times this season when you believe they can beat anybody, and we've also seen edgy performances, when goals are scarce but one is all they need. The strength in defence means the team can ride out the dodgy periods, like Bradley Wright-Phillips' recent barren patch. The first few months of the season was built on his goals. I feel desperate for him to get scoring again, but look! it doesn't matter to results or position in the table if he doesn't. Or look at today, when our goalkeeper had a bit of a mad day, but the defence took care of him.

Sheffield Utd were the best team to come to the Valley this season, and they came on a good run of results. You could see the quality in the team from the start: intelligent running and passing, a good understanding between the players.

But they didn't really look sharp in attack, and after Johnnie Jackson's goal - a sweetly hit free kick from about 25 yards into the top left corner - they were less impressive in the first half.

The second half saw them throwing everything at Charlton, and it was a gripping, sometimes hard to watch match. Charlton's midfield didn't seem to be working quite as well as usual, and Utd must have had a huge majority of possession. But that defence soaked it up, and all but 2,694 of a huge crowd for this division (20,000 +) were ecstatic with the result. Like last week's 1-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday, it properly proves Charlton are where they are because they deserve to be.


I can't end this post on such a positive note. So must mention that today's referee, Mr Deadman, had a shocker. But what the heck! Even that can't spoil the fun. 

Why not read the Charlton website review?

Charlton 2 Brentford 0

This game was delayed for 15 minutes after a power failure in the upper north stand. Details are in the first link below and Al Gordon's blog gives some comments on his experience. For me, in my usual seat in the old geezer section, it was good to have a drummer and some chanting for a change. But I think the breaking-up of the covered end choir contributed to an odd atmosphere around the ground, particularly in the first half.

Apparently, in his post-match press conference Brentford's manager, Uwe Rosler, said he thought his team played better and deserved to win. If that's really true, if the team deserved to win but still managed to lose 2-0, that's shocking. That's worse that admitting they weren't quite good enough, which I think was a truer summary.

In the first half Brentford really did look better than Charlton. They had a much better understanding among themselves. It reminded me of how Charlton played earlier this season when the team was unchanged for match after match, and the telepathy grew. There hasn't quite been that understanding in recent games, and the performances have been a bit disjointed as a result.

So when Michael Morrison scored one of the streakiest goals you'll ever see on the half hour, it was arguably against the run of play. But on the other hand, despite having 5 corners to Charlton's 0 in the half, Brentford had never looked like scoring. A team that doesn't score will never win, Uwe. (This is one of the basic rules of the game.)

Charlton were much better in the second half, and a very-much-welcomed-back Johnnie Jackson was unlucky not to score. But it took until the last minute for the clinching goal to come: a well-executed effort by Danny Green, which he could easily have messed up.

So not a vintage performance, but the new year is underway with Charlton 5 points clear at the top. Next week there's the welcome diversion of a trip to Fulham in the Cup, a game where, in a sense, they can't lose. Of course, in another sense, the everyday sense, they probably will. But here's my dream: we win, preferably with an own-goal or two by Danny Murphy, and draw Arsenal at home in the next round, and the best player I've ever seen live - Thierry Henry - comes back to the Valley one last time.

Other views
Details of the power failure
Club's website review
Al Gordon's blog
Kevin Nolan

Charlton 1 Oldham 1

Sometimes I think it's not so bad being in the third division. But then games like this happen: a negative team comes to town with the sole objective of getting a point - and fans who celebrate as if they've won something when that happens - and a third division referee, whose capricious decisions ruined any flow the game ever looked like having. The only good thing I can say is that at least it didn't rain much. And we're still 5 points clear.

The monthly curse

No, not that one. Chris Powell has been named League 1 manager of the month for November. Thoroughly deserved, of course, but football lore has it that this is bad luck and the good results will stop.

Actually, it is likely to be true that a team's results get worse after the award, but it's nothing to do with a curse. The award recognises that the team's results have been exceptionally good. By definition, nothing exceptional can go on for ever, so the next month is statistically likely to be more normal. Charlton might even lose a game. It's the law of averages.

But this is Chris Powell we're talking about. He's not bound by anything as puny as the law of averages. Even the laws of physics bend to his will. When he used to "jump" from the tunnel after winning games, that wasn't him jumping, it was the earth taking a step back in awe of his magnificence. With him, the exceptional is normal. Wednesday have a very loseable game tomorrow (at Oldham), though sadly Huddersfield don't, and I expect to travel back from Walsall with an 8-point wide gap of a grin.

Charlton 2 Vincibles 0

All the Sky hype before the game had apparently been about "high-flying" Huddersfield. Flying so high they were five points behind the leaders in league one, whoever they were, and in third place. But this was always going to be a crucial game. Sure enough, Huddersfield turned out to be the best team that's come to the Valley this season. The key to their hitherto-unbeatenness is their midfield: it really was superb, controlling the game for long periods. You can see how they can shut down most opposition.

Their player who usually gets all the attention is Jordan Rhodes. He's scored 13 in the league this season, so he's almost asgoodasbetterthanShaun, and I was looking forward to seeing him. I still am. He was largely invisible, and not in a good way. The sense is growng that we have, at last, a defence we can trust. And we needed it: Huddersfield got 10 corners to Charlton's nil, but the number of times they genuinely looked like scoring was tiny.

Charlton's first goal was a precise header to the top corner by Kermorgant that left the Terriers' keeper completely flat footed, and the second, by Hogan Ephraim, was the result of some quick thinking and fumbly goal-keeping. As usual, the opposition had started stronger, but that doesn't worry me any more. It's good that Charlton take the measure of them before taking control.

In the second half Huddersfield were mostly on top, and I got the sense that some of the Charlton players were feeling the pressure of the situation. But without any real scares they saw the game through, and the buzz around the ground at the end of the game was more jubilant than I can remember for a long time. Maybe the boxing day defeat of Chelsea all that time ago?

Chris Powell had tried to play down the importance of this game. Wisely, he wanted to take pressure off the players, and he's right that it's just game 19 with 27 more to play. But it felt momentous, as if Charlton had absolutely claimed their right to be on top of the league. Now they really are the team to beat. (And my pre-season bet on Charlton to be champions at 11.5 is looking good. The latest price is around 2.6.)

Selected other views
Guardian report (Don't usually see them here. It's a good report with interesting reader feedback. The Independent's report is all about Huddersfield's broken record, so I'm not linking to that. If the Telegraph has a report, it's too well hidden for me.)
Cafc.co.uk match report
Huddersfield website report
Wyn Grant (magisterial, as always)

Donate a coat

Here's one of the stupidest statistics you'll ever read:

Recent research shows that more than 1.2 million people over 60 in the UK agree that having a warm coat is a good thing during winter.

Let's think how they got that figure.There's around 12 million people over 60 in the UK. So either they asked 1.2 million people the same stupid question before they got bored with getting the same stupid answer, or they asked a sample, and scaled up the response. That would mean that 1 in 10 over sixties agreed with the value of a warm coat. And the rest didn't?

Anyway, the unreferenced and meaningless research is connected to ITV's "Donate a coat" campaign. The idea is that people with too many coats donate one of them, so that the Salvation Army can give it to someone who needs it. Sounds fair enough but hang on a minute ...

So far, they've collected around 2,500 coats. Presumably there's a target of, say, 50,000. That means they're estimating there are 50,000 people in the UK - a relatively rich and relatively cold country - who can't afford a warm coat. That's a national disgrace. If they really believe it, shouldn't they be doing something to change it? "But they're not allowed to be political." But they're being political: making a statement that 50,000 people are living below the most basic standard, but that's OK. Here, have a coat in exchange for a little dignity. You're old and/or poor: how do you expect to actually buy a coat of  your own?

As an illlustration of how charity can be demeaning and reactionary, it could hardly be bettered.