Happy New Year!

That's it, really. Especially if you've had a tough time this year, I hope next year will be better. My only advice and resolution is that no-one should waste their money on mediocre cheese. Eat less but better. Bonne année á toutes et á tous!

Charlton 1 Sheffield Wednesday 1

The most unpopular man at the Valley yesterday was, bizarrely, not the assistant referee who failed to notice that Wednesday's goal was blatantly offside, but his colleague, the fourth official, when he indicated there would be one minute of extra time at the end of the first half. Even one more minute of that was more than most people could stand. There should be a rule where time can be reduced if the quality of play has failed to reach an acceptable level. After 30 minutes, the referee should have called a halt, forced both managers to give a public apology and promise a better display in the second half. I've never been a big drug user but if there had been a shady looking hippy near me, I'd have killed and eaten him to get the benefit of any mind-altering substances circulating in his blood.

The second half was better, in the way that Eastenders is better than Hollyoaks. A quick goal for Charlton, a quick reply for Wednesday, and a bizarre communal decision by Charlton to defend the draw rather than go for a win. I'd like to say the game petered out, but it had never really petered in.

The draw extended Charlton's unbeaten run to three games. Joyful news but no-one seemed happy except the shady looking hippy I saw at Charlton Station on the way home. He was blissful and surprisingly chewy.

Charlton 0 Ipswich 1

If I can get a grant for it, I'm going to do a PhD in Charlton studies. I'll call it Directionality and Deviance, because that sounds quite sexy, but in reality it will look at (interrogate, as we say in academia) the way in which the toss-winning team chooses which goal to attack first.

My first point of enquiry will be to establish whether everyone else feels, as does the writer, unease (existential aporia) when the game starts with Charlton attacking the north end (which I shall call premature septentrionality). It's not normal, and such deviance hits me with the transgressive force of a deep taboo being broken: like incest, cannibalism, or asking Alan Shearer to speak.

The standard approach, that of attacking the north end in the second half (orthodox meridionality), suggests that the home crowd's support is more useful (materially productive) when situated behind the other team's goal (the object of teleological desire), and thus can facilitate a secondary resurgence, or comeback in the second half .

This should apply equally to both teams, of course, and so for either team to fail to follow the orthodox meridionality is an act of violent challenge to the hegemonous ludic ideology.

As regular readers know, though, I'm a dullard when it comes to football tactics, so it's fortunate I'll never get that grant. But even I could see exactly what Ipswich's game-plan was: to start fast and furious, hope to get an early goal in front of their support, then see out the rest of the game by snuffing out any attacking threat by the home team. It worked out perfectly, only slightly delayed by Ben Alnwick's three excellent saves in the first four minutes. But then came the fifth minute and, I think, already Ipswich's fifth corner, and the goal. Go home, we might as well have gone home.

Charlton didn't recover from that five minutes' battering. Though they weren't as bad as some people have suggested, virtually everyone looked off their best. Ipswich had done the research, and knew how to stop Cameron Stewart, for example, causing any damage. He'll have learned a lot from the game, I think, as he had to keep trying something new, but wasn't able to find an answer in the 90 minutes. He'll be a better player when he goes back than he was when he arrived on loan. You owe us something, Steve Bruce.

And you, Mick McCarthy, I am aware I've called you a deviant, but I mean it in a nice way. Please don't sue me.

Charlton 2 Doncaster 0

There weren't many of them, but the Doncaster fans who made the trip to London last night must surely hate the place more than they ever did. First, of course, it was a trip they shouldn't have had to make. As we've seen again recently, there's something badly wrong with the pitch drainage at the Valley, by which I mean there doesn't appear to be any. The pitch is looking in bad condition already even after a fairly dry period and by February it is likely to resemble the famous Chelsea Beach.

Then the combined farces of Southeastern Trains and Network Rail treated the travelling fans to an exact and accurate version of the London Commuter Experience, with London Bridge station closed for a couple of hours before the game. People were still arriving at the match at half time. Actually, there probably were loads of Doncaster fans who got no further than London Bridge, but took themselves to a pub where they could moan happily about pissy southern beer and London prices.

But the few who made it then had a pretty miserable display to watch. It's hard to say if Charlton were as good as some people thought, because Doncaster didn't offer much. Ben Alnwick, making an unexpected debut in goal after an injury to Ben Hamer in the warm-up, was almost not needed, but looked fine when he was.

In total contrast to the rained-off game, Charlton were in total control for the whole match and only some sloppy finishing prevented a big lead by half-time. But the first goal was worth waiting for. This youtube clip will probably not last long, so see it while you can.



The second half was similar, and after Charlton's second goal - Church finally converting - the team put their feet up on the mantlepiece and smoked a meditative pipe.As did I.

Charlton 2 Leeds 4

I've got my hand up. I'll take the blame. Before the game I tweeted that the last three games I'd seen at the Valley had been 0-0, and I hoped that would change. Careful what you wish for, someone said.

But on the other hand, I discovered later that I was wearing my shirt inside out. That's the sort of thing that a lot of people would consider lucky. Obviously it wasn't, so I don't have to get superstitious and start wearing that shirt that way forever. Readers, if you see me with a shirt on inside out, it's just my trademark, some might say loveable, incompetence. Feel free to point it out, or simply to point and laugh.

It rained all morning. Not heavily, but persistently. It shouldn't have threatened the game, and my only concern, as I kept checking raintoday.co.uk was whether the rain would stop in time for me to cycle to the Valley. It did, and I got there in plenty of time (2:30) to find a surprisingly sparse crowd. I sat down and checked twitter and found the start had been put back to 3:30. Fortunately I had a stimulating magazine with me to read and here's a top tip from it:

Make your cheese and wine party more appealing by having no cheese or guests.

The pitch at the Valley is a problem, to state the bleedin obvious. Although the rain had stopped, the ground wasn't drying at all, and especially on the east side remained splashy throughout. It's as if there isn't any drainage, but any drying is left to evaporation. Evaporation doesn't happen at this time of year and it's hard to see how the pitch can survive if winter is as wet as autumn has been.

So, finally, I suppose I must turn my attention to the match. Must I? Really? A frustrating game where bad luck, atrocious refereeing, and a top performance by one player steal the points. Leeds are a horrible team. Remarkably, whoever's in charge and whoever's in the squad they continue to be thoroughly unlikeable: the Millwall of the North. Annoyingly, when we think of this game we'll remember the pitch and the result and the unpleasantness of the opposition, when we should be remembering one of the best goals we've seen for a while, from Cameron Stewart. You can probably find it on youtube. I can't be arsed.

Charlton 0 Wigan 0

Another goalless draw, if you like, or another clean sheet, if you're feeling positive.

Basically, if you want my view on the match, read this report in the Guardian, and reverse everything. It wasn't a great game but it was constantly entertaining and nil-nil was the most unlikely score, achieved only by poor finishing by Charlton and absolutely awful finishing by Wigan. That, and their inability to keep their feet. Well, it was quite windy. The referee quite understandably considered the wind to be a Charlton player and kept giving free kicks against it.

A big crowd, in response to the "football for a seasonally-adjusted fiver" offer, seemed to be gripped throughout, and there was none of the negativity that these games sometimes bring out from the less committed supporters. Charlton were by far the better team in the first half, but a couple of forced substitutions - Kermorgant and Wood going off with knocks - clearly weakened the team in the second half, with Marvin Sordell in particular not doing much to rebuff the criticism he often gets. One day, he'll suprise us all, maybe.

So, another re-assuring performance, if a disappointing result. The team is much more stable than it was only a month ago, and could be laying the foundations for a run of better form.

I'm quite aware, thanks, that this is a dull review and I'm sorry about that. Here's a picture of a kitten and a duckling.

Charlton 1 Forest 1

If the Millwall game had left me speechless (and blogless) in a bad way, last night's 1-1 victory defies analysis in a different way.

Before the game the opinion was that it would be a difficult evening. Forest were a good team, enjoying a good run of results. Charlton were anything but, and with Solly, Jackson and Kermorgant all unfit, had to fear the worst. Ah well, I thought, at least we might see a virtuoso display by Andy Reid.

Be careful what you wish for. Within three minutes, he had scored. It was difficult from my position to tell if it was a fluke, or bad defending, or brilliance; but with Reid we'd better assume it was brilliance. The night suddenly looked like it would be even longer, but the Covered End, maybe remembering last season's game against Cardiff, shrugged it off and carried on singing. And the team responded. The first half performance wasn't great: there was still an element of nervousness in some of the decision-making. Time after time a high ball failed to find a Charlton head and possession was lost. Forest weren't looking particularly dangerous, though. Billy Davies, their manager, said after the game that they had scored "too early", which sounds like nonsense - can you ever score too early? - but if what he meant was that his team didn't have any urgency about them after the goal, then he was right. Their best chance came from a bad lapse of concentration in the Charlton defence and Lawrie Wilson made a dramatic goal-line save.

The second half was one of the most thrilling 45 minutes of football I can remember. Marvin Sordell equalised after about five minutes, and from then on Charlton put together wave after wave of attack, probably creating more chances than they've had in all previous games this season. It looked impossible for Charlton not to score, but somehow they managed it. Meanwhile Forest had a huge number of corners, which they failed to exploit.

You could argue all night about whether it was a point gained in a game we probably should have lost, or two points lost in a game we could easily have won. Doesn't really matter, though. The team will know how well they played, and as long as they remember that feeling and how to get it, happy days should be here again.

Readers may remember that I used this game last season to draw an unlikely comparison between Andy Reid and Penelope Cruz. Savvy readers will already have realised that was just a ploy to justify including a picture of her. But it's become a tradition, and who am I to defy tradition?