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After a six-hour round trip to Watford Gap service station last week, we were looking forward to seeing some football.
Some fans took the opportunity to watch Chorley or Rochdale, while some felt the need for further punishment and went to watch Blackburn Rovers.
A couple of weeks ago, we thought today we might be seeing the best manager in the world at the Macron... and Pep Guardiola in the other dugout!
But that wasn’t to be so we faced an improving Charlton Athletic side.
As they say, if you cannot cope with disappointment then you shouldn’t be a football fan.
With no known completed activity in the transfer window so far, Phil Parkinson went with his best starting 11, although there were rumours that Chris Taylor was on the M62 to Oldham.
In a bright opening period, Josh Vela was taken out, Charlton Athletic were reduced to 10 men and Zach Clough obliged with a superbly-taken free kick.
What more could we ask for? Well, a second goal and killing the match off would have been nice but all we got was a very good response from Charlton Athletic, making it look as though we were the team that had been reduced to 10 men. Defensive errors in midfield led to both of their goals, but in truth, Charlton deserved their win.
Declan Rudd did not have a single save to make in the second half, keeping himself busy collecting numerous crosses.
Our attacking is becoming very predictable and easy for a packed defence to defend against.
We badly need a bit of guile and invention when we attack, with someone prepared to take it on and create something or have a go at goal.
We need players to come off the bench and make an impact otherwise a dry January is going to turn into a dry 2017.
What is most concerning is that we have managed to lose the last three matches after taking the lead.
But it’s not the time to hit the panic button.
All teams have bad spells as our promotion rivals have also shown recently. There is still a long way to go and hopefully something can be conjured up in the transfer window to give us the boost we desperately need to revive our drive for promotion.
After Tuesday we go with what we have.
Source
Some fans took the opportunity to watch Chorley or Rochdale, while some felt the need for further punishment and went to watch Blackburn Rovers.
A couple of weeks ago, we thought today we might be seeing the best manager in the world at the Macron... and Pep Guardiola in the other dugout!
But that wasn’t to be so we faced an improving Charlton Athletic side.
As they say, if you cannot cope with disappointment then you shouldn’t be a football fan.
With no known completed activity in the transfer window so far, Phil Parkinson went with his best starting 11, although there were rumours that Chris Taylor was on the M62 to Oldham.
In a bright opening period, Josh Vela was taken out, Charlton Athletic were reduced to 10 men and Zach Clough obliged with a superbly-taken free kick.
What more could we ask for? Well, a second goal and killing the match off would have been nice but all we got was a very good response from Charlton Athletic, making it look as though we were the team that had been reduced to 10 men. Defensive errors in midfield led to both of their goals, but in truth, Charlton deserved their win.
Declan Rudd did not have a single save to make in the second half, keeping himself busy collecting numerous crosses.
Our attacking is becoming very predictable and easy for a packed defence to defend against.
We badly need a bit of guile and invention when we attack, with someone prepared to take it on and create something or have a go at goal.
We need players to come off the bench and make an impact otherwise a dry January is going to turn into a dry 2017.
What is most concerning is that we have managed to lose the last three matches after taking the lead.
But it’s not the time to hit the panic button.
All teams have bad spells as our promotion rivals have also shown recently. There is still a long way to go and hopefully something can be conjured up in the transfer window to give us the boost we desperately need to revive our drive for promotion.
After Tuesday we go with what we have.
Source