A few thoughts on last night

Have calmed down a bit now after one if the most frustrating games in living memory. Charlton are a horrible, cynical little team who came and made no attempt whatsoever to win so to let them sneak off with 3 points is galling. The Championship should be embarrassed that they remain unbeaten 10 games in.

Ref was terrible although at the time my reaction was that their keeper must have been fouled the way he went down. He missed a couple of blatant elbows by their centre backs though and a couple of good handball penalty shouts.

All in all hard to be too downbeat in the cold light of day given we are still top and played well enough to have won the game comfortably. We have to stop throwing away points against crap teams at home though. We should be 5 or 6 points clear of this league really but instead we have the likes of Watford and Derby clinging to our coat takes due to our last three poor home results.

A few final observations:

1. Grabban showed again why all those who appear to have written off Hooper are misguided. His wastefulness in games like last night will cost is although I accept his goals in other games have earnt us points.

2. Have not seen the goals yet but My reaction at the time was Ruddy really should have saved that comfortably. Was not even in the corner and was travelling very slowly. Even if it was deflected that should not go in.

3. I thought Adams got both subs wrong. Unless he was injured (and he seemed to have run off his knock) you do not take Wes off when chasing a goal against a team who have packed their defence. I was also slightly dismayed to see Tettey come off and its no coincidence their goal came from the area he was patrolling. We immediately lost our grip on midfield and the game became more stretched. It worries me that when Howson is for Tettey may make way because Johnson appears undroppable and unsubbable. I have defended him on here against what I think was unfair criticism and I still think he will have an important role for us this season but Tettey is the better player and for games at home against teams with no attacking intent we need a passer/goal threat next to Tettey not Johnson slowing the play down. We could probably even play Wes there to be honest when teams show such little ambition and play Murphy on the left.

Posted By: Jim, Oct 1, 08:29:19