Monday 16 January 2017

CAFC 0 v 12 Man Millwall 0

Reffing Useless

The signs weren't good. Prior to kick off and Stroud and his assistants engaged in some bizarre warm up sprints that took place in the centre circle of attention. It looked as ridiculous at the officials performances that followed. 

Stroud's intention not to be ignored was made even more clear by the retake of the kick off. It was a pointless  and unnecessary piece of officiating - the first of many. The fool even manged to get in the way on at least two occasions and did a better job of breaking up the Addicks attacks than the lumps in Millwall's back line.

Sadly, he didn't concern himself in dealing with many of Millwall's cynical fouls. Stroud also saw fit not to red card Gregory for an awful foul on Rudd but later thought throwing the ball was worthy of a second yellow for Tex. Strictly speaking in that respect he was right but it overlooks a great deal of provocation.

My thoughts on Morison are worse than our hapless referee. An irritating c... er chap to say the least. He got away with murder. The journeyman footballer who is clearly not good enough to play above League One level is short on ability and long on obnoxiousness.

The draw was probably about the right result given The Loins missed several clear cut chances but the disallowed goal that capped Stroud's dismal display meant that we went unrewarded again. 

Neither he nor the lino could have seen anything and if they'd waited a few seconds the lack of protest from Millwall's players would have told them that there was nothing wrong with it.

All that aside one has to look at overall performance. Again possession was good and we won that stat but not the most important one of course.

The ball was played out from the back more than we've seen in most games this season and certainly anything we saw under Slade who was all long ball to Big Josh. The ball was passed around a lot although frequently still not quickly enough and often to little effect.

The early loss of Josh and Page did little to help matters but I'm not sure Robinson picked the best starting eleven anyway. To give a debut to a player who'd not played for a while in a game like this wasn't perhaps the best decision. We also lacked height against a big physical team.

I think I'd have brought Holmes on ahead of Da Silva who apparently was thought to be a good target for some of Rudd's goalkicks !

Watt was blowing out of his backside almost immediately and in any case is clearly not suited to playing as the one up front in a 4-2-3-1 formation, However, Robinson never saw fit to change things at all. Admittedly his options were limited but he made things hard for himself by not having a fully fit striker, Hanlan for example, on the bench.

My concern over Robinson's inability to have an alternative to his preferred style remains. He needs to be able to change things sometimes but doesn't seem willing or able to. That will be further tested next week not only against better opposition but as a result of suspension and injury.

It seems almost certain that Konsa will need to drop back into defence and one assumes that Ulvestad or Forster-Caskey will come into midfield. 

It would be a major surprise if Watt were to start the game so that leaves Hanlan or a fit again Novak to do so one assumes

All areas of the football club will be busy this week as it prepares to take on the team second from top. 







11 comments:

  1. Ere are Watt ad to come on cos of Magennis injury. The ref got it right apart from the goal wot was dissallowed n thass all there is to it.

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  2. Aside from stating the bleedin' obvious you now managed to find yourself in a minority of one on Stroud. The only thing he did wrong was disallow the goal. Incredible!

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  3. you got it right about morison

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    1. Morison has more goals this season than any Charlton player , end of .

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    2. Terry not sure what your point is. We've been poor all season so you're not settling the bar very high. In any case he could've scored 50 goals and I still wouldn't want him anywhere near our team. He never looked like scoring on Saturday and his main role was to foul and wind up people on and off the pitch.

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    3. My point is that Morison is better than any charlton striker so slagging him off is ridiculous

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    4. Terry I don't share your view that an aged Morison is a better striker than Magennis. The Millwall man has shown he can't score regularly at a higher level whilst I'm sure Josh will. In addition, Morison is an oik.

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    5. Well we'll have to agree to disagree on this but I do think that unless both teams invest we're gonna be stuck in the wilderness for a while yet .

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    6. Terry, absolutely and in our we need to add new owners into the equation!

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  4. Methinks a2c's is just being a bit of a tease or is so far in his own world he's has found yet another precious. Hundreds of fans who've commentated on various blogs don't seem to see it his way, but never mind all that. Not sure what sort of reality our Gollum in a Charlton scarf, has a grasp of exactly. Delete the windup merchant as a unreliable witness Phil!

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    1. Anon, normally I do delete the comments but this one I felt was worth leaving in. You'd think it is a wind up wouldn't you or you'd have serious concerns if it's all for real. I know we're a broad church but really !

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