The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

The Addicks managed to salvage a draw from a distinctly average performance last night. They were helped enormously by the award of a penalty even softer than the one MK got against us.

Charlton spent most of the evening being second best to 50-50 balls, carelessly giving the ball away, being caught in possession and generally lacking a cutting edge.

Leon Best having signed for the club on Monday was kept under wraps until just before kick off with his signing not announced until @ 5.30pm. Bizarrely this secrecy extended to holding back the programmes too!

Such is the manager's desire to see Magennis spent every possible moment on the pitch that he decided to accommodate him by playing him wide left with Holmes in behind Best. Neither decision appeared to be a masterstroke but we can't really tell because that formation was abandoned as soon as Peterborough went ahead.

Surely if you believed in it and you worked at it you'd give it longer than that ? However, it wasn't to be and Holmes moved to wide left. 

Following that nearly everything came down the left side for us as Marshall might as well have gone and sat in the West stand as an interested observer!

A couple of top drawer saves and a goal line clearance prevented Charlton from going ahead. Posh had a couple of chances themselves before they scored from a free kick that arose from a needless and clumsy tackle from Kashi who went on to have a poor evening.

Holmes too hasn't been at his best of late and a lot of his decision making and delivery left a lot to be desired. He often held on to the ball too long or tried to beat one man too many.

Peterborough always carried a threat to score on the break as they possessed all over the pitch and over the course of the evening that you don't always need to have a big man up front in this division.

They missed a great chance to go 3-0 and kill the game with a one on one but they messed it up and must have been kicking themselves at the full time whistle.

At the start of the second half it was clear that Bauer was injured and it seemed to take a long time before he finally got replaced. Dijksteel came on at right back and soon showed the potential he had and why many have spoken so highly of him.

One wonders why you would select centre halves ahead of this talented and confident young man. It's plain daft.

On 58 minutes Posh doubled their lead as following a neat move on the right the resultant cross was neatly turned in by Marriott.

Just over 10 minutes later a double substitution saw the introduction of KAG and one Joe Aribo who you may recall was an emerging player last season........in fact the new Dele Alli. That aside Magennis again stayed on and Dodoo, again, stayed off. 

As time passed the ball was knocked about to no great effect and the crowd's frustration was directed towards Peterborough's understandable time wasting. All teams do it of course but it doesn't stop fans shouting and moaning about it however much you'd happily accept it if the table were turned.

I guess we should be pleased to rescue a point at the end of the day but the overall performance gives rise to much concern especially ahead of a very testing December.

We need to find an alternative way of playing. The tippy tappy stuff across the pitch with crosses from wide didn’t prove successful for the most part. Can we be more direct and play players in behind defences or do 1-2’s just in front of them ?

We simply have to respond and we need to find some answers somewhere.

Perhaps we’re flattering to deceive ? Those one-nil victories hiding a multitude of sins. The pretty possession football alone is not enough to win games. There has to be more from one of the best squads in the league. December will go a long way to deciding our fate this season make no mistake. 

We go into it in poor shape and I’m not confident we will emerge still in a play off place even. Let’s hope I’m wrong.