Groundhog Day

It was Groundhog Day at The Valley on Saturday as we witnessed another insipid first half performance from the Addicks and a better second that enabled us to salvage something.

I do wish Appleton would give up on the idea of playing strikers wide on the right. Leaburn and now Tedic have both shown it’s not really for them.

We created very little in the first half and I think I’m right in saying that we didn’t have an effort on target until well into the second. That’s quite damning as a team in reasonable form against a fellow mid-table outfit.

As in most games this season the goals we conceded were down to poor defending. For the first Rhodes lost his marker all too easily and had plenty of time and space to finish.

The second was down to Hector as he got robbed after failing to clear the ball in a dangerous area with no cover.

Hector seems to be immune from being dropped or subbed. He has made some real howlers of late but he is still starting. It wouldn’t hurt to drop him to the bench. I’d like to see Ness given another chance.

Appleton is bold in making changes and he’s not afraid to make two or three subs at one time. However, a lot of the time these are to address the fact that we haven’t set up correctly in the first place.

Added to that I’m not sure why he didn’t make the changes at half time. Leaving it until a few minutes into the second period means getting fresh instructions out when it could all have been done in the dressing room.

Of course, one of those changes saw the main man enter the fray. Chuks changed the game for us. It was quite some performance from him.

His run and assist for May’s goal was simply outstanding. Power and pace allied to great determination saw him get past the defender. He could easily have opted to shot rather than set up Alfie and it was as wonderful as it was unselfish.

CBT’s run and finish for his goal was amazing and another bit of quality. Sadly, that was a rare bright moment in a largely forgettable game for him.

Momentum was truly with us and we had some good chances to score again with one notable effort that really did land in Row Z!

To be fair the Seasiders ought to have scored from the header late on that was thankfully directed straight at AMB.

Good to see that Morgan got a decent reception and got on the pitch. The Blackpool faithful’s singing about why he left was stretching credulity though!

With next Saturday’s postponement there’s no league action for 2 weeks. Tuesday sees us in EFL Trophy action. Appleton is on his own in his love for that. We really don’t need to be playing meaningless games like this especially as we’re already playing catch up with league games.

Let’s hope Appleton is able to put the spare time to good use. He can iron out the defensive errors and pick the correct eleven from the word go!