Substandard

Perhaps not the best choice of a business name.

A lovely sunny evening and I took the bus to a Charlton game ! A very long time since I've done that ! Re-united with my lad back from uni til the weekend and we celebrated by dining in a seemingly appropriate American franchise hamburger joint.

We made our way round to the Red Dot bar to join senior reporter Clive once he'd finished a marathon phone call. We were later united with other friends and my other lad. All very pleasant, we made our way round to our seats and then the game started...........( oh dear ! ) 

The Addicks produced their worst 45 minutes of the season against a Dons team that was at the outset low on confidence. They however quickly became more assured as the half progressed as they realised we weren't playing well.

I couldn't tell if it was a penalty from my vantage point but others closer to the incident claim it was. A shame and the only blip on Solly's season to date.

We only fashioned one effort on target in the first half and clearly we should have made two subs at half time. They were glaring obvious and this is not said with the benefit of hindsight. I, like the rest of the travelling Addicks knew that Sir Chris wasn't about to do anything at the break.

Wagstaff was woeful. You know you're not doing well when you can't beat Lewington one of the oldest and inept left backs in the league. Mind you I can't recall Wagstaff trying to do so as he mostly did a 180 and went back the other way or simply passed the ball to someone else.

Hayes was not at his best and Yann was another who should have been on with Green at the start of the second. The changes were eventually made and of course produced the desired effect. Green and Yann made an immediate impact.

This game could have been at least 4-4 with a number of glaring misses for both teams.

There must be a concern over BWP who got a knock on the knee again and looked limited of movement afterwards and it led to him being subbed towards the end. I hope that's not too serious but it didn't look good.

I said following Saturday that I felt Powell should rest a couple of players at least by dropping them to the bench. Stephens is one who wasn't at his best on Saturday nor last night. There is a danger that players may take their places for granted. In addition, it wouldn't hurt to swap things around.......Robinson must have known the starting eleven and formation he'd be up against.

Preston have now almost caught us up with a game in hand. Huddersfield will always be up there and Sheff Utd will almost certainly be. Added to which Hartlepool are going well too.

More pressure for the lads on Saturday then but with our squad we ought to cope.............should we choose to use it of course !

P.S. has anyone seen the Great Alonso ?