We're Doomed

" Nurse, fetch the revolver ! "

That's it then, season over, don't know why we bothered renewing our season tickets. Blimey, what an over reaction from some quarters. Funnily enough in all my years supporting Charlton I've never expected us to win any game, hope, yes but expectation.........never ! Yesterday was no different, I didn't think we were about to go and blow them away.

It would appear that unusually a lack of organisation when defending a short corner cost us for the first goal. Given that it seems there had been a couple before we really shouldn't have got caught out by that but we were slow to react.

A superb strike from Yann restored parity which gave some reward to the travelling faithful. One has to hope that no one outside S.E. 7 noticed as our need to hold on him cannot be overstated.

Sadly Grabban went on to score a second from a quality strike although he was given too much time and space.

A late and uncharacteristically rash challenge from Pritchard saw him see red from referee Andy D'Urso and as much as I don't like D'Urso, I think he had little choice.

The loss of Skip before kick off to a niggling calf injury didn't help and he was sorely missed. Hughes who didn't really feature in pre-season was brought in to replace him. Sordell made his debut.

Sir Chris gets most things right but I would question the formation yesterday. Having played with a 4-5-1 set up for most of pre-season ( mostly out of necessity I admit ) I'm not sure that the move to 4-4-2 was a good idea. Given the late arrival of Sordell and Church, I assume we'd spent the most part of the build up to the game working on 4-5-1 so I'm not sure a late alteration will have helped.

In addition, it seems that Pritchard, playing wide right, didn't have a great game and he is better in a central position. Danny Green by all accounts had a good pre-season playing with some determination with a point to prove. It would have been nice to see him start with Pritchard moving inside as I said.  

As with last season the team needs our support and that's from Tuesday and going forward. Oxford secured a good win away to Portsmouth yesterday with an impressive 4-1 win so they will be buoyant. We don't need the doom and gloom mentality.

Away from the Valley you've got to feel some sympathy for the fans of Coventry City. A ten point deduction further punishment in addition to having to play all home games at Northampton's Sixfields stadium. A large number of those " home " games will be played on a Sunday. Like ourselves at Selhurst, I believe a large number of their fans refuse to go to Northampton so things are unlikely to get better for them for some time.

Let's hope that we can improve our own fortunes on Tuesday with those rarest of things for Charlton....a cup win !