Bad Day At The Office

When the board went up indicating that another 10 minutes would be played you feared the worst. This is Charlton after all.

The largest chunk of time to be added on was, of course, due to the time it took to get the fourth official to replace the senior lino. What a pigging mess ! Even then the incompetent ref who loved being in the limelight found time to reprimand Robinson for coming onto the pitch.

Such was the inconsistency and overall poor performance of the referee pushes Mr Stoud for the most inept that we've seen at The Valley this season.

However, to focus on the officials would be to ignore the greater reason for yesterday's draw against another high flying team that looked very ordinary. This was a game that should have been put to bed long before that 10 minute board went up.

The reason it wasn't was down to media luvvie Robinson. Fresh from meetings with Henry Winter and a handful of fans he made some poor decisions. These are fast becoming the main feature of his stewardship.

The Times interview is an interesting one as it referenced his aforementioned meeting with fans even though it didn't happen until 24 hours later. The Winter interview was seemingly little more than a PR exercise with Robinson apparently being the latest mouthpiece for the club.

Call me a cynic but I'm not buying that Katiren is remorseful and cares passionately about the club. Apparently she wants to learn on the job. Ridiculous ! This is the position of CEO of a pedigree football club not the office junior. Aside from which the only lesson learned to date is that she needs to remain silent.

Back to matters on the pitch. Robinson again persisted with one up front at a time when we simply don't have a player capable of performing that role. Watt worked hard but it simply wasn't going to work.

Time and again the Scot got the ball but there was no one to assist him. We could all see that as much much as we could all see that the tippy-tappy football that is the hallmark of Robinson's teams delivered us a lot of possession but little goal threat.

It took over half an hour before we have a shot on target. Overall I think we only had 2 shots on target. Sadly, there is no other way the manager wants to play so we're stuck with it and we were never able to pressure their defence as a result.

As the second half wore on you always felt that the equaliser was coming and indeed they so nearly grabbed a winner but for the width of a post.

Robinson's poor choice of subs further weakened the team. Skip should not have come on to play in a position he's not occupied for many a year. His only possible role in the team is as a defensive mid - end of.

Solly or Konsa could have moved to left back had Tex come on at that time. Then we saw Watt play wide left so we were really exposed there and Fleetwood knew it and focused on that side.

Byrne's red card looked deserved albeit that I've only seen it once. His foot looks to be unnecessarily high and he paid the price, We can do without losing any player for 3 games in this busy February.

This was our 3rd successive red card. We are adding to our problems.

Given Robinson's refusal to adopt any other system the return of Josh can't come soon enough. Without him we don't carry a serious and sustained goal threat.

February is make or break time and it has started badly. I don't see us emerging from it in a good position. 

Please do the talking on the pitch Mr Robinson.