Sunday, December 10, 2006
Low Five
Tottenham Hotspur 5 Charlton Athletic 1
It started with Amady Faye volleying just wide of goal from thirty yards, and finished with Faye clipping over from three yards; in between, oh dear, just not good enough.
The only plus point seems to be the goal (left) that Charlton "scored", when Andy Reid's great cross was turned into his own goal by Dawson, under pressure from Lloyd Sam. Luke Young followed up to make sure it had crossed the line, and Charlton went into half time with some small belief that they might yet get something out of the game.
Prior to that, Spurs had taken a two goal lead (Berbatov and Tainio) mid way through the half.
After half time, things just got worse. Kishishev went off with a calf injury, replaced by Rommedahl, and Spurs almost immedaitely got their third through an unchallenged Malbranque. Defoe blasted in the fourth soon after, and then Berbatov ran almost unchallenged from the half way line, playing a one-two off El Karkouri, before slotting the ball home for number five.
After that, Spurs relaxed, Charlton recovered a little, and the game petered out. Sadly, Andy Reid went off injured too (hamstring), but that gave Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink a return from injury run out for twenty minutes.
My own opinion is that, my one-to-watch, Scott Carson could have done better to have stopped at least three of the shots (2, 4, and 5). He was not the only player to have played poorly though - the whole defence went AWOL at times, Faye seems to have lost the defensive discipline he started with at the beginning of the season, Hughes was, well, just Bryan Hughes, Dazza is so low on confidence, and subs Hasselbaink and Rommedahl just do not get involved enough when the chips are down.
Minor plus points were another decent run out for Lloyd Sam; some good play by Kish before he went off, and great effort by Reid who ran the game for the first half, before his injury.
The result obviously looks bad - heavy defeats are not something that we are used to at The Valley, and only two compare in recent memory: 5-0 at Upton Park on Boxing Day a few years back, and the 6-1 home trouncing by Leeds around a season later. On both occasions, the team bounced back, but then again, they proabably didn't have to play Liverpool in the next game...
Yes it is embarrassing to be an Addick at the moment, but harking back to history, getting thrashed 7-0 at Brighton, 5-1 at home to Rotherham, and 4-0 at Walsall are all games that I have witnessed and had to move on from.
Us oldies are not unused to Charlton being in a relegation scrap; maybe that's why this blog is a little more pessimistic than some others. There will be no quick fixes, but over the next twenty games or so, we have to haul our team above just two other clubs (provided Watford stay below us...). I don't care who they are, but I do have the belief that we can still do that. We will definitely have setbacks like yesterday, possibly even worse ones, and maybe next week too. But did we really think we would get anything from these games? Nearly all the blog score forecasts had us down for a comprehensive defeat, even though I'm sure we all hoped to be proved wrong. What we do need to is pick up points at Middlesboro, and then against Fulham either side of Xmas. Two wins there would see us back in the mix quickly, and then it would just be a case of maintaining our position.
It's a marathon, not a sprint, this Premiership; I just hope we have something left in the tank for the new year.
