What a Shambles !!

After Bolton I thought it couldn't get any worse. How wrong can you be. This was an inept, shambolic excuse of a performance. Only Jeffers and Lisbie can come out of it without any criticism as they both worked hard but didn't get any sort of service and were left to feed off scraps. Fish and Fortune played as if they had only met that morning and Keily looked as if he'd never seen either of them before. The midfield was disjointed and that's hardly surprising is it. With all of them playing out of their natural positions there is a good chance that thing's will go wrong. Murphy started on the right but prefers the centre, Rommerdahl started on the left but prefers the right, Kishishev started in the centre but is better on the right and Euell started in the centre but is not a midfielder. There are so many things wrong it's hard to know where to start but the obviuos one's are : 1) no-one up front to hold up the ball resulting in it coming back immediately so putting pressure on midfield and defence 2) no-one in midfield able to tackle and give the easy pass to Murphy to allow him to play the creative pass 3) a centre half with pace.
We need to go back to basics away from home until confidence is restored. Yeah, we missed Matty Holland, more than many are prepared to admit, and Chris Perry is still strangely missing. On a brighter note I have it on good authority that Joey Barton is joining in a £2.5m deal and is likely to be joined by Javier Saviola from Barcelona on loan for the season, a fantastic coup, and a possible third if a deal can be done in time with the window due to close midnight Tuesday. Watch this space.

Away Day Blues - not !!

Welcome to my first blog posting. Tomorrow sees us visit Mancunia and my first visit to Eastlands, or should I say The City of Manchester Stadium, and by all accounts it’s meant to be impressive. Following back to back wins over Pompey and Villa the confidence of players and supporters alike is sky-high, and there is nothing to suggest that we cannot return to The Valley with all three points courtesy of our friends The Massives. Indeed, if we utilise the pace of Romm, Lisbie and Jeffers to the full we should be able to run rings round Distin and Dunne who are pedestrian in comparison. As City play a very open game of football I’m expecting quite an exciting game but an away victory, unlike Mr Mark Lawrensen who is predicting a 2-1 win for City. It is very unlikely, I’d expect, that there will be any changes from the starting line-up for the Villa win and nor should there be although I remain puzzled as to the whereabouts of Chris Perry, our most consistent centre half last season. Did he holiday in Bermuda this summer ?? Anyway, my review of the match will appear over the weekend.

With five days till the window shuts it seems we are definitely in the market for a striker and possibly a defender. The Club have just officially confirmed that they have had a £ 3 million bid for Ipswich Town’s highly promising forward Darren Bent rejected by the Suffolk club. As we don’t normally comment on speculation it seems strange that we should on this occasion and also further say that we are now turning our attention elsewhere. Earnshaw ? or perhaps forcing Mr Sheepshanks to realise that this is our one and only offer, take it or leave it as we ain’t increasing it. My guess is he’ll take it but with the payment of the fee being restructured.

Anyway, Up The Addicks !! For anyone travelling tomorrow – see you up there.