Saturday 17 December 2011

OPPORTUNITY LOST: And a few cracks.

Oldham put on a decent performance to ultimately frustrate the Addicks from getting what would have prob. been a justifiable 3 points. However, for all their effective hard work and late efforts, Oldham (who also played well last season) took the shine off their performance with some very boring time wasting.
The home side suffered from Kermit's head injury which meant he had to go off to get it bandaged up to (apparently)  stop it bleeding. The initial gargantuan bandage did not do the trick for long so he was sidelined a second time for another layer; much more and he would have begun to look like the invisible man (and there were a few comments going around about him being mummified!). It's reasonable to attribute his somewhat lack lustre display to these problems. Certainly, the side missed his overall effectiveness badly though he cannot be faulted for 200% effort.
Unfortunately it coincided with another off day for BWP. He was off colour last week at Walsall and it was the same story today plus a couple of missed opportunities, though one of them was not as bad as it looked, the goalkeeper doing well to just get a hand to the ball  and it rebound it off his legs for a goal kick. He looks like he could do with a spell off, but we have got no other strong option.
Elsewhere, Wiggins had another skillful  pulsating game, Hollands toiled away reliably again in midfield and apart from his goal Russell had a fair game. However, the midfield badly lacks the calming influence of Jackson and the creativeness of Stephen (when he was at his best). Hogan Ephraim had a reasonable game but does nor exactly set the place alight (maybe he is not yet fully fit).
Green continues to flatter to deceive and make the loyal pull their hair out. He is supposed to be in there to create chances and provide a regular supply of good crosses. He is not doing this at all at the moment. And he's too casual when in spitting distance of the opposition when they attack. This casualness and apparent laziness plus Solly's positioning played a major part on Oldhams goal when our right side was taken apart with some neat passing. On that occasion, the ball was fired away for the equaliser with confidence; had that confidence been shown a little earlier in a similar position we could have been embarrassed.
I find it difficult to see how Green is keeping his place, surely it is not just on the basis of the possibility he might eventually fire in a good shot, or because he can throw the ball some distance.
Mpost could see that problems were emerging from down their left wing midway through the second half, and it's disappointing that CP did not make one substitution to try to address this.
With only Jason Euell on the bench other than Wagstaffe, we had no real attacking options and certainly would have been in more trouble had Kermit retired early. However, a Hughes or even a Pritchard on with about 25 minutes to go might have plugged some of the holes down the right hand side. 
Other than that, Hamer did not really have a shot to save and Morrison and Taylor performed well in defence but their distribution was not great today, far too many hoofed clearances.
If Hayes and Hughes seem to be out of favour then some constructive surgery needs to be done in January.
We have a worrying sequence of fixtures coming up, including the two Sheffields and Brentofrd, and Orient will be no stroll. Some bad results in thse games will provide a New Year's present of unneeded pressure.