Charlton Head and Shoulders above Morecambe…
Charlton Athletic Boss Dean Holden brought his team from the sophisticated South to the frozen wastes of north Lancashire today to face Morecambe for only the third time ever. Last season in League One, the match here ended in a 2-2 draw. But at the Valley in the final days of the campaign, the Shrimps won 2-3 in the return fixture. I think it can be truly said that the three points they picked-up on that day finally cemented Derek Adams’ gargantuan effort to keep the club in the division at the end of the season.
A similar effort is required this time around as well. Morecambe started the game in the highest of the relegation positions in League One. They were absolutely level by all criteria with the False Dons from Milton Keynes and just three points clear of Cambridge United, all three clubs having played the same amount of games. (Poor old Forest Green Rovers are effectively out of the running even at this stage of the season, having lost at home yet again last Saturday and finding themselves already thirteen points from safety with fixtures quickly running out.) Morecambe are also two points shy of Accrington Stanley and five of newly-rejuvenated Burton Albion, both of which clubs have played two games fewer. The best hope they might have of escaping from the Drop Zone morass has been the dire form of Oxford United in recent times. Even under new management, Oxford lost again at home last Saturday 2-3 to Derby County to sit just three points above the Shrimps with the same number of games played. So this week could be decisive as far as Morecambe’s fate in League One is concerned. With Oxford due to visit next Saturday, if Derek Adams’ men could take the maximum six points on offer this week, the Shrimps could see themselves again clear of the relegation struggle by next Saturday night.
Charlton arrived in sixteenth place in the table, nine points clear of tonight’s hosts and having played one game fewer. They could have done Morecambe a massive favour by beating Accrington at the Valley last Saturday. But they only drew – coming from behind to end the game one-all. The south Londoners’ form has been poor in recent times and they have not won a single one of their last five league games, of which they have lost three. (Our former hero Sam Lavelle has been lent by Athletic to Burton during this time. Is Charlton’s poor form and Burton’s improved performances subsequently coincidental? I wonder…)
Manager Dean Holden summed-up the task facing his team tonight in these words yesterday:
“For us, again, we focus on ourselves. We respect the job that Derek’s done while he’s been up there. They’ve got a decent record at home. It’s a really tight ground and there will be a good atmosphere in there tomorrow night. Getting our own performance right is the main thing for us. In terms of where we are in the season there’s only eleven games left. Obviously, I’ve not been in the job that long either so we’re still trying to find ways to improve all the time. We have to keep putting points on the board. It’s important that we keep adding to that points tally to get ourselves totally safe. That was obviously my remit coming into the job. The quicker we do that the better and then we can really start looking towards next season.”
Morecambe’s perspective was expressed by King Derek thus:
“We are thoroughly looking forward to it. We know how big a game it is because it’s the next game and we’ve only got ten games to go now. We would love to get six points (this week). We need to win games at home and we’ve done that well. We have found it difficult away from home this season. We’ve got a young squad. We have to use the experienced players to help them get over it – they understand what it is all about. We are a football club that is punching above its weight – we understand that. Until there’s real investment, we’re always going to be the same.”
As far as latest signing Oumar Niasse is concerned, he added:
“He’s played for a number of big clubs. He gives us another dimension. That’s what we are looking for him to do: to lead the line; take the ball in; take others into the game and score a few goals for us.”
The weather has been really iffy in north Lancashire recently. Yesterday, the Lakeland hills to the north were completely lost in mist across Morecambe Bay. The sea was rough as strong, cold gales swept across the brown water from the Atlantic far away to the west. Overhead, dark clouds drove rain and sleet into the faces of dog walkers and the unwary alike. Today saw sunshine at times as the winds dropped but also flecks of snow as the skies yet again regularly clouded over. By quarter to eight this evening, it was dry and the wind had almost died away but you could see ice crystals forming on the pitch as the match grew older and an air frost turned everything around the stadium white.
The teams came out and the first thing you noticed is how much physically bigger the visitors were in comparison to the men in the red shirts. Nearly all of them are big lads but in Miles Leaburn in particular (1.95m or 6’4” – plus the rest) and Sean Clare, we had visitors from The Land of the Giants. So my first mental note was: We are going to struggle in the air.
One of the teams which emerged from the tunnel, of course, was that of the officials. One look at the man in charge – Andy Haines – made my heart sink even further. Mental Note to Self No.2 was: God help us! This is possibly the worst Referee on the EFL’s books. He has that perfectly toxic mixture of incompetence and officiousness which brings the whole profession into disrepute.
And so it proved. My first mental note was only partially true, though. Morecambe didn’t just struggle against Charlton in the air. They struggled on the ground too. And they struggled all over the pitch as well. They were absolutely atrocious tonight and made Charlton – which is a team, we must remember – which hasn’t won for absolutely ages – look like Manchester City. If the Shrimps – who really lived down to their nickname tonight – keep playing like this, they will not only be relegated at the end of this season; they won’t stay in League Two next either.
My second mental note was absolutely spot-on, though. Andy Haines isn’t fit enough to keep up with play. So he guesses – and often gets his decisions wrong – for both sides. He’s absolutely brilliant at making sure the ball is placed on exactly the spot he wants it to be but he misses what’s going on behind his back as he does this. He also indulges all the old Dark Arts such as time wasting, feigning injury and failing to move away when free-kicks are awarded to the opposition. Jesurun Rak-Sakyi had obviously been told by his Manager to stand over the ball every time Morecambe were awarded a free-kick from the moment he came on as a substitute after 55 minutes until the end of the game. He duly did so. And Mr Haines did nothing about it even once. Loads of the Addicks’ players fell over as if they had been pole-axed this evening and then miraculously sprang back to their feet as soon as the useless man with the whistle gave them what they wanted. But the pantomime which ensued when Terrell Thomas left the field in the last ten minutes, genuflecting as much as crawling his way off as he constantly sank onto one knee whilst the Referee fussed about and didn’t book him for cheating as he should have done was actually almost comical.
So it was no surprise when Haines the Brains allowed Charlton’s opening goal. Miles Leaburn scored with a perfect shot when the ball arrived at his feet just out from the goal in the middle of the home penalty area with seventeen minutes on the clock. But the only people who cold not see that he was almost as far off-side as his Christian name suggests were the Referee and his apparently equally myopic assistants with the flags. Again, the man with the spray-foam and the little black book had just guessed: he was miles away from the action, probably checking that all the players still had their shirts tucked-in.
Buoyed by this bit of good fortune, Charlton scored a legitimate second just four minutes later. Albie Morgan took a corner; Ryan Inniss headed the ball back across goal from the back stick and Ashley Maynard-Brewer bundled it home. He scored again right at the end of the first half from very close range as the Shrimps’ defence stood off and allowed him to reach the ball first. The visitors had plenty of other chances as Morecambe offered nothing going forward. Derek Adams chose to start with Oumar Nisse as Centre Forward tonight. It was a mistake – in the first half, Michael Hector had him in his pocket and Morecambe only played with any conviction when Daniel Crowley was on the ball. Throughout the game, Ash Hunter again offered little. His final ball ranged from predictable to poor to appalling and I for one would have liked to see him withdrawn at half time. But Derek didn’t change anything at any time this evening.
Morecambe were marginally better in the second half. Niasse started to show that he can actually play a bit and probably deserved the award of Official Man of the Match by the end of it. For a brief moment, there was a glimmer of hope as Captain Donald Love walloped home a valley from the Morecambe right after excellent approach play by Niasse with an hour played. For a few minutes after this, Charlton looked decidedly shaky. But normal service was resumed shortly afterwards and the visitors netted again in the seventieth minute when Rak-Sakyi played a clever one-two on the edge of the Morecambe penalty area and Scott Fraser scored emphatically.
It could have been more in all truth. One of the reasons it wasn’t was Athletic’s constant time-wasting. Why? They were literally head and shoulders ahead of tonight’s opponents and a victory was never in serious doubt – so why do it?
Anyway – that was it – a precious opportunity to put pressure on their rivals for the drop totally squandered by the Shrimps at the expense of yet more goals conceded in large amounts to add to the Debit side of their Goal Difference. They were gutless, clueless and hopeless in equal measure this evening and if this is the standard of football which Shrimps’ fans can expect for the rest of the campaign, we might as well throw in the towel now to stop any further punishment to home supporters at least.
Elsewhere, the frauds from Milton Keynes went above Morecambe in the legion of the damned without even playing as their goal return became better than ours. Whatever hope we still cling to that at least four other clubs are even more dire than ours currently is were boosted by Accrington’s home reverse tonight against Portsmouth by three goals to one. Burton were also hammered at home 2-5 by Peterborough. My own tip for a late fall from grace – Bristol Rovers – also lost on their own patch; this time 0-2 to Wycombe.
At the end of this truly feeble display, King Derek was again brutally honest in his assessment of the match:
“We kept on going; we created a few openings. I thought we could have done better at times in and around that eighteen-yard box. Tonight, they were the better team. And they’re always going to be: it’s Charlton Athletic you’re playing against – a very accomplished League One side.”
Morecambe: 1 Connor Ripley; 2 Donald Love (C); 4 Liam Gibson; 5 Farrend Rawson; 8 Daniel Crowley; 10 Ash Hunter; 15 Jensen Weir (Y); 18 Oumar Niasse; 20 Liam Shaw; 25 Adam Mayor; 29 Dynel Simeu.
Subs not used: 12 Adam Smith; 6 Ryan Delaney; 9 Cole Stockton; 14 Arthur Gnahoua; 17 Caleb Watts; 21 Ryan Cooney; 22 Josh Austerfield.
Charlton Athletic: 31 Ashley Maynard-Brewer; 3 Terell Thomas (Y) (18 Mandela Egbo 82’); 4 George Dobson (5 Daniel Kanu 75’); 6 Michael Hector; 10 Albie Morgan; 21 Scott Fraser (32 Aaron Henry 75’); 23 Corey Blackett-Taylor (17 Jesurun Rak-Sakyi 55’); 24 Ryan Inniss: 28 Sean Clare; 33 Miles Leaburn (8 Macauley Bonne 75’); 43 Tyreece Campbell.
Subs not used: 1 Joseph Wollacott; 2 Steven Sessegnon); 19 Jack Payne.
Ref: Andy `Hopeless’ Haines.
Att: Unknown. About 200 from London. Safe journey home this freezing evening everyone.
