Abysmal

Reading 2 Charlton 0


Mark Robson and Les Reed have an awful lot to do

When, dear readers, is a blog not a blog? This old-fashioned riddle formulation comes to mind this cold grey Madrid morning (yes, we do get them, just not so many as other places) as I try to make sense of the crisis at Charlton. The various other bloggers, including an excellent writer called New York Addick, have explained it all so trenchantly and effectively that for once I feel redundant, where Charlton are concerned, and thus today's blog piece is not so much a blog piece as a kind of clearing house or phone exchange pointing to other places. (See helpful new reference links list, at right).

The consensus is that the way Charlton played at Reading on Saturday was their worst performance since the 1-6 home defeat to Leeds during their relegation season (Leeds's, not Charlton's, though they both seem to be having one of those right now), and that assistant-coach Mark Robson and Les Reed, nice chaps though they are, have got a hell of a task on their hands. For once, the Charlton bloggers and commentators were harder than some of the media. Jon West of The Observer wrote a fair and unbiased piece.

And the quiz team tumbled to our first defeat in six outings, though we only had Antony for half of the evening, as he was, under our new double quizmaster system, asking the questions in the first half, joining his own team in the second. And Hugh, being a trifle under the weather, was not with us either.

All the same, 'abysmal' is perhaps too harsh a word for the quiz team. Not, though, for Charlton.