Mounting Midlands Misery

Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 Charlton 0



Ah well, my optimistic feelings about the Wolves game proved to erroneous, and as usual after an unlooked-for result, I didn't bother checking in with the other bloggers or the BBC till later that night. Wyn Grant did not seem either too surprised nor disappointed, and more or less implied that Charlton had been outplayed. The BBC actually said that Charlton had dominated in the first half yet had failed to turn this dominance into goals. This account was followed, as per the usual BBC football page house style, by a quote from each of the managers.

Now I am always quite sympathetic towards managers who are asked to make some remark or other after a game, for whether they are reduced to making platitudinous comments of the "lads done great" variety, following a win, or blaming the referee Dennis Wise style, when they've lost, the whole area is very limited. At the end of last season, I pointed out that managers of relegated clubs rarely say that they've been abysmal all season and might well end up going down again, even when this is readily apparent to one and all. So at first glance, Pards's comment, that once Charlton were behind they found it difficult to catch up, seemed meaningless, as it didn't tell us anything the final score didn't. But then I thought that this is usually the best way to deal with awkward questions from the media.

I seem to recall a Tory lady politician in the late eighties, I think, (not Mrs. T. though) who would smile beatifically, and murmur "so many imponderables", and then pass on before the bemused press guys worked out that what she had said meant nothing more than "you're putting me on the spot to say something, and I don't want to, so I'll say something that sounds meaningful, and by the time you realise that it isn't, I'll be out of here".

So I concluded that Pards was on the same tack, and it wasn't until I checked in with Frankie's piece yesterday morning, which referred to a report on the game in the Daily Telegraph, that I realised that Pards quite possibly wasn't aware of the reason why Charlton had lost. Wolves manager Mick McCarthy (who last year had been rumoured to be in line for the Charlton job on the grounds that he has a house in Bromley, and which prompted me to say that on that basis I had a fair chance of getting the Real Madrid job) has a good track record when it comes to getting teams out of this division and up to the Premiership, as he proved at Sunderland not long ago, and he took a couple of tactical decisions, aimed at stifling any creativity and initiative that Charlton might have, mainly in the person of Andy Reid, and it worked. Pards's bringing Jerome Thomas on after 71 minutes, the Telegraph added, made a difference, but it was too late, so why did Pards not make this change after the 46th minute goal, incidentally scored by an ex-Charlton player (this seems invariably to happen), Jay Bothroyd?

Well I don't know the answer to that, and Pards's view that it was disappointing, and that things must change tonight, when Charlton play Plymouth at The Valley, is one that I certainly echo, but which is so self-evident that it hardly merits saying at all.

And it is beginning to look as though visiting the Midlands this season is going to be about as productive as going to the Lancashire area has been in past seasons, too.