West Ham 0 Charlton 0

Well, what did you expect? Looking back the game finished as we should have expected. A solid Charlton stifling a more skilful West Ham. We had moments of slick passing, with Brian Hughes usually involved, but failed to create any sort of real chance.

We have became successful at holding teams and stopping them scoring - thats the eighth League 'shut-out' in the last 15 games - a statistic that should please us especially after last season disastrous away trips to almost anywhere, conceding goals like pound notes at a Greek wedding, but as usual there's little praise from the press on that front. Its goals and 'personalities' that are wanted. Would you believe it, some old geezer even received a birthday cake at yesterdays match.

Top marks therefore must go to the defence ( we were the away team after all) with Perry and Hermann keeping Ashton and Harewood quiet. Ashton, after a clever flick in the first minute was withdrawn at half-time and the old geezer came on minus his cake but to a lot of applause. We restricted West Ham to a couple of chances, Kish heading off the line from a corner and Myhre saving well from the old geezer, both occurring late on when the Hammers were having their best spell.

The usual Charlton midfield of Kish, Holland and Hughes played to its strengths with Kish working hard cleaning up, Holland trying to forge something out of nothing and having one snatched shot that went wide and Hughes having one of his better games trying to work openings down the left with Powell's able assistence.
It was left to the wingers to try to get around the back of the Hammers defence but despite winning a series of corners in the second half Rommedahl didn't achieve very much and with 20 minutes to go Thomas came on. Was this a ploy in readiness for the Semis? We'll probably never know.

Up front for the Addicks, Darren Bent was closely marked all afternoon by somebody called Collins that the spanish commentator kept calling Phil and Marcus Bent disappointingly volleyed the only half chance we had into Row X when a deflected ball fell to him with time to control it.

So we remain in 11th place with 43 points consolidating our mid-table position, but are we happy? Well, we're not exactly setting the world on fire with our attacking style and appealing play as was adequately pointed out to me, when sat all alone in the pub watching the game a group of guys walked in and seeing who was playing immediately wrote the game off as mid-table mediocrity and started chatting up the barmaid. And I must attempt there were times when I wished I had joined in.

It would be something if we could point to the idea that we have progressed from last season where we also finished 11th. We're currently won the same number of games, 12 and with 3 points less than we managed last year because currently we're drawn 3 games less. This year 13 current defeats, last year 16. So if during the remaining 6 games we draw 3 and lose 3 we'll have exactly the same results as last year.

And with away trips to Fulham, Bolton and Man.U and home outings to the improving Portsmouth, inconsistent Everton and european chasing Blackburn, 3 draws and 3 losses doesn't seem too unlikely.

So to revive our spirits, we must be positive and look elsewhere for encouragement. We've reached the FA Cup QuarterFinals and are still in with a shout after the draw with Middlesbro'. Because of the drawn game we made the hat for the Semi-Finals for the first time in 59 years. And for the first time since the likes of Mendonca and Hunt we at last we have a striker that always looks like he knows how to score - Darren Bent.

For further excuses, we can point to another controversial mid-season departure, this time by that well-known social-climber Spud Murphy that has surely upset Curbs's well-made plans for the season. We can only hope that he spends this years cash more wisely.