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Friday, January 18, 2008

Current Target - 14 from 19....

Everyone needs a goal in life, something to aim for. Some want power and prestige, while most of us are content with the money. Being a football manager, however, Pardew has a more concrete goal in mind, end of season promotion.
At the beginning of the season his target was 26 victories to give us automatic promotion, so with 12 so far its a target of 14 more from our remaining 19 games. Impossible, I hear you say, we'll never do that, so you'll be pleased to know that its only meant to be a target.
Watford, won't be too concerned with our targets, for without a home win in the League since October 20th, it'll be our long and difficult Tuesday evening that'll be pleasing them, and with our 'best' team out as well. And, although they have gone 7 fizzy games at Vicarage Rd without a win, they'll be even more encouraged by their 2-0 FA cup win over Palarse - both goals coming from defender Dan Shittu - on January 5th, Palarse's first defeat in 15 games.
However, seems they've got a few problems with the news that 11 goal top goalscorer Marlon King appears to be off to Fulham, and he's even been quoted in the press already, 'I've got fond memories of Watford but this is a new chapter in my life. Last time in the Premier League my season was cut short by injury but this opportunity has come up. We've got Arsenal on Saturday and I'm looking forward to that.' So appears done and dusted, leaving a bit of a hole up front for Watford. They still have Darius Henderson, with 10 so far, who Pards will know all about about having had him at Reading - and then sold him to the Gills - and he's followed in the goalscoring chart by another one we know about, ex-Charlton player-without-having-played, Dan Shittu with 5 goals.
As for ourselves, Pards is reported to be pleased by the performance against West Brom but why did he feel that he had to field his best eleven.
For one thing, after 3 games unchanged, it'll be nice and easy for his mate Adrian to guess who'll be playing tomorrow and make his plans. Number two, they'll all be tired for what will bound to be a physical battle, with 34 year old Holland in the middle of it. And number three, there is still a glaring problem to be solved and we all know what it is, even Pards, thats why he's after Andy Gray.
Yes, it's the quality of our shooting. By my reckoning, we've had more shoots that anybody in the fizzies, except the inevitable West Brom, but currently stand second only to Southampton - by just one shot - as most off-target team in the fizzies. Says it all really.
So all in all, tired and with plans well in place to stop us, what's in store for tomorrow? Seems to me that nothing short of a surprise will prove to be enough to win the game. And the surprise, Pards, has to be the inclusion from the start of Chris Dickson. An away game, far from the expectant fans is surely the best way of introducing him full-time with the added bonus that it'll get us a clue as to whether we need Gray or not. If he has a bad game then there's even more chance of the board being persuaded to provide more cash and if he succeeds, then we needn't bother with Gray at all. Can't fail can really.
But don't get too excited, Pards says 'I need to consider when to put him on, or when to put him in the team, and it will be up to me to get the best out of him between now and the end of the season.'
So it'll be the self same eleven then.
Charlton: Weaver; Moutaouakil, McCarthy, Bougherra, Youga; Sam, Holland, Zheng, Ambrose; McLeod, Varney.
Subs: Randolph, Semedo, Thomas, Iwelumo and Dickson.
Prediction: 0-0 with no surprises as long as we can stop Shittu scoring.....and unless Dickson comes on for a late winner.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

No fears about big Dan Shittu scoring against us - he won't be playing! He's away on international duty with Nigeria.

Anonymous said...

Surely it makes complete sense for the teams to have had most shots to have the most off target?