Villa Preview

After playing, and losing to the top three teams in the Premiership we now face the team in 5th spot - Aston Villa. And at the moment Frankie V´s prediction of an opening 8 game losing run don´t seem so far of the mark.

As the Addicks approach nearly a year without an away win - Portsmouth October 22nd last year - its another difficult game against improved Aston Villa. A long pre-season which saw many marked them down as relegation certainies, it all changed when Martin O´Neill arrived. They are unbeaten in 5 games and have won their last 4 games at Villa Park. Just the right time to catch them then.

History

Our record at Villa Park is not good to say the least with only 4 wins and 7 draws in the 26 games and its no consolation to say that I saw one of the victories. And overall we can´t claim to be one of their boogy teams with only 14 wins in the 52 games played.

Talk The Talk

Head Coach Monica explains That: "We need to go up to Villa and make sure that when we have the ball we are very positive and when we're out of possession we will be nice and dogged." Seem to remember similar words expressed before the Chelski game so at least the boss is consistent.

The Addicks

The Herminator returns and starts to ease our selection worries and he, Scott Carson and probably Jimmy-Floyd will be the changes from Tuesdays game against Carlisle.

As for the subs bench, one look at the injury list and obviously it´ll be full of youngsters. Out through injury are Sorondo, Gibbs, Diawara, Reid, Pouso, Thomas and with the midfield duo of Holland and Hughes also sadly (!) doubtful. And Young and Ambrose are both carrying injuries. Did I miss anyone?

Predictions

Good old Lawro thankfully sees it as a 2-1 home ( he apparently got 2 right last week).

Mine: God knows how and why but 1-1

Carlisle Preview

No I´m not going either. But I hope our players turn up, for defeat today would be a calamity. I know Monica will be thinking of Saturday and the trip to Aston Villa but the consequences of losing at home to a Division 1 team would trouble him more.

Players need to win regularly to transfer the confidence that the Coach spends so much effort installing on the training ground onto the pitch and defeat today will continue to erode much of the positive talk from Monica. Third from bottom in the league, 4 defeats from 5 games and only 2 goals scored from open play so don´t tell me tonight is only a cup game. A win is badly needed right now.

Rest Young and Jimmy-Floyd if you must and give Myhre a game if you have to - but for the rest it has to be your strongest team. Not a lot of choices available but a continuation of last Saturdays second half effort is definitely required.

Pray for the broken toe and continue with Fortune in defence with Kish, El Karkouri, and Ashton. After Saturday Faye must be in midfield and encouraged to continue his second-half performance against Portsmouth, out wide Rommedahl and Ambrose, and one from Hughes ( carrying an injury), Holland (ditto) and Pouso (struggling with english football).

Up front the two Bents and how about putting James Walker on the bench. He´s got things to prove.Well, OK, Kevin as well.

Prediction? A nervy 2-1

Dowie Stars as "The Cincinnati Kid"

So the old geezer with the twitch wins again over the brash youngster. The old movies always used to got it right and it was just like the film “The Cincinnatti Kid” where Steve McQueen and Edward G Robinson faced each other over the poker table. Now it was the 59 year old Cockney against the young 41 year old Monica from Hatfield. And at the Valley on Saturday the outcome was exactly the same.

The early play belonged to the experienced head of Harry and his players demonstrated why they are so well placed in the Premiership. Confident and always able to find one another they really should have gone ahead when, after a cross from the right, Kanu rose higher than Kish at the far post but saw his header flash just wide. The youngster was riding his luck all right.

Forced into the desperate measure of playing three forwards due to the morning injury to midfielder Brian Hughes and now seeing that his midfield was under too much pressure, at half time Monica showed his coolness, removing Marcus Bent and bringing on Jonathan Fortune, a defender with a broken toe, but thereby allowing Amady Faye to move up to midfield.

Faye came more into the game and began at last to show the skills and determination that had persuaded Monica to part with a cool 2M during the summer. He started to control the midfield against his former South Coast teammates and the home side started to look strong and were forcing Portsmouth back into their own half.

The broken toe of Fortune seemed to be coping with the fewer attacks that Portsmouth could generate in the second half and the longer the game when on the more the play belonged to the Addicks.

On 57 minutes the Uruguayan Omar Pouso was withdrawn and replaced by Matt Holland and with an hour of the match over there seemed to be only one possible winner. Panic started to show in the Portsmouth rearguard, crucial blocks were having to be made and a shot by Rommedahl flew inches wide.

The pressure was now on the old geezer to do something to rectify matters and on 64 minutes he responded by switching his cards, exchanging one striker for another. Ten short minutes later and the game was over.

A low drive from the substitute and the ball ended up in the back of the net diverted off Scott Carsons clawing fingers. A quick Lua-Lua and the old man was taking home the spoils. A low pair had secured the points.

Suitable Quotes from the Film/Game
Lancey played by Harry: Gets down to what it's all about, doesn't it? Making the wrong move at the right time.
Cincinnati Kid played by Monica: Is that what it's all about?
Lancey/Harry: Like life, I guess. You're good, kid, but as long as I'm around you're second best. You might as well learn to live with it.


Charlton: Carson; Kishishev (Lisbie 80), Young, El Karkouri, Faye; Rommedahl, Pouso (Holland 57), Hasselbaink, Ambrose; M Bent (Fortune 46), D Bent.
Subs (not used): Myhre, Ashton.

Jovial Dane? Who's This Then?

A good pre-season when he featured in most of the fixtures has not been reflected in the number of games that Dennis Rommedahl has played now that the Premiership has kicked off. However, this doesn't seem to have upset the Dane. After finding himself left out of the side he insists that he never considered a departure from The Valley.

Apparently he's in a jovial mood after his performance in the Chelski game "I heard a good rumour about four days after the transfer deadline, Stephan [Andersen] called me and said he'd heard that I was on my way to Russia, which I found quite funny. I've never been on my way to any other club from here. I had a good pre-season in my eyes for Charlton. The only bad thing was when the real games started to come up in the Premiership I didn't play. But that's life and I'm just hoping to prove now that I'm good enough to be playing in the team.”

And this is what he had to say on todays game: "Every game is important, but a home game against Portsmouth must be a winnable game."

And there's more positive talk from Monica as he gets everyone in the right mood for this afternoons, sorry, this mornings game against Pompey. Never one to be despondent, he's remarkably upbeat about his problems.

"Clearly the injuries are a set back but our glass is still half full,” he said.

"I think the players should feel a lot of pride, outside the first 20 minutes at Chelsea, which was not what we're about. We weren't switched on, we weren't at it, we didn't pressurise and we didn't pass the ball well. But after that it was a very even game and in the second half we had huge periods where we controlled possession.

And just to pre-warn us of the side that we can expect to see today he added: "We've been disrupted by injuries, but it'll give some of the others a chance. I'm looking forward to seeing how some of the fringe players in the squad, or who have been thus far, respond."

Portsmouth Preview

Next up are young Harrys boys from Portsmouth who visit us tomorrow at the rather strange time of 12.45. Must be on TV then.

Much like the Addicks last year, they'd had an easy start to the season with not too much in the way of quality to face so far and have made the most of the opportunity to get points on the board. Despite Blackburns 5-0 trashing of the same New Zealand that we could only draw with, they were easy prey for Portsmouth in their opening game and were beaten 3-0. After a goalless draw away to Man. City, they then travelled to the Riverside and demolished Middlesbro 4-0 before returning home last weekend to beat Wigan 1-0. So 4 games, 10 points, 8 goals scored and none conceded.

The History

We've been catching up during the Premiership years but overall we're still behind.

League: Played: 94, Wins 31 wins, Draws 25, Lost 38.
At Charlton: Wins 19 wins, Draws 15, Lost 13.

Talk The Talk

Can't find any quotes by Monica this week. He's got too much thinking to do, I fancy, to have time to be talking to the press, internal or external.

The Opposition
No goals conceded seems to be because of a strengthing of the defence by new signings Campbell and James, with our old boy Linvoy Primus filling in beside Campbell and full-back Glen Johnson, on loan from Chelsea. Seems we're not the only ones with left-back trouble as club captain, Serbian Stefanovic seems to have broken a toe and will be missing while up front they have recruited from West Brom Kanu who has been knocking the goals in with 4 to date. Alongside him will probably be Pompeys biggest signing, the tall Benjani Mwaruwari , the captain of Zimbabwe no less, that they bought from Auxerre in January for £4M.

The Addicks

So what team are we going to put out against a side that has conceded no goals and scored 8? With 7 players in the medical centre and the Herminator sitting in the stands for 2 more games its even more of a conundrum than Monica faced against Chelski.

The key to the solution has to be who to play at left-back. Once that's been sorted out the rest will fall into place, (forgetting the midfield, of course). If Ashton plays, then the back four will be Young, El Karkouri, Faye and Ashton thus freeing-up Kish for midfield. If Young switches to the left, then the back four will read Kish, El Karkouri, Faye and Young. Either way Faye will be at centre-back as there's nobody else available.

The warning of two pulled hamstrings in 30 minutes against Chelski will probably mean no appearance of Pouso although with the strengths (!) of our midfield a place on the bench cannot be ruled out. And with Andy Reid also gone AWOL ( was it Martin Jol who said he was always injured ) it'll probably mean another start - wait for it - for the infamous duo of Holland and Hughes.

After his recent performances, for club and country, it seems odds-on that Dennis Rommedahl will start and with Darren Ambrose the only other fit person about he'll no doubt be on the left of midfield.

Up front, no prizes for guessing, its jimmy and darren with 4 goals between them and raring to go against an unbeaten, so far, defence.

Predictions
Dear old Lawro gives us an outside chance with a 1-1 draw while pedro45 goes with a 2-1 home.

Mine? Don't know why, and its a bit worryingly that despite our injuries and H&H in midfield nobody foresees a demoralising defeat but for me, 1-0 to the Addicks.

Debut For Nathan?

What was it that the pundits used to say? If you're old enough, you're good enough. No, that wasn't it. If you're good enough, you're old enough, that was it.

So, perhaps its time to see how good is our 19 year-old left-back Nathan Ashton by playing him in the game on Saturday. An alarming absence of left-backs, with the invisible Cory Gibbs and the hapless Djimi Traore both out injured while the Herminator is still banned for 2 more games after his sending-off against Bolton leaves us with surely no other choice. Unless we can persuade Watford to give us Chrissie Powell back on loan that is, why did he ever go ( and Chris Perry, come to think of it ).

Well, the other possibility and the easy option for Monica would be to switch Luke Young to left-back, where he played for the last half-an-hour against Chelski after Traore went off. This would, of course, leave us naked in midfield with Kish at right-back and Faye at central defence. Oh, dear, I can feel my migraine returning.

To remind everyone, Nathan Ashton is an England Under 19 international that played 17 Reserve appearances last season and was given plenty of experience during the pre-season games. He played 360 minutes during pre-season at left-back, a total bettered only in defence by the Herminator and Luke Young. He played against all the top teams that we encountered, Utrecht, Germinal, New Zealand, Valencia, Hibs and Millwall playing the full match against both Valencia and New Zealand.

Go on, give him a chance..

Champions League? Dream On

Now really Charlton news, but as I can remember the days when the nearest thing we came to European competition was when we played Newport County at the Valley, they having just played in the Cup Winners Cup, First Round that is, I going to indulge myself. After his lucky win over us at the weekend, I see that Jose M is quoted as saying that there are around 10 teams that are capable of winning this years Champions League. I think he should think again.

After seeing the holders Barcelona on TV help themselves to 5 goals in the pouring rain against Levski Sofia, there's only team that going to win it. Peaking too early you might say - well Chelski and the others can only hope, or is it pray, but if anything Barcelona look to have improved from last years team.

Thuram, Lilian to his friends, has jumped ship from Juve and has added more composure to the back four while Gudjohnsen has arrived from Chelski to cover for Eto'o. Zambrotta has also arrived but could only warm the bench.

And also sitting on the bench and not needed, was wonder-boy Messi, and Spanish national team playmaker Javi ( for an hour anyway).

The goals came from all over the place, right, left and centre with even Pujol getting in on the act. OK, they were helped by some goalkeeping that we don't expect from Scott Carson, but they still looked pretty impressive and it'll be very hard to prevent them winning it again.

"Smallest" Club No More

Trying to avoid the problematic thoughts of Team Selection and how to form an adequate defence with only 2 defenders for the game against high-flying Portsmouth I turned my attention to other matters. Flicking through the Sporting Life as one does, I noticed that several clubs were having trouble with low attendances during the first few weeks of the season. Only two games played so its early days yet but due to the arrival of two "small" clubs, Watford and Reading, and the relegation of Birmingham and Sunderland we can now claim more ( average ) bums on seats than 7 other teams in the Premiership.

Although Sheffield United, long starved of Premiership fare since their relegation in 1994, have bigger gates than us with an surprising average of 30800, both Watford (average 18898) and Reading (23974) lag behind us. Add to these the stay-at-home towns of Bolton (22020), Blackburn (20706), Portsmouth (19515), Fulham (18460), and Wigan (14636) and that should put us with our average of 24530 currently 13th in the "Attendance League".

The big boys way out in front are, of course, Manure and Arsenal with those 50,000 mad Georgies in third place. In the 40,000 are Chelski, Liverpool and Everton while in mid-table are obviously all the others.

All this won't give Monica any pleasure but at least Richard Murray can now promote little-old-Charlton as the 13th Biggest Club in the country so keeping those important sponsors and advertisers happy. All we need now is some more points to make sure we stay where we are...

The Numbers Game

Football used to be about playing a game every weekend. Dull perhaps but nice and simple. Two points for a win and one for a draw - no transfer windows where you have to keep track of how much we've spent that we haven't got and no worrying about Work Permits where someone pays for us and then has to go home again.

Nowadays its all about numbers. Huge numbers. Chelsea spend £130 million of old Russian money and some guy called Rio F gets paid £120,000 per week just for strolling about. He must be good. Even the ex-England manager Sven, though he´s presently not working of course, is being paid by our very own FA a cool £13,000 a DAY till sometime next year. Less than Rio I know but at least Sven can get his lying down. Lying down on who I don't pretend to know.

But until Chelski manage to change the rules, its still 11 players against 11 and its therefore refreshing to see that Martin O´Neill can change Aston Villa from being odds-on for relegation to a team in mid-table in a matter of weeks. Thats one less team below us then.

So to make us all feel just a little bit better, I thought I´d look at the stats from last weekends games to see if any numbers can be made to look good for us. At a loose end and clearly bored with life I decided to add up all the players scores awarded in Mondays Guardian and found that we totalled 65 for the team. Adding up the rest I found that only 4 teams, Bolton, West Ham, Arsenal and Liverpool, of the eighteen teams playing over the weekend had less. Rather worryingly, in the top six scorers were Watford and Sheff. Utd with 73 and 71 respectively. What does it all mean?

Who were our top scoring players, you might be asking? Jimmy-Floyd, Scott Carson and Brian Hughes all got 7 out of 10. JF against his former club, Scott for his many saves including the penalty from Lampard and the indefatigable Hughes desperately fighting for his place with Omar presumably watching from the wings.

On a brighter note, our high-scoring "passing" score of 78% presumably means that we at least completed most of our passing. In fact, only 3 teams, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manure had a higher passing score.

Our total shots was rather less impressive with 5. So despite our successful passing, presumably mosting backwards, only one team, Middlesbro, at Arsenal, managed less shots. Spurs equalled us with 5 shots at Old Trafford thus adequately demonstrating the 3 most difficult places to visit are Arsenal, Manure and Chelski.

And Monica´s request prior to the game to be horrible obviously wasn´t read by the players as our total number of fouls – 9 - was only bettered (!) by those nice boys at Arsenal who had 8.

Everton, in their derby with Liverpool, get the award for top performance of the week. They had the highest player total score of 79, the most fouls 23, only managed 6 shots but scored from half of them and the highest number of goals scored 3.

Not to be taken seriously, of course, this is all very objective and suspect and please don't encourage the kids to do it as they really should be doing something more constructive.

And to add to the confusion, the sportinglife comes up with different numbers, giving us different shot totals - obviously two of our "off-target" shots were rather near the corner flag and therefore didn't qualify.

Searching for other numbers to cheer us up I found that Blackburn, Sheff. Utd and Man. City are all having trouble scoring, as they´ve all only scored once in their 4 games. Spurs and Arsenal have only scored twice each. This seems to be one statistic that doesn´t lie, the teams scoring the most goals, Manure, Portsmouth, Everton and Chelsea all sit at the top of the league.

But at least Monica´s more adventurous 4-4-2 is getting us goals. In fact, in the bottom half of the table only Middlesbro have scored more goals than we have, although to further illustrate that nothing comes cheaply we both also have the biggest minus goal difference.

Chelski 2 Charlton 1

A defeat is bad news in anyones book so its time to look around this Sunday morning for scraps of consolation in any form before we put this game behind us.

The first result that appears is from Scouseland and I suppose it must be pretty shitty this morning to be a Liverpool supporter. Hammered seems the appropriate word, 3-0 in their worst derby result for 42 years but of course someone elses misery doesn't help us much.

The official cafc report cheers us up a bit but can never be taken too seriously especially when defeat is concerned.

The independent is more level-headed in its mood with a headline of "Chelsea ride their luck after dominating first period" and gives good write-ups to Scott Carson for "an assured display" and Dennis Rommedahl who apparently had a good afternoon after replacing Andy Reid that included the cross for Jimmy-Floyds goal. Such a well-taken goal and, with Hasselbaink not chosing to celebrate the event, he was even applauded by the Chelsea fans, a rare event indeed.

The telegraph spends more time boring us about a substitute called Cole rather than telling us how the game went but does say that we were a little hard done by to have the "equaliser" by Marcus Bent ruled out for hand-ball.

The Sporting Life tells us we not only lost 2-1 in goals, but cheers us up by reminding us that we also lost 6-3 in corners, 2-1 in yellow cards, and 6-2 in shots on target.

The guardian as usual is the most biased against us ( strange that ) and gives it easily to Chelski.

On the team front, Monica had, unsurprisingly, chosen to remain with his favorite 4-4-2 that included only one change for the Bolton game, that of Diawara in defence in place of the Herminator, and so included the ubiquitous Brian Hughes. No sign of the late signing, Omar Pouso, and the doubts of another paperwork rejection comes to mind.

And it seems we have more bad news awaiting us next week with the injuries to Diawara and Reid. These have clearly upset Monica "both are muscular injuries. I hate muscular injuries and its something we strive to prevent. It's no coincidence that they didn't do pre-season with us; that's what happens when you sign players late and they haven't had the same preparation." More reshuffling of the pack for the next game it seems.

But then the real season obviously begins next Saturday. Out of the way are 2 of the 6 games against the "unbeatable" trio of Cheski, Manure and Arsenal and all we have on Saturday is little old Pompey who, after Harry summer tinkering, are now surprisingly at up to 2nd place with no goals conceded. Shades of the Addicks last year perhaps.

Charlton: Carson; Young, Traore (Kishishev 50), El Karkouri, Diawara (M Bent 64); Ambrose, Faye, Hughes, Reid(Rommedahl 30); Hasselbaink, D Bent.

Subs (not used): Myhre, Holland.

Goal: Hasselbaink 54

Is Diawara the Key man?

Hunting around for clues to the outcome of todays clash, I settled on our potential debut boy Souleymane Diawara. Brought in to strengthen our defence late in August, we haven't seen him play yet but everyone seems to think highly of him. He'll need to be at his best today and whoever he partners, El Karkouri or Faye, lets hope they gel immediately.

But of course, it'll take more that one new head to get a result against Chelski and a lot will depend on the team that ID sends out. Although Monica seems up for tomorrows game, there does seem to be a little anxiety in the camp, something that was never obvious in Curbs day, except among the fans of course.

Perhaps that's down to our new management being more open and available and more willing to be quoted. Yesterdays piece of coaching advice was "When you're out of possession you have to be set up in a way that makes it difficult for them to hurt you, but when you're in possession you have to play."

This does sound much like an invitation to adapt the "Curbs Plan A" to swamp midfield and prevent Chelski the space to work. But its unfortunate for Monica that the game comes at a time when he can't put out his best team.

With Omar Pouso away all week getting his "visa", it seems that his debut will have to wait a while unless he manages to make the bench. And with one "hard man" sidelined Monica has the question of where to play Amady Faye. Faye was bought in to add some much-needed bit to the midfield but it has been in central defence that he looks more at home. Instantly moving back into the position vacated due to the Herminators early bath against Bolton he never put a foot wrong for the following hour and the whole team played better. Was it Kish's presence instead of Faye in midfield that did it?

Monica may therefore be tempted to include Faye at central defence once again in the place of HH. However this will leave the midfield a little light-weight against the strengths of Essien and Ballack. And there's even the possiblity that Young may not be fit, requiring Kish to move into his old full-back position.

This need to beef-up midfield will possibly see the return of Kish and a midfield of the Bulgarian, Reid, Faye and, dare I say it, Hughes is more than a possiblilty.

Some people even want to see us go back to the tactics used last year, when with a 4-5-1 formation, we had a midfield of Rommedahl, Holland, Kish, Hughes and Ambrose. The thought has obviously occurred to Monica but these numbers don't come easily to our Coachs' mentality. It'll be a 4-4-2 with Jimmy-Floyd against his old club alongside Darren.

So the key to getting any sort of result today will depend on Monica's use of his available resources and on all the team playing to their potential. And, of course, Chelski falling asleep again.

Chelsea Preview

After the enforced break for our growing squad of internationals to wave the flag, or in Darrens case, to sit idly on the bench, its now back to the Premier grind with another difficult game for the Addicks on Saturday as we trundle down the Kings Road to face Russian side Chelski.

Unbeaten during our 2 games last season at Stamford Bridge, it would appear that we have some sort of an Indian sign over Chelski at the moment, but with Shevchenko and Ballack strengthing the Blues, its pretty obvious that Monica will be placing no reliance on these last 2 performances.

However, looking back for a moment, we can be very proud of what we achieved in those two games at the Bridge which of course included our Carling Cup victory in October where Chelski were put out of the cup on penalties but somehow not actually beaten according to some at the ground. Seems defeat to "small" clubs can be hard to swallow sometimes. This "defeat", of course, has been the only one suffered by Chelski at home since the God took over in June 2004.

To add to the annoyance that the Blessed One must feel towards us is the fact that we returned in January for the league game and earned a point in a 1-1 draw. This of course spoiled their 100% home record and turned out to be the only time that Chelski failed to pick up all 3 points at Stamford Bridge all season. So he has a few scores to settle then.

The league encounter saw Chelski fall asleep during the second half, thinking that their one first half goal was enough to beat us. But with our 5 man midfield we held our own. Marcus Bent, on his Charlton debut, it was that headed the equaliser half-an-hour from the end and Darren Ambrose could even have won it for us at the death sending his shot just over.

HISTORY
Total Played:64 Won:22 Draw:16 Loss:26

The Bridge: Won:10 Draw:7 Loss:15

In the long history of our games against the illustrious Chelsea we have nearly held our own, with probably the most famous game being in May 1988, when a famous 1-1 draw at the Bridge kept us out of the Division One Play-offs and condemned Chelsea to play them. As a consequence, of course, Chelsea were relegated!

In the last 13 games against them, including the cup game, we have won 6, drawn 1 and lost 6, so all square then! But as the money's been flowing out of the Bridge so the results have been getting worst as far as we are concerned. The four games played since Jose took over has seen us only manage one draw and 3 defeats.

While there may be some of us holding faint thoughts of continuing our recent luck we have to remember that so far this season with our new Head Coach, things have not panned out as expected. Surprises against Bolton and upsets against the Hammers are not the usual things we expect. If Monica has a habit of turning History upside down, what of the Form Book.

Well, this doesn't do us any favours, as it points out that we haven't enjoyed back-to-back Premiership victories for a year (37 matches). The Addicks have not won in 15 League games on the road, losing the last four and a defeat to Chelsea would make this our worst ever start to a Premier League campaign. The good news is that Chelski have won their last 8 home games, its got to stop sometime!

Talk The Talk

The Sporting Life quotes our man as saying "I am expecting to go there and be very competitive. I think the 11 players I will have out there are going to be able to cope with Chelsea."

The Opposition
Chelski's last game saw a 2-0 victory away to Blackburn. Their midfield was Essien, Ballack and Lampard and up-front they had new-boys Shevchenko and Kalou. A frightening prospect, perhaps, but the reports spoke of a lack-lustre performance, a crowded midfield and little width. In their only home game, a 3-0 win against Man. City, they used both wingers Wright-Phillips and Robben but had no Ballack in midfield, so we can probably expect Essien, Ballack, Lampard, Robben, Shevchenko and Kalou.

The Addicks
So much for the pre-amble, what will the team be?

With HH out it'll presumably be a in-the-deep-end debut for our new boy Diawara from Sochaux. Who will feature alongside him is open to debate. After some anonymous performances Amady Faye played an hour against Bolton in the back four and looked as he belonged there. So Faye or El Karkouri?

Presumably Young will have recovered from his travel sickness on Wednesday and he and Traore should be the fullbacks. The forward line speaks for itself which as always leaves the midfield open to interpretion. Everyone will have their own idea as to its make-up but Pouso and Reid are obvious ones to make the starting line-up, assuming Pouso has arrived match-fit which is unknown.

The other 2 midfield places will illustrate the managements thinking and on which will surely depend any possible success. It could be Kish, Faye, Rommedahl, Holland or Hughes and maybe Ambrose if he's recovered from his "groin niggle" that kept him out of the England U-21 team.

Predictions

The world famous lawro of course gives us no hope and has it down as a 2-0 home win.

While valley floyd james gets rather more ambitious and goes for a draw or a 1-0 Addicks win.

My team

Carson, Young, Diawara, Faye, Traore, Kish, Reid, Pouso, Ambrose, Jimmy-Floyd and Darren Bent.
And a Prediction of a 2-0. Defeat, that is.

They Call me Monica....

Sitting down to tea last night, Mrs Monica has the Team Sheet for Saturday's game all ready, but our Head Coach is somewhat pensive and upset at something.

"What on earths the matter, Iain dear? You look as if you've had a hard day"
"I've just been told what they call me."
"What who call you?"
"What they call me."
"Who are they?"
"Our bloody so-called supporters"
"Well, and what do they call you?"
"Monica - they call me Monica."
"Oh, that. I thought you knew"
"No, I didn´t. And who told you?"
"Oh, I was just surfing, Iain dear and I saw it on Wikipedia."
"Wiki-what."
"Wikipedia, Iain dear. Its sort of an encyclopedia."
"What! You mean I´m in some sort of encyclopedia as "MONICA"
"Oh, don´t fret so Iain. Its bad for your positives ions."

ID grabs his Charlton mug and downs another gulp of tea.

"Whose idea was it anyway? I 'd like to sort 'em out"
"Well they had a poll, Iain dear, a sort of virtual poll, to decide what to call you."
"And they choose MONICA!!. And me going into management thinking I had a head start with the perfect name. There´s Sparkie, Lawrie, Harry, Jolly, and I thought I was already there with Dowie."

"It is perfect, Iain dear. But no-one in football is called by their real name. Wouldn't be right, would it?"
"So tell me. How can I give 'em me upper-cut at the end of a game when I know they call me Monica?"

Mrs Monica reflected for a second.

"Be positive, Iain dear, and try to look on the bright side. I'll tell you the reason for it. Remember that song by Johnny Cash, 'A Boy Named Sue.' About a father wanting his son to be tough and grow up strong. Well, thats want they want, Iain dear. They're tired of being nice and pretty, they want a tough guy. So that's why they called you Monica, so you would come out fighting."

ID looks surprised but impressed by Mrs Monica's reasoning, and then jumps to his feet.

"Give me that Team Sheet. We'll show 'em who's boss around here!"

Mrs Monica smiled to herself, reached for the teapot and poured them both another cup of tea.

Should We Be Worried?

Perhaps the artificial lull in the season caused by international games is to blame but only three games into the season and the fans are already anxious at the amount of money spent during the summer.

And with the uncertainties of new management not helped by 2 early season defeats against West Ham and manure with 6 goals conceded some of us are clearly expecting the worst. Not only that but the new manager, sorry coach, has seemingly dispensed with our legendary spending restraints and outlaid a cool £12m on new players. Even Richard Murray, himself, during a recent interview, expressed just a little tension when asked about the outlay and confirmed that some of the budgeted sum earmarked for next summers transfers has already been spent.

This has clearly upset a lot of people. For those of the fans that have put greater emphasis on Charlton´s financial management skills over the years rather that the footballing prowess this is a surprising occurence, but he´s clearly told Monica to keep us in the Division, whatever you have to do and Monica has obliged. And in any business, a manager has to have people, in this case players, that he can work with. The players may all be professionals but a managers methods and success will depend on him having players that he can motivate and get to perform adequately.

And whilst the quality of the agruments written have been noticeably high perhaps we should instead be applauding the management for at least showing action rather than doing nothing while Rome burns around us and patiently wait to see where we are at Christmas before we start to question Monica´s dealings.

For Monica's part, he has always been anxious to emphasize that he appreciated the squad he inherited and has given them all a generous try-out during pre-season before his subsequent spending spree tells us that he wasn´t entirely happy with his inherited squad. Like most of us, he clearly thought that, whatever he may have said, the performances against West Ham and manure were clearly not good enough. Since then he has blown the budget by the acquisition of Diawara and Pouso.

We have already seen new-boys Carson, Traore, Faye, Reid and Jimmy-Floyd in Premier action and although there may still be doubts over the attributes of Traore and Faye the others look better than the ones they have displaced. We even have Pouso and Diawara in the wings yet to show us what they can do so it seems a little premature to be worrying what the management are up to. Whatever we may think, they know their jobs better than we do and the question about whether we are good enough or have the money to belong to this Division will be answered on the pitch and nowhere else.

With 9 (nine) new signings and with only Jason Euell leaving for a fee we´ve spend a cool 12 million although the wage bill has been eased but the departure of Spector, Jeffers, Johansson, Perry and Bartlett. Loan deals have also been made to give some players more experience and to cut the bill even further. But with more internationals arriving its a good bet that the wage bill will also be significantly higher than its ever been and perhaps people would worry even more if they knew what it was.

And with 34 players now in our numbered squad we´re in danger of running out of numbers although any injury problems will be easier to handle. Its odds on that quite a few of the old names will be finding new homes in the January transfer window. Lets hope that by then Monica will have proved to us that his transfer dealings were based on depth of knowledge rather than Richard Murrays obliging pocket.

So perhaps its time to see where we are at the moment with 3 games played.

The worst performance has to be the one against manure. Or is that me. Still hoping for something against that lot maybe I failed to appreciate someones contribution, or maybe not. It was the usual predictable defeat – seems we need a Jorge Costa or dare I say it a Shawn Bartlett to get even a point out of them. It appears that even the players have given up believing they can win as well as the fans. But, nevertheless it was disappointing with 2 defensive howlers gifting them 2 goals just when 3 shots hitting the woodwork appeared to suggest that lady luck was on our side.

In our other 2 games the final results were perhaps the reverse of what had been expected. We usually get something from games against the Hammers with only 1 defeat in the last 6 played. And while we have the excuse of the sending off to explain the defeat perhaps we should be thankful that we have played them before the argies arrived.

The games against Bolton has been getting harder of late and its been 8 games since we beat them. Ironical then that the game should turn our way after the Herminator was sent off and we were down to 10 me.

In similar fashion to the manure game we once again rode our luck early on with 3 good opportunities being spawned by Bolton in the first half before the sending off strangely turned things around. We definitely played better with 10 men. Maybe it was Kish that made the difference. Faye had been largely anonymous during the first half-hour but then stepped back into central defence as if he belonged there. The relationship he had with Traore in the second-half was clearly one of the highlights of the second period.

But rather than worrying about the results from the first 3 games with only 3 points to show, perhaps we should be thankful that the fixtures have allowed the management to immediately see our shortcomings and act before the transfer window closed. It was obvious that the Bolton result, although earned by our resilience, illustrated the fact that the defence needed strengthing urgently. The arrival of Diawara and Pouso is Monica´s answer.

The Herminator scores but Kish Doesn´t!

Whilst the rumours remain unconfirmed, ie the article is awaiting translation, it would appear that Iceland put the English well in the shade by showing how it should be done by overwhelming Northern Ireland 3-0 in Belfast in a Group F European Championship game.

And it was our very own Herminator, after a corner by Gudjohnsen, who found himself unmarked at the far post and put the visitors 2-0 up with a left-footed shot, the only known time that HH has scored with his left foot.

Kish was also in action on Saturday, playing the first half in a 2-2 draw in Group G away to Rumania. And no, he didn´t score!

Far From Us Farinos

If there´s anyone out there who remotely cares what happened to our 28 year-old spanish Trialist Francisco Xavier Farinos who played for us against Welling, Germinal Beerschot and FC Utrecht, he´s been spotted on spanish TV patrolling the midfield for second division Hercules Alicante.

If you remember this is the man that after over a 100 games in his 4 years at Valencia, moved to Italy and has been with Inter for the last 6 years and made 76 appearances in the League, Cup and Europe. During this time he spend a year on loan at Villareal and for the last two years he's been on loan at Spanish club Mallorca. He's played twice for Spain but however couldn´t convince Monica to give him a contract.

He finally seems to have found his level and has turned up at minnows Hercules where he starred in a 3-0 defeat over the reserves of Real Madrid in a second division game yesterday. Before a "crowd" of 3200 people ( the spanish second division teams can only dream of english second tier crowds) he made the last hercules goal winning the ball in midfield and chipping the last defender for Sendoa to score.

He earned himself the maximum 3 stars and along with ex-Valladolid star Tote was voted man-of-the-match by AS the Real Madrid fanzine, sorry "sportspaper". While displaying all the usual spanish ball skills that obviously attracted Monica, I can´t say that he send the game alight although after his english training sessions he was one of the few players who seemed determined to stay on his feet.

Mrs Monica's First Eleven....

No sooner has the transfer window slammed shut than we are getting out pen and paper, not only to remind us of all the riches we now have at our disposal but to analyse the squad and design our "Perfect Eleven".

No doubt Monica is sitting down at home right now with a nice cup of tea discussing the pros and cons with Mrs Monica. He sat down yesterday discussing the players with Les and Mark and digested all the options on the way home last night but now he wants Mrs Monica's help to get the whole thing organised.

"You have a nice easy day, Iain dear, you've been working too hard these last weeks. Put your feet up here and have some more toast. The Team? Yes, of course, Iain dear, you must stick with the 4-4-2. Alan had a thing about a 4-5-1 didn't he, but you know how cautious he always was. You're not that way inclined at all, Iain dear. Besides he was too pretty to be a football manager, you're different Iain. And I'm so glad you took my advice and got that nice Mr Pouso, Iain, he's just the rugged player the ladies will like"

How are you going to pick the best 11? That's easy, Iain dear, just like baking one of your favorite cherry cakes. The goalie of course is that young Scottie Carson, a good shot stopper though not as experienced as Deano used to be but with Myhre's form slipping last season, he's a young keeper that can only get better. And it might sound strange but I like the way there's no "number 1" in the squad makes them both work harder.

The full-backs will be captain Luke Young and dimmy Djimi - Young still gets caught in possession at times and Djimi sometimes seems to have left his defensive awareness at home, but then nobodys perfect.

Central defence will be your new-boy Souley Diawara and the Herminator. What language they will use to communicate is still a bit of a mystery. Perhaps you need a Language Coach, Iain dear, just teach Souley the english for "out" and "mine" pretty smartish and in his turn perhaps he can teach Hermann to keep his elbows down.

The midfield is the heart of any team. Its got to be strong but creative. Able to stop the opposition and win back the ball. Able to see the perfect through ball or a chip into space but also to provide the first line of defence. So what better duo could we possibly have than the new double-act "Andy and Omar". An fat Irishman and a rugged Uruguayan , what better combination could you wish for?

Backing up the heart of midfield will be a role for the tricksters. Jerome Thomas on the left and Dennis Rommedahl on the right are our two wingers but you can't play them both at the same time. One on the pitch and the other on the bench. Which leaves one midfield place left and here there's no clear leader. And that's exactly how it should be - fool the opposition by using Kish, Faye, Ambrose, Holland or even that nice Brian Hughes as and when it suits.

With two up front the strike force picks itself - Darren Bent and Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink. Jimmy's 34 now and no spring chicken so a reinforcement will be needed in this area before long but for the time being its Darren and Jimmy.

And the bench will need reinforcing with the weight of some many internationals. Myhre, El Karkouri, Marcus Bent with two midfielders from Ambrose, Rommedahl, Kish, Faye.

So, is that all clear Iain dear, just remember that you have to make the cake bearing in mind who's coming to tea. Except that in my case I have to give my guests what they like, lots of cherries. In your case you have to give your guests what they didn't like. Do you follow, Iain dear. Would you like another cup of tea?

So you can see that even Mrs Monica has no "Perfect Eleven". Its not even a matter of opinion. Its all a case of having a steady, firm base and then mixing in the spices according to who's coming to tea.

Feeding Frenzy Over

At long last, with the dawn of September, the frantic market of buying, selling and loaning has come to an abrupt end. Like a mad feeding frenzy of people desperate to fill their stomachs before an enforced fast, so the managers, and coaches, are anxious to get "bodies aboard" to ensure that they have enough to survive the hardships of the Premier ship season.

In our case, and no complaints directed towards Curbs, Monica had to instigate an urgent re-building program, not only to produce a team good enough for the new season but also to create a side that was his own. We told him to get himself a team because we were all having nightmares with the one we had and in 3 short months he would have appeared to have achieved both objectives.

The last day of transfer dealings always sees a large number of last minute transfers as fear and anxiety forces its way through and value for money is promptly thrown out of the window. But in the case of Pouso, Monica appears to have done his homework. He's seen him several times and our midfield is definitely an area of the team where we needed more "drive".

He's spent, by my reckoning, £11.5M which, even ignoring inflation, is a lot higher than Curbs ever spent. Some we're heard of and others are complete strangers to everyone. We can only begin to imagine how a football club sees and keeps tabs on all the players out there. There's obviously a lot of behind-the -scences activity that we never get to see. Perhaps its all in Curbs' book but maybe there's a real-life "Championship Manager" that we don't know about. But, although we're yet to see Gibbs, Diawara and Pouso in action, the other 6 newcomers have definitely, despite our shaky start to the season, brought an improvement to the team.

To remind everyone, the nine new boys are: Cory Gibbs, Simon Walton, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, Amady Faye, Djimi Traore, Scott Carson, Andy Reid, Souleymane Diawara and Omar Pouso. Assuming Walton is best suited to midfield that's: one goalkeeper, 2 full-backs, a central defender, 4 midfielders and surprisingly for an ex-striker, only one forward. I guess you could argue its only 8 new bodies as Simon Walton has been packed off to Ipswich till Christmas.

Scanning the squad now we can only speculate at what Monica sees as his best team. But the influx of arrivals over the last week now makes the prospect of predicting our favoured 11 very mouth-watering. Roll on Chelski!

Sadly, we have to reflect that to compensate for the money spent and the lack of forthcoming opportunities, we have had to say goodbye to our biggest ever transfer purchase and leading goal-scorer for 3 of the last 5 seasons. Old favorite Jason Euell hasn't done it for a couple of seasons now and we can only wish him well at Middlesbrough. I bet he scores the winning goal in December at the Riverside. Also moving away is Stephan Andersen, who has joined Leeds on loan for the season.

Omar Pouso Pulls on the Addicks Shirt

Busy until the very last, Monica has completed ( I assume) his rebuilding with the season long loan of Omar Pouso from Penarol of Uruguay. The deal will cost £337K with an option to buy after one year.

The boy is 27 and is mostly famous for the goal he scored against England in March. A strong midfielder with a distinct hard-man appearance who was Penarol's captain, his arrival doesn't bode well for the fortunes of midfield duo Holland and Hughes.

Pouso is our second Uruguayan and will give his fellow country-man Sorondo someone to chat to as he hobbles around the training ground. Judging from his mugshot on cafc he looks like someone that will get stuck in and stir things up a bit and even Monica says he is "very, very combative", and I can already hear the cries of "Omar, Omar" ringing in my ears. In fact he does seem like an ideal replacement for Hughes, really.

He becomes Monica's 9th signing during the summer marketplace and reflects Monica's desire to completely revamp Charlton into a team of his own and Monica's already got back his money by persuading Middlesbro to cough up £300K for Jason Euell.

Monica lands a "Big Fish"

Whilst Curbs tentatively tipped his toe into unknown waters with the acquisition of a Moroccan, a Uruguayan and an irratic Italian, new kid-on-the-block Monica seems determined to sail further out into the world and trawl the dark depths of foreign waters to snare previously unheard-of gems.

And while adventures into Costa Rica waters have sadly been thwarted, another journey this time into the uncharted depths of Eastern France, where for some reason several African players are currently playing, Monica has toyed with and finally landed another unheard-of jewel.

Our latest signing is the wonderfully named Souleymane Diawara, purchased yesterday for £3.712 from the team currently lying sixth in the French league, Sochaux. He was born in far-off Gabou in Africa and is a companion of our recent signing Amady Faye in the Senegal national team.

Although boatloads of illegal immigrants land in Spain every day from Senegal having paid a small fortune to the African Mafia to get them there before being sent straight back by the Spanish government, it's somewhat heartening to see that its none other than our very own Monica who is providing two Senegalese with steady work down at the Valley.

So, our new boy is 27 years old and is a right-sided central defender and although born in Senegal has dual French Nationality so therefore doesn't need any of those nasty Work Permits things. He took part in the 2006 African Cup of Nations where Senegal finished in fourth place. This season he's played in three out of the 4 games that Sochaux have played without tasting defeat and we can only hope that he brings similar good fortune to his new team.

Full details of the latest purchase are here.

Its a "No" to Bolanos

Looking forward to marvelling once again at the skills of Christian Bolanos in a Charlton shirt? Well, think again because the Home Office has deemed that he is not good enough to work in the UK and have refused him a Work Permit. Monica at cafc looks on the bright side and doesn't rule out another go in 12 months time but of course by then another club in another country will be earning the benefits of Christians skills.

As wyn grant had already forewarned us last night, its not always easy to get a Work Permit but that will not lessen our disappointment.

With Curbs reluctance to employ exotic foreigners, perhaps our knowledge of these affairs was limited but as Wyn has already pointed out in his article Charlton are not the only ones to have suffered. Even the experienced Sam Allardyce had been refused when his attempt to sign Sergei Rebrov from Spurs fell through when denied the necessary paperwork in time to finalise the deal last summer.

Given more knowledge of these murky matters, perhaps we should have been suspicious when no numbers were forecoming from Deportivo Sarprissa on the number of appearances he had made and on Liverpools' decision not to offer him a contract. Did they know he would be refused a permit?

But one wonders if we are suffering from being a "small club". How can a young player voted the 3rd best in the World Club Championships last December deemed not be good enough? He played in 2 of the 3 Costa Rica World Cup games during the summer and his country is currently ranked 47 but at 22 he's obviously not going to be used in every international game by Costa Rica. The official Home Office rules state that players are supposed to be "of the highest calibre and able to contribute significantly to the development of the game at the top level in UK”. Judging from reports at all the games that Bolanos played it does seem ludicious that this decision has been made. Perhaps we should have employed a witness in David Pleat whose opinions of Bolanos last year were very high indeed.

So we're back again to 17 full internationals in the squad and with the number 23 shirt up for grabs. Will there be any more additions before things close tomorrow?

West Ham 3 Charlton 1

With a predicted defeat the Addicks made a disappointing start to the new season . Monica surprised us all by selecting new signing Scott Carson in goal and leaving Myhre as sub and included Andy Reid on the bench.

After an early 15th minute lead scored by Darren Bent from the penalty spot we suffered another first game dismissal. And as happened in the opening game last year away to Sunderland where Darren Ambrose was dismissed so it was a another new signing that was shown the red card.

With 2 yellows in a matter of 3 minutes left-back Djimi Traore left the field in the 26th minute for an early shower. Changes were immediately made to correct the shape of defence and ironically it was Darren Ambrose that left the field to be replaced by Gonzalo Sorondo while HH moved to left-back. A brave decision by Monica to pull off a midfielder rather than one of his strikers as would be the norm away from home.

A save by Carson from Harewood and a booking for Young but the score at half-time remained 1-0 to the Addicks.

Facing 10 man West Ham came on strong and on 51 minutes our old-boy Lee Bowyer's said thank you with a cross from the right that Zamora tapped home the equaliser at the far post.

And it got worst 20 minutes later with Zamora once again involved. His miss-hit volley deflected off Hreidarsson, hits the right hand post and goes in under the foot of El Karkouri to make it 2-1 to the Hammers.

As Charlton tired another reject Carlton Cole fired home a third in injury time to make it a miserable start for Dowie and it doesn't get any easier as that red lot from up North are due at the Valley next Wednesday.

Charlton: Carson; Young, Traore, Hreidarsson, El Karkouri; Ambrose (30mins Sorondo), Faye, Holland, Hughes, (72mins Reid); Hasselbaink (64 mins M Bent), D Bent.

Subs: Myhre, Sorondo, Reid, Rommedahl, M Bent

West Ham Preview

So its here at last, the Hammers away and the first chance to see how we are going to perform post-Curbs. Its a complete new coaching set-up on stage with Dowie, Reed and Robson on the touchline but with the stability of the all-important Richard Murray behind them. Murray and Monica at their first press conference promised more entertaining football but perhaps that's too much to expect at the start of a very difficult 4 game spell. With Man. U, Bolton and Chelski to follow, I would hope that Monica sends out a team to get a result rather than entertain.

The History

If past history is your thing, and to lift your spirits a tad, we usually do well against the Hammers, at least in the League, where the Totals to date are: P30 W13 D10 L7, while the figures at Upton Park are P 15 W6 D3 L6. Last season saw us win 2-0 at the Valley and get a goalless draw in May at Upton Park. And it seems that Monica is unbeaten here in his three games as a manager against his old-team the Hammers and in fact enjoys a 100% record with the best being on the last occasion he played them in the Championship Play-offs at Cardiff in 2004, winning his ex-employers a place in the Premier no less.

What the Experts Said

In an article in the guardian on Wednesday, Dowie looking forward to the game says "It is very important to get it right at West Ham. There will be another 10%-15% more tired bodies after the first Premiership match than there would be after any pre-season game. That is just the nature of it. If I am going into a boxing ring to spar with someone and have a headguard on, then my adrenalin is probably 15% down on when I am going in there for real. When it is for real, there is always that extra edge."

Monica added yesterday "I want us to be an ultra-competitive side that plays with honesty, integrity and no mean amount of enjoyment by getting the ball down and playing. That is our minimum requirement, that we are competitive in every game and hopefully that will get us some results. This division is very, very tough. The top six are away and clear but it's about being a match for them on any given day. Where that leaves us we'll see. I don't think you should ever limit your ambitions because you have to aim high."

And if anyone cares lawro has either got up late or has thankfully stopped his game predictions but does instead give us his blessing on the BBC site with a "They'll be finishing in the middle to lower half of the table. It's the start of a transitional phase, but if they are struggling in the first half of the season, they'll be able to address that in January, because they're a very well-run club. They'll be finishing in the middle to lower half of the table." I think that's what they call damning praise.

And talking about good reports, an added boost was noticed this week when we apparently received some good comments from last weeks opponents FC Utrecht. Utrecht Manager Booy, who had also faced Wigan Athletic during the close season, suggested that the men from The Valley offered his side a sterner test, commenting: "I got a good impression from them."

The Opposition

For the Hammers out through injury are Dean Ashton, Matthew Etherington, Jonathan Spector, Robert Green and George McCartney, and out through other reasons our old favorite Shawn Newton. But they'll probably have Konchelsky at left-back and Ian Bowyer in midfield, two players who are incidentally 2 of 4 biggest transfer deals out. And they'll probably also be a place for old-boy Carlton Cole up front although surely the old war-horse Sheringham, now 40, wouldn't be around to bug us again.

The Team

With 5 new recruits having arrived so recently and without them having a real run in the team its hard to read Monica's intentions. However, it seems fair to assume that two of them, namely Djimi Traore and Amady Faye, can be expected to start after the improvement that they gave the team in the second half against Utrecht last Friday. He's also stuck to a 4-4-2 for almost every minute of the pre-season so it should mean seeing Jimmy-Floyd and Darren together.

Its so important these days to get off to a good start, so for the first game of the season I can't see too many surprises. I don't think he'll throw Carson in at the deep end and so I expect Myhre to be in goal, with a defence of Young, El Karkouri, Hreidarsson and Traore. With a 4-4-2 the forward line is also straight-forward: Hasselbaink and Darren Bent. The only real headache for Monica is his middle. Who to play at the heart of the team? Going on the pre-season games and with Bolanos still awaiting his Work Permit and with Reid needing more time to get match fit, it looks like a familar Rommedahl, Holland, Faye and Hughes.

Predictions

Can't find it now but I'm sure that frankievalley was dreaming of a 3-1 win on Thursday while pedro45 goes for a conservative 2-2. james down floyd rd also goes with a 3-1 win and cynicathletic has gone for the neutral 1-1.

So prediction via West Ham - Myrhe, Young, El Karkouri, Hreidarsson, Traore, Rommedahl, Faye, Holland, Hughes, Hasselbaink and Darren Bent.
Subs: Anderson, Ashton, Fortune, Ambrose, Marcus Bent

And the result : West Ham 2 Charlton 1

International Duty

So, you ask, how did our 18 ( sorry, forgot Cory Gibbs yesterday ) international stars do this week playing for their countries? Eager to find out I've surfed, dug and otherwise investigated to see how our wide variety of talent and nationalities got on.

Darren Bent and Luke Young were there for England but only Darren made it off the bench and played for palty a 12 minutes. You know better than I if he made any impact whatsoever or even touched the ball.

For Eire, our new recruit Andy Reid is currently injured or should it be unavailable, possibly a euphemism "for sorry I can't make it, busy getting transferred" and did not play in Dublin and of course Matt Holland has retired a couple of years back.

Their opponents in Dublin, Holland, had no need for the services of the 34 year-old Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink cruising to a 4-0 win on Wednesday. The worst home defeat for Eire, or Repubic of Ireland as they seem to be known now, for more 20 years.

On Tuesday, Kish played 73 minutes of the 0-0 with Wales in Cardiff, while Hermann Hreidarsson performed heroically in both midfield and then defence while captaining Iceland for the full 90 minutes in Reykjavik in their 0-0 against Spain.

Meanwhile, Dennis Rommedahl featured in Denmark's 2-0 win over Poland and apparently after receiving a pass from midfielder Thomas Gravesen "sewed up the match up in the 62nd minute." Of Stephan Andersen I can find no mention.

Thomas Myhre, seemed to enjoy himself in Oslo starring in a 1-1 draw with Brazil. The sportinglife reports that the "inspired Myhre preserved Norway's lead by stopping a close-range effort from Elano and an extraordinary free-kick by Daniel Carvalho, but the CSKA Moscow playmaker soon had his revenge with the equaliser from Fred's assist. More heroics from Myhre kept out great strikes from Fred and Alex."

Costa Rica didn't appear to have had a game so new star Christian Bolanos was kept busy trying to persuade Immigration to give him his work permit so that he can play football as soon as possible, please.

Talal El Karkouri was in the Moroccan squad for the game against Burkina Faso but the report in the Morocco Times doesn't mention him and there's no team sheet given so he probably sat on the bench dreaming how to stop Marvin Harewood on Saturday.

And what about our new stars from Mali Djimi Traore and Amady Faye of Senegal? Well the dark continent is still proving hard to penetrate and short of asking them or I suppose waiting till CAFC tell us I can't find any news although both Mali and Senegal had games.

And of course, Cory Gibbs and Gonzalo Sorondo both still have their injuries so I suppose stayed at home.

No sign of Jamaica having a game so our duo of Jason Euell and Kevin Lisbie failed to get a game. No change there then.

Monica's Marvels Take Shape

So another player, Spurs Andy Reid, joins the club, are rather limps in, as the Independent yesterday reports he´s currently injured. His best position seems in doubt but notes on the web says that "he usually plays left side of midfield but can also operate down the right side or just off the striker, he's 5 feet, 7 inches tall and of chubby build". I do recall him sending some wicked curling crosses from the right wing when we beat Spurs 2-0 in March 2005 and he did look more dangerous than our Dennis down the right. He has played 22 times for Eire which can't be bad for a 24 year old.

Having said that, £3m seems a bit over the top for a player with 27 appearances in one season with only 1 goal and who is obviously surplus to Martin Jol's requirements. But at some point we´ve got to start trusting Monica's taste and the deal has some history as Curbs was also after Reid in the January of 2005 while he was at Notts Forest but the asking price was too high and he eventually went to Spurs for £4m.

After the long drawn out deals for Faye and Traore this one has rather been a bit of a surprise but not when you think about it. The only position in the team without cover was Rommedahl´s, unless you paid any attention to Curbs´s use of Marcus Bent on the wing last season. So with Dennis failing to impress in pre-season its not really surprising that Monica should swiftly pounce, apparently beating Man.City into the bargain.

Thats the 8th new player for Monica this summer, after Gibbs, Walton, Hasselbaink, Faye, Traore, Bolonas, Carson and now Andy Reid all for a total of £7.5 million handed over and with 2 loan deals. An impressive total but we´ve spend more on 3 occasions, Curbs having spent a tidy £10.8 in 2001. And with 6 internationals and an Under-21 among them I can't remember a time when we had so many internationals in a Charlton squad. I make it a total of 17.

Bloody hell, we're in danger of becoming a "big club" after all!

Fighting Talk From Monica

For all the conservatives out there and those that haven't had time to read their papers yet, there's an article in the guardian about Dowie and the boys this morning.

Some quotes from the Boss read "It is very important to get it right at West Ham. There will be another 10%-15% more tired bodies after the first Premiership match than there would be after any pre-season game. That is just the nature of it."

"If I am going into a boxing ring to spar with someone and have a headguard on, then my adrenalin is probably 15% down on when I am going in there for real. When it is for real, there is always that extra edge."

New boy Carson is also mentioned with a footnote about Stephan Anderson.

Herman Upsets Raul

We're still a small club. All this talk of moving up and challenging for Europe, its just to entice the players and make us seem progressive. Even most of the players aren't fooled - over the last few years we have had people leaving or turning us down so that they can join what they see as "bigger clubs". You know the names as well as me. Just recently goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson agreed a deal but then Man. City got involved and he was tempted away. A "bigger club", well, thats a bit debatable, they finished 15th last season.

But we the fans know who we are. We don't want no big foreign investor splashing his money about on us, making us big and important. If we wanted to support a "big" team we could have done it ourselves without anyone's help. No, we actually like being the underdog, snapping at the heels of the big boys and turning them over whenever we can.

So once again its especially pleasing to turn on the TV and watch us upset someone else and put another nose out of joint.

Iceland 0 Spain 0

I told myself that HH must be there somewhere even though Gudjohnsen was nowhere to be seen. On Spanish TV, of course, all the camera work was on their own players and nowhere in the commentary was their mention of a Hreidarsson. He wasn't anywhere in defence, where could he be. Then I spotted him - wearing Number 7 - in midfield! And wearing the captain's armband no less. His job apparently was to mark Raul, the Spanish captain and prevent him enjoying his 100th cap for his country.

During the second half he moved back into defence and marshalled his team well, getting Spain offside on many occasions, getting in clearing headers and giving the full-strength opposition very few chances. He played the full 90 minutes and was a rock. And it became obvious that the reason I'd failed to spot him was that I'd forgotten one of the peculiarities of the spanish language - the 'H' is not pronounced so the commentor was calling him Capitain Rayyson!

Anyway the game finished goalless with the home side unable to capitalize on a poor Spain side. After the game the hapless Spanish captain Raul, was interviewed. No change of shirt, dripping wet and the picture of someone who obviously had not enjoyed winning his 100th cap.

Roll on the next biggie!

WHAT ! - Blackburn 5 New Zealand 0

We're all just dying to know what the future holds for us.

No, I don't mean how long we're going to live or how many kids we're going to have that will be ignoring us in our old age anyway - no, nothing as mundane as that. We just want to know what sort of a year its going to be. And I'm not referring to how much money our tight employers are going to give us in our pay rise or how our spuds are going to be this year.

What I'm dying to know is - what kind of a season are we going to have? Are we going to be safe? Satisfied? Depressed? Frustrated? Relieved? Miserable? Who the hell knows?

And as always any optimistic feelings that I may have gleamed from the Utrecht fight-back didn't last long and over the last couple of days have dissipated almost completely. I recalled someone saying our performance was inept against New Zealand and then I realised we're still giving bad goals away and besides how good can Utrecht be anyway.

So to try to allay my sense of growing doom I turned the Sunday papers to the results section and there under the previous day's league results I found what I was looking for; the "other results" section. With all the other teams having already started, all the results were , of course, our Premiership rivals. With fearful thumb but with a thought process carefully analysing the meaning of the result and keen, or is it desperate, to find a weakness, I scanned the lines:

Bolton 1 AZ Alkmaar 3

- thats not so bad although Alkmaar are good and finished 2nd last year in Holland and made the UEFA Semis

Everton 0 Athletic Bilbao 1

- thats better, Bilbao finished 13th and are usually crap away

Fulham 1 Boavista 1

- Boavista were 6th last year but with lots of changes during the summer - looks a reasonable result for Fulham

Man. City 0 Porto 1

- to be expected, Porto were double winners in Portugal last year

Man. U 3 Seville 0

- Who cares

Middlesbro' 0 Chievo 0

- getting better - Middlesbro still can't score; 4 goalless pre-season games

West Ham 1 Olympiakos 1

- Greek Champions, looks a good result from the Hammers

FC Groningen 2 Aston Villa 2

- Despite dire rumours from Villa Park, a result very similar to the Addicks, Groningen finished 5th last year, one above Utrecht

And then the one that I knew would be there somewhere - the one that confirms all my fears and tells us how good we really are and will doubtless add to my sleepness nights;

Blackburn 5 (FIVE) New Zealand 0

PS - Look on the bright side Mrs Nelson says - at least we're not playing them till December, they'll have peaked by then and besides Blackburn have even trashed Olympiakos 5-0 in a tournament in Germany so we're no worst than West Ham.

Pre-Season Analysis

With nothing to do but sweat profusely on a Spanish August afternoon, thought I'd do a Colin Cameron impression and see exactly what Monica' s been doing these last few weeks. In Spain every season they go into minuscule detail on every game played ( especially pre-season ) and let everyone know how many minutes a player has played so I decided to play the numbers game with Charlton's pre-season to see if I could fathom out what Monica is going to present us with on Saturday at Upton Park (ignoring any last minute additions of course).

So with 7 games played (W2 D2 L3 F12 A12 - scorers - Walker 3, Hasselbaink 3, Marcus Bent 1, Sorondo 1, Hughes 1, Ambrose 1, El Karkouri 1 and Youga 1) the details are below:

Goalkeepers
Myhre 270,
Anderson180
Randolph 180

Charlton had talks with Andreas Isaksson but he wanted a "bigger club" and there has been rumours about Robert Green of Norwich but at the moment the Number 1 slot is still vacant and it seems that Myhre is going to be first choice.

Defenders
Young 405
Hreidarsson 405
Ashton 360
El Karkouri 328
Walton 305
Fortune 301

Youga 215
Sorondo 136
Traore 45

As can be seen from the numbers, with the exception of Traore taking over at left-back from Ashton, the preferred back-four at the moment seems clear-cut, Young, El Karkouri, Hreidarsson, Traore.

Midfield
Holland 347
Rommedahl 337
Hughes 337
Sam 302
Euell 223
Ambrose 210
Kishishev 206
John 180
Farinos 180
Bolanos 173
Thomas 59
Faye 45

Midfield - there's a few surprises here. Most people assumed that the first to go under the new management would be the duo of Holland and Hughes. Well, not so. Holland has amassed more time on the pitch than any other midfielder. In fact, only Young, Hreidarsson and Ashton has played more in pre-season. While it's expected that Faye will walk into the team, it is debatable who he's going to replace. My guess is it wouldn't be Holland or Hughes, who both partnered Faye during the second half in Utrecht on friday. Our away midfield, assuming we play with only one wide player, looks like being Holland, Hughes and Faye with either Bolanos or Thomas on the left or Rommedahl on the right.

Strikers
Hasselbaink 334

Walker 244
Marcus Bent 215
Darren Bent 145
Gislason 61
Lisbie 57
Fofana 45
Dja Djedje 45
Diomande 26
Carvill 19

Tanska 10

The attack will be Hasselbaink and Darren Bent in a 4-4-2 although Jimmy-Floyd's 34 years may become a factor when we hit 2 games a week mode. There's been no experiment with any other formation except for 45 minutes when Hasselbaink played up front on his own. Monica's bent is obviously to play with 2 strikers and with Hasselbaink and Darren Bent available who can blame him. of the alternatives, Walker's been hitting in the goals and has amassed more minutes played than Marcus Bent and Monica has said that he has much to offer and there's even rumours of a rejuvenanted Lisbie frightening defences (!).

So prediction via West Ham - Myrhe, Young, El Karkouri, Hreidarsson, Traore, Holland, Hughes, Faye, Rommedahl, Hasselbaink and Darren Bent.

Subs: Anderson, Ashton, Sorondo, Marcus Bent, Bolanos

FC Utrecht 2 Charlton 2

Don't know about you but this morning I'm finding it very hard to be a pessimist. Another fighting performance against good European opposition saw our boys peg back a 2 goal deficit and after goals from Brian Hughes and Jimmy-Floyd ended with a 2-2 draw. After years trying its beginning to look like we can handle ourselves in European after all.

After giving a goal away after 9 minutes and having the deficit doubled in the 14th minute when a bad pass-back by Farinos was intercepted by the the Utrecht forward Fortune who rounded Myrhe and scored easily we made changes at half-time and finished the game more strongly than our Dutch opponents.

Although a little upset at again giving early goals away Monica continues to impress with his interpretation of the game but is at the same time still conscious of everyones role in the team: "We have been waiting on a few new bodies and Djimi and Amady made us a lot more manly, a lot more strong and lot more powerful. That's not a criticism of anyone in the team though."

And he's still on form in making-up key phases to emphasize a point : "Darren Ambrose has played a part and we've given people who haven't played games time."

Other plus points were the first games in Charlton colours for Djimi Traore and Amady Faye both coming on at the start of the second half. At predicted Bolanos took no part after his trip back home this week. Farinos was again in the starting line-up before being replaced at half-time and after 4 games with us it seems that the Boss likes what he sees. Can it be that Charlton will soon have their first-ever Spaniard on their books?

It may surprise a few people to realize that once again Brian Hughes played the entire game, scored a goal and has even earned a nickname from Monica of the rather obvious "Hughesy" while other players have to be content with a Darren or a Jimmy. In fact he's been one of the players that has started all 4 of the "important" friendlies. It appears that we will have to start looking for and appreciating his attributes to the team.

Charlton: Myhre, Young, Ashton (Traore 46), El Karkouri (Sorondo 76), Hreidarsson; Hughes, Farinos (Faye 46), Holland (Kishishev 89), Ambrose (Rommedahl 75); Hasselbaink (Lisbie 89), D Bent (M Bent 75).

Subs (not used): Andersen, Walton, Euell, Sam.

Goals: Hughes 37, Hasselbaink 81

Utrecht: Vorm; Tiendalli, van Steensek, Broerse, Somers (van Buuren83); Kopteff Douglas 75), van Dijk, Kruys, Caluwe, van der Gun (Rossini 89); Fortune (Nelisse 65).

Subs (not used): de Jong, Grandel, Braafheid.

Goals: van der Gun 9, Fortune 14

Missing Number One?

Looks as if the Addicks have lost out on the possible signing of Swedish international goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson.

Reports in the guardian this morning confirm that David James has moved to Portsmouth and as a consequence "City are expected to sign the Sweden international goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson, currently at Rennes, once James completes his move to Fratton Park. Isaksson's agent Roger Ljung told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet yesterday: "I am on my way to a meeting to negotiate in Manchester. We would not be here if we didn't think it would be sealed."

FC Utrecht Preview

On Friday evening Charlton play their last pre-season game by travelling to Holland to face Dutch team FC Utrecht. For those of an historical bent, and lets hope we see one of those on view, Utrecht is more famous for the hosting of the conference in 1713 that produced the famous "Treaty of Utrecht" signed at the end of the Spanish War of Succesion leading to the cession by Spain of Gibraltar to Great Britain.

More recent history tells us that, like our previous Belgium opponents Germinal Beerscholt, FC Utrecht is a club formed by an amalgamation when in 1970 there was a merger of three clubs from the city of Utrecht: DOS, Elinkwijk and Velox. One of the three clubs, DOS, managed to win the league in 1958 and FC Utrecht recently won the Dutch Cup in 2004 and then beat Ajax 4-2 in their version of the Charity Shield.

They finished 6th in the Eredivisie (First Division) last season after 11th place in 2004-05. Last season they lost both games against Champions PSV but did the double over Ajax and beat 3rd placed Feyenoord at home. But like the Addicks they seem to have a few problems towards the end of the season and not only lost their last three games of the regular season but then compounded their misery by losing both Play-off games, deciding who plays in Europe, to lower-placed opposition FC Twente.

After Charlton's slightly unexpected victory on Tuesday 2-1 against Germinal Beerscholt with a combination of first-teamers, bench-warmers and triallists, we can only expect that Monica ( sorry, Addicks Head Coach Iain Dowie) has again done his homework and will field a team to get a result against a stronger Dutch side. Not that a result will be paramount in his mind. As he has demostrated in all the pre-season games his priority has been to have a good look at all his players, even the youngsters, and to arrive at West Ham with his best team fit and ready to go.

Perhaps the high proportion of away pre-season games is an indication of his willingness to sort things out without the inconvenience of trying to satisfy home fans. In any event I'm sure he arrives in Holland in a more secure frame of mind with this weeks three signings under his belt. As far as the fans are concerned, although there have been some concern voiced about the first two signings, its been obvious that everyone is very relieved that new bodies have finally arrived.

As for fridays team - its not clear if Bolanos has yet received his work permit and as he has been back to Costa Rica this week to bring his family to England it has to be doubtful that he will play. However, if travel problems can be resolved after Thursdays terrorist threat its expected that both new signings Djimi Traore and Amady Faye will feature in some part in the game.

There's been no more news on the still vacant Number 1 shirt since early this week when Andreas Isaksson was reported as saying he's reached an agreement with Charlton but is awaiting to hear what Man. City have to say although City were then rumoured to be chasing the West Brom Polish goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak who signed for Man Utd yesterday. So confusion reigns.

Apart from Tuesdays game against Germinal Beerscholt, where the team had a distinctly reserve feel to it, Myhre has started every game between the sticks and the defence will probably be the usual first-choice Young, El Karkouri, Hermann and Ashton, before Traore takes his place in the second half. Matt Holland and Hughes will be holding midfield together although Kish may feature in the first half before giving way to his obvious replacement Amady Faye. There's been no more news on spanish midfielder Farinos since he played the second half on Tuesday so its possible that with the arrival of 2 new midfielders this week he not be seen again.

Rommedahl, who returns to the country where he spent 6 successful years with PSV and will be keen to show what they are missing, seems a fixture on the right with Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink enjoying an appearance in his home country alongside Darren Bent or namesake Marcus. So an attacking 4-4-2 seems on the cards with the left wide position probably filled by Darren Ambrose in the absence of Jerome Thomas and new signing Bolanos.

Christian Bolaños Signs On

By now we all know about the midfielder cum winger from Costa Rica, Christian Bolaños, who has just become Monica's third signing of the week. The impressive Bolanos played in the friendly against Welling and again in the home game with New Zealand and according the the CAFC notes "was the architect of the Charlton goal, clipping a glorious ball over the All Whites rearguard for Marcus Bent who lashed a terrific low drive past Paston and into the bottom left corner."

Bolaños, who has 18 caps and one goal for Costa Rica, first came to prominence last December when he featured for Deportivo Saprissa at the FIFA Club World Championship in Japan. His club had qualified by being CONCACAF champions of North and Central America. In the first match he scored the only goal of the game against Australia's Sydney FC which set up a semi-final date with Liverpool, and despite the eventual 3-0 defeat to the Champions League holders in Yokohama received rave reviews.

The Deportivo Saprissa team notes at the time described him as "direct and dangerous". None other than David Pleat confirmed his skills and added "The signs are that he can also track back, a vital requirement in the Premiership. Against Liverpool and in the third-place game against Al Ittihad he looked to be a worker. Pleat then gave him marks out of 10 of : Speed 8/10, Crossing 7/10, Skill 8/10, Team responsibility 7/10, Shooting 8/10. Full report is here.

Also impressed by his performances against them were Liverpool and he subsequently spent a 10-day trial at Anfield but without getting being offered a contract and he returned to Cost Rica.

During this summer he played in the World Cup in Germany and took part in 2 of the 3 Costa Rican games.

He looks very exciting and works hard too, strange that unlike other available "stars" we didn't have to fight off any opposition for his signing. I have to wonder why Liverpool didn't offer him a contract during the winter? Maybe winter in Liverpool was not really up his street or perhaps his wage demands at the time were thought too high. Or perhaps he did not fit into Benitez plans. And whatever people think of Benitez talents as a manager nobody would call his old Valencia team "exciting".

Whatever the reason, anyone who inspires the description "exciting and dangerous" is definitely someone we need and we have to say he appears a great signing for Charlton. And the risks, if any, are kept to a minimum with a one-year loan deal with the option to buy after one year.

It only remains for Monica now to show his skills in moulding his ever increasing squad into a unit fit for the coming fray.