2017/18 Season Preview
Following what was a very disappointing season, there seems to be a lot more positivity around The Valley. We've made some good additions to the squad, with Mark Marshall and Ben Reeves being the main stand outs, while also keeping hold of key players in Jason Pearce, Ricky Holmes and Josh Magennis. Despite these new signings, the squad still looks a little light with the losses of Cristian Ceballos, Jorge Teixeira and Igor Vetokele to Duchâtelet's other club, Sint Truiden, as well as Nicky Ajose being loaned to Bury and Tony Watt being sold to Belgian second division side, OH-Leuven. However, the sale of these players will free up wages for Robinson to make new signings.
A couple of areas that I feel still need improving are a back-up central midfielder, a striker and a winger. We need capable back-up to Kashi, seeing as he has been out injured for two years and I don't believe Crofts is good enough cover. We only have two senior strikers in the squad, Magennis and Novak. Magennis has never really had a prolific period in his career, and while Novak has, he only scored two goals in around 30 games last season. We definitely need another prolific striker. Some players we were linked with were Matthew Godden, John Akinde and Matty Taylor. All of which have been prolific, albeit, in the league below. We need someone to either score goals or prove as good back-up to Magennis, who I also believe wont be able to carry the burden of being our 20 plus goal a season striker. But if the goals are shared around the team, that 20 plus goals-a-season striker may not be needed. Finally, with the major injury to new signing Mark Marshall, we are again light of wingers, we only have Ricky Holmes and Tariqe Fosu, both equally good, if not better wingers than Marshall, but that leaves us with, again, another lack of back-up options.
We had a relatively good pre-season campaign, despite the rough start. The tour of Ireland was primarily to gain fitness, with us playing three games in as many days against teams who were midway through their seasons. Then came the double header against Welling and Greenwich borough respectively, both games we won comfortably with two different teams putting in good performances.
We began to play teams that would test us more, in League two side, Stevenage and the two East Anglian Championship teams, Norwich and Ipswich. Starting with the Stevenage, we created a lot of chances but struggled to take them. However, we still won the game 2-1. Then came the tougher challenge of Norwich. We did have some good spells during the game and held our own against a good Championship team but were largely dominated by Norwich. To finish the pre-season campaign, we played the other Norwich's rivals, Ipswich. We also played them last season and the result was 0-0. This time was to be much different though, as we thumped them 6-1. Everything went right, the passing was fluid and everything was coming off for us.
I can personally see us finishing between 4th place and 8th place, either narrowly achieving a play-off space or missing out. However, the bare minimum target this season should be Promotion. With the amount of positivity around the club at the moment and with Karl Robinson at the helm, I am genuinely excited for what this season holds, but then again, it is Charlton we're talking about, you never know what to expect!
This would be my personal strongest eleven for the season:
A couple of areas that I feel still need improving are a back-up central midfielder, a striker and a winger. We need capable back-up to Kashi, seeing as he has been out injured for two years and I don't believe Crofts is good enough cover. We only have two senior strikers in the squad, Magennis and Novak. Magennis has never really had a prolific period in his career, and while Novak has, he only scored two goals in around 30 games last season. We definitely need another prolific striker. Some players we were linked with were Matthew Godden, John Akinde and Matty Taylor. All of which have been prolific, albeit, in the league below. We need someone to either score goals or prove as good back-up to Magennis, who I also believe wont be able to carry the burden of being our 20 plus goal a season striker. But if the goals are shared around the team, that 20 plus goals-a-season striker may not be needed. Finally, with the major injury to new signing Mark Marshall, we are again light of wingers, we only have Ricky Holmes and Tariqe Fosu, both equally good, if not better wingers than Marshall, but that leaves us with, again, another lack of back-up options.
Pre-season Friendlies
Crumlin United 0-5 Charlton
Limerick 3-2 Charlton
University College Dublin 4-1 Charlton
Welling United 0-3 Charlton
Greenwich Borough 0-4 Charlton
Dover 0-2 Charlton
Stevenage 1-2 Charlton
Charlton 0-2 Norwich
Charlton 6-1 Ipswich
We had a relatively good pre-season campaign, despite the rough start. The tour of Ireland was primarily to gain fitness, with us playing three games in as many days against teams who were midway through their seasons. Then came the double header against Welling and Greenwich borough respectively, both games we won comfortably with two different teams putting in good performances.
We began to play teams that would test us more, in League two side, Stevenage and the two East Anglian Championship teams, Norwich and Ipswich. Starting with the Stevenage, we created a lot of chances but struggled to take them. However, we still won the game 2-1. Then came the tougher challenge of Norwich. We did have some good spells during the game and held our own against a good Championship team but were largely dominated by Norwich. To finish the pre-season campaign, we played the other Norwich's rivals, Ipswich. We also played them last season and the result was 0-0. This time was to be much different though, as we thumped them 6-1. Everything went right, the passing was fluid and everything was coming off for us.
I can personally see us finishing between 4th place and 8th place, either narrowly achieving a play-off space or missing out. However, the bare minimum target this season should be Promotion. With the amount of positivity around the club at the moment and with Karl Robinson at the helm, I am genuinely excited for what this season holds, but then again, it is Charlton we're talking about, you never know what to expect!
This would be my personal strongest eleven for the season:
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