A Taste of the Coming Season
Posted by The Addickted in Charlton | 11 August 2007
I feared it may happen, it did, and i hope it isn't something that will haunt The Valley all season. I'll get all the good sportsmanship out of the way first before expanding; Scunthorpe United should be congratulated for grafting their way to a point against a much bigger club, and away from home.
However, my grumble is that I don't feel I got the 90 minutes of football I paid for today, far from it. Scunthorpe time wasted from the start, something i haven't seen a team do against Charlton before, because quite frankly, there has been never been a need for it. Yes, it is understandable that they came solely with the ambition to hold us to a draw, but this foreign experience wasn't a pleasant one. Joe Murphy, the Irons' goalkeeper was the main culprit, wandering painfully slowly across his 6 yard box each and every goal kick. It seems he's just a really unlucky bloke, the ball always landing the opposite side of the goal to the one he wanted to take his kick from.
Now that I've got that out of the way, Charlton didn't play particularly badly to be honest, they bossed the game as expected and created by far the more chances, just lacking the finishing touch. The terminal problem was that they also let Scunthorpe have the a few chances of their own and the Irons could easily have gone ahead on a couple of occasions in the first half, notably with two headed efforts. Marcus Bent broke the deadlock in the 62nd minute a tad luckily, but after an intense spell of pressure from the home team and the game looked as good as over, with Scunthorpe previously only making the odd trip into Charlton's half.
Catastrophy! To this day have no idea why teams do it? Why sit back when what you are doing is working perfectly well? It defies logic! But that's what Charlton did, and once again it was their downfall. Having looked particularly weak in the air and from set pieces, Scunthorpe's equaliser came from a corner when Iriekpen, completely unmarked, slammed a close range header past Nicky Weaver, who was not best pleased with his defenders' efforts. From this point on, Charlton were frustrated by a barage of time-wasting ploys, huge clearances and 11-men behind the ball, Iwelumo showing his frustration by lumping Joe Murphy in the face after he claimed the ball down low.
Mug of the match: Jim Goodwin (Scunthorpe) - When Bent's goal was initially disallowed for offside, the midfielder picked the ball out of the net, wagging his finger and laughing at the home fans. Seconds later the referee consulted his linesman and upheld the goal, which was followed by jeers and an embaressed looking Goodwin trudging back to the centre circle.
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