Ginge!

So, on the day that all four second division teams progressed as (unexclusively) predicted here at 2DAP to the second round of the League Cup, Charlton were signing a ginge! Oh woe is me, the shame of it – no seriously one of my best friends is a ginger, I also know people of ethnic minorities and gays – I don’t mind any of them, just not the taffs in our league ;-) In terms of gingers I’ve a bit of a soft spot really and Gillian Anderson, Patsy Palmer, Lindsey Lohan, Gillian Anderson, Nicole Kidman, Fergie (not that one!), Shirley Manson, Gillian Anderson, Louis Griffin and even Catherine Tate are welcome at the Valley (or round mine) anytime as far as I’m concerned ... did I mention Gillian Anderson?
No Halliwell though – she’s a head the ball!!!
Welcome Nicky Bailey, we’ll get the sun cream ready ;-)

So with 14 second division teams progressing to round two, most have avoided each other with only Southampton v Birmingham and Preston v Derby creating two all round two, division two ties. Elsewhere Coventry and Forest, as well as the Valley victors of Tuesday Yeovil, get money spinning ties against first division opponents. Good luck to them, they'll bloody need it.

Cider, Cider, Cider!

So a huge crowd of 632 people crammed into the Valley last night and boy were they disappointed? Well personally no – not that I’m defending the defeat but (prediction of 3-0 win aside) you’ve got to almost expect it really. Usual poor fare for the first league cup match of the season and, that’s right, Charlton out – at least they spared us from extra time. Congratulations to Yeovil who worked hard for their win and deserve a good draw in the next round.

So George Doors ...

Elliot (5/10) Looked out of place, well at goalkeeping anyway – looked as dangerous as some outfield players late on
Basey (6/10) Looked more comfortable in second half at left back rather than first when the side didn’t seem to have much shape to it
Youga (8/10) Solid performance whether at full back, centre back, attacking, kicking opponents, whatever
Fortune (6/10) Went off injured and was below his best even until then
Moutaouakil (6/10) Can be international class as we’ve seen but then can play like last night too
Wagstaff (5/10) Early doors so I’ll not be too critical – If he’s going to make it he needs these games so I’m not complaining
Holland (7/10) Ran tirelessly but didn’t show the leadership you’d expect on a night like this
Shelvey (8/10) SDAP MOM – See below
J Thomas (7/10) Actually tried to take people on without being flash, stood up to a few challenges – come on JT you can do it!
Bouazza (6/10) Should have scored early on but seems to be settling in – watch this space
Varney (6/10) Another headless chicken night tonight – started really well but then seemed to be chasing shadows
Semedo (Sub 7/10) Usual solid performance – why doesn’t he play more – anywhere?
Sam (Sub 6/10) Like JT ha an on off button Pardew needs to find out how to work
Dickson (Sub 7/10) Usual livewire performance – shame he couldn’t breakthrough

Moment of the match : Has to be Elliott’s foray forward for the 4 or 5 corners at the death – almost woke some people up in the lower West

2DAP MOM : Has to be Jonjo – another performance where he looked a class above his more experienced colleagues – I’m trying not to get too excited about Jonjo but if we’d paid £3M to a club from a higher league I’d be over the moon but he’s 16 and cost us nowt ... woohoo!!! J

As for the other results ... well I got that slightly wrong too with just 10 of our 17 second division representatives progressing ... although I did predict Crewe & MK Dons (well done Roberto) getting the results they wanted
Let’s hope the ‘big’ four out tonight do better than some of us ... I expect a clean sweep

Coventry v Aldershot
Forest v Morecombe
Sheff U v Port Vale
Wycombe v Birmingham

Spot the difference ...

Well I'm off to the Valley tonight and I know I'm only interested in one ... the English Football League Cup ... do you know which one it is yet?

And here for your perusal is a list of the 17 fixtures featurng second division teams tonight ...

Bristol C v Peterborough
Bury v Burnley
CHARLTON v Yeovil
Crewe v Barnsley
Dagenham v Reading
Derby v Lincoln
Exeter v Soton
Ipswich v Leyton
Luton v Plymouth
Macclesfield v Blackpool
MK Dons v Norwich
Notts C v Doncaster
Preston v Chesterfield
Sheff W v Rotherham
Swindon v QPR
Watford v Bristol R
Wolves v Accrington

Im predicting 14 safe entries into round 2 with Crewe, Exeter and MK Dons providing possible 'upsets'
As for the Addicks I'll go for 3-0 with Jonjo, Varney and Sam doing the do ...
UP THE ADDICKS!!

Spread the word ...

There’s a programme that ITV put out on a Sunday called the championship (judging by the presenter I guess it’s supposed to be about gaelic football or something similar) that ... wait for it, shows bits ‘n’ bobs of second division football. They should advertise that really because I couldn’t find any mention of it anywhere and (without sky sports) was wondering where I’d get my weekly three seconds of Charlton action from.

DERBY 0 – DONCASTER 1
Anyway, I was going to start of by welcoming Doncaster to the second division but they seem to have done that themselves ... well done Donny! Their match is one of the reasons I love propa football at this level, you don’t have to have billions or wait on line for the ‘big four’ to steamroller you each season, as Hull City supporters will surely tell you. I recently predicted that Derby would make the play offs whilst Doncaster left for the third a bit sharpish but I take that back. Based on this performance (and as most blokes will tell you, one swallow does not a wife make) it could well be the other way around ... and I really hope so. You’ve got Derby with their septic chairman talking about ‘global branding’. If that wasn’t enough to make you puke they have a scouse manager who clearly can’t dress himself (and now th’ve dropped a division they can’t afford to pay someone to do it for him – come on jewell I know it’s probably a while since you’ve been in court but surely your daughter, sister, wife, granny or someone could have helped?) and just to wrap it up taffy savage who, like someone like vinnie jones rather than the likes of Paul Ince, may be a whingeing dirty bastard but isn’t actually anywhere near as good as he thinks – or his ‘mates’ / ‘advisers’ tell him. Well I hope they go down! Not much chance I know but we can hope (remember Man City?). Anyway Doncaster turned up at ‘pride park’ and duly nicked the points with a solitary goal. It was a nice smart goal from a team which seems to want to play nice smart football and I again applaud you for that. The newly promoted Rovers could have won by more and although they looked a bit shaky at the back should have had a penalty when Stubbs fouled in the box during the first half.

So whilst, Doncaster were announcing themselves to the world (well those of us who care about second division football – and that mainly excludes the media), Charlton finished their pre-season build up with defeat of daffodil league one team Swansea. We’ve now played two home friendlies – against two foreign teams – and seen two sendings off – all with Danny Mills nowhere to be seen. Anyway I’m mildly optimistic and not just in that my ambitions lie in finishing seventh, which is fully achievable with the right wind. Things look like showing signs of promise if Pardew can get the right mix of youth (Youga, Jonjo et al) and experience (Weaver, Holland) which will form a good building block for the club. We maybe not at the level of Athletic Club of Bilbao who only sign players with a basque ‘connection’ (which some would argue approaches Jack Charlton’s approach to the Irish national team) but at least we can count at least four players in the starting line up on Saturday who got their first real chance at the Valley. Anyway, on with the round up where everyone, barring ourselves and Southampton, have thrown their hat firmly in the ring ...

BRUM 1 – SHEFF U 0
Two of the divisions more fancied sides met in the early kick off and I tipped Brum to run away with this league. However, any team that plays marcus bent (thanks for the money brady) ahead of Kevin Phillips should reevaluate their management process. Without going into his reasons for joining them from West Brom (I can see a good argument for both sides – not just money – and who knows which sides grass is greener?) Phillips came off the bench to do what he’s been doing for years – grabbing the half chance provided and turning it into points – even at 35years old.

BLACKPOOL 0 – BRISTOL C 1
What to say about this? Looked like a bag o’shite really and city shouldn’t kid themselves this will be any continuation of last season.

COVENTRY 2 – NORWICH 0
So the proud yellow canaries were beaten by the team from ghost town – shame L Ward struck a penalty before McKenzie converted a clintons morrisons cross – enough reason to have wanted an away win me thinks but unfortunately the win leaves the sky blues in second

croydon 0 – WATFORD 0
Whist the glaziers continue to finance the ‘boys’ from surrey at the same time as pumping millions into / taking millions out of (your choice) manu ... isn’t there some league rule about that which could get both sides kicked out? ... they continue to change their shirts to replicate greater teams than they ... witness the return o he old peru shirt they wore this weekend. Please someone tell them it doesn’t matter what shirt they wear, they’re still a bunch of nigels! Still Watford hit the bar and had one disallowed for offside so could have been better.

IPSWICH 1 – PRESTON 2
I’m told that Super Kevin Lisbie scored with his head in the second minute here ... yeah right! Still whatever he and Campo did or didn’t do, Preston took the points, partly due to a beautifully hit shot from outside of the box by their captain McKenna.

PLYMOUTH 2 – WOLVES 2
Twice the pilgrims lead and twice millwall mick’s boys came back – shame, shame, shame!

QPR 2 – BARNSLEY 1
So how much money can dowie waste ... well I thought it’d be hard to surpass his ‘achievements’ at Charlton but I’m sure he’ll raise the bar at Rangers – if he keeps his gob shut long enough to keep his job. Despite Barnsley taking the early lead, Hall (who hasn’t scored for two years) managed to stick two in and miss a penalty – not a bad outing fo him overall

SHEFF W 4 – BURNLEY 1
So they could have gone down on the last d of the season but here they start at the top thanks to two doubles from early leading scorers Tuday and Sodje – but it was only burnley

Meanwhile Forest drew 0-0 with Reading yesterday (hats off to the trees) completing the fixtures for the weekend. As you can see I’ve calculated the ‘real’ table here and will continue to keep it updated on as regular basis as I can ... starting with our first match next week against Watford ... until then Up the Addicks!!

Where will it all end? (part 3)

So, very quickly ... sorry I’ve not been posting much ... I’m getting set up to calculate the REAL league table when most teams kick off next week ... then I’ll be keeping you all up to date with where we (et al) are in the league
Nothing much to say about this last bunch really except anybody (from surrey) who thinks I’m too biased can stick it … at least I’m including 'them' in the real second division on the grounds of sexual equality

See ya's all at the 2 home friendlies ;-)