Ahead of tomorrow's game against Charlton Athletic, NCM caught up with Danny of Charlton Life to get his view on the match.
1. Having made the play-offs last season, do you expect similar or perhaps even more from this season, or has losing some key players in the Summer dampened expectations?
It is extremely tough to call what our expectations should realistically be. On the face of it, we’ve had a huge turnaround this summer, and our budget is considerably lower than it was for last season, so realistic expectations should be for us to not be so dominant. But every season the importance of promotion becomes more important, with infrastructure costs we simply cannot survive as a League One club long-term and could only realistically be self-sufficient at Championship level, and our crowds and recent history add to the perception that we ‘should be doing better’.
2. It's been a fairly uneventful start to the season for Charlton, are you content with the way things are going or have performances not really lived up to expectations?
Due to the amount of changes that we have undergone, its frustratingly difficult to make a clear assessment of how we are looking. An impressive away win with ten men against Orient live on Sky probably raised hopes and expectations a little too quickly to have any real foundations to it. Our last couple of defeats have shown that we haven’t yet gelled as a side, but it’s unclear as yet whether it just needs time to come together, or whether there are noticeable defects within the squad.
3. It's been a fairly quick fall from the Premiership (sorry!), how have you found League One? Has going to places like Yeovil and Hartlepool opened any eyes or has it just been soul destroying?
The are generally two schools of thought, those that feel the Premiership is the only place to be and we should be competing at the highest level we possibly can, and those who by the end of our Premiership spell had grown to hate the commercialism, the bias and money attached to it. I’m in the later group, personally i’m more than content with being a League One club and would rather see us win at Wycombe paying £20 a ticket than lose at Stamford Bridge paying £50 a ticket. In the London region, Charlton were still perceived as a ‘small club’ in the Premiership when we we’re selling out every week at 27k, so due to our make-up as fans there have been very little patronising views towards playing the Yeovil’s and Hartlepool’s, though our recent Premiership spell is making it tougher to take. And having been five leagues above them just a few years ago, it’s going to be a nasty reality check when we line up against Dagenham next week, for example.
4. To a neutral, Shelvey and Bailey probably looked like your dangermen. Who should we look out for now that you've left?
We haven’t possessed anyone who you would perceive to be a dangerman since Darren Bent left, but at the moment it is difficult to pick out anyone with any real conviction. We’ve had a very guarded, uncreative start to the season (we’ve had 15 shots on target in our opening five games compared to 45 shots on target at this point a year ago), so we are yet to see too much of an attacking threat as yet. Kyel Reid though has clear ability to be playing above this level, and if he has early success against your right back, he’ll go on to be a constant threat. Paul Benson has been brought in from Dagenham to hopefully become our main goal threat, but with our much reduced budget, paying out decent money (£250k) for a 30-year old who has never played at this level represents a real gamble, one that there is a lot of nerves about whether it is going to prove an inspired signing or the latest in a run of poor decisions.
5. What do you know of Notts? Do you think it'll be a good season for the Magpies?
I can see your season very much going two ways. It’s not unusual for a promoted team to continue their good form and challenge against the odds the next season in a higher division, so i won’t necessary write you out. But i think a lot of your performance will boil down to whether you can keep one or two key players both fit and on your books. If a bad run sets in mid-season, i equally wouldn’t be surprised if you struggle to arrest it. Ironically, i perceive somewhere in the middle to be where you should be happy to be following promotion.
Don’t know too much about County as a club to be honest. Always wonder how difficult it must be to survive in a two-club city when the other one appears so much more dominant support-wise. Not sure that is an accurate statement, but i think it’s the perception those of us outside Nottingham have. Remember some very entertaining games with County in the 90s (our last four games have yielded 19 goals), and also remember an away trip where our coach failed to arrive. A number of us went over to see Fulham instead as a ‘lower league pity visit’ as they were in the fourth division. I wonder if any Fulham fans now make ‘lower league pity visits’ to The Valley. Christ that’s depressing....
6. How do you see Saturday's game going, do you expect a win?
No. I think it will be a draw and expect a similar encounter to our recent game with Oldham. The longer the game goes on, the more frustrated the crowd will become and the more i think it will play into your hands. We need to start getting moving as an attacking unit pretty soon to install a bit of belief into the fans.