Dave’s Ramblings – Charlton
I’m posting later about the actions of the Met after the game. My report is long enough without it, so I hope you can stay awake right until the end! 💙
FA Cup third round day has always been my favourite day in the football calendar. I say “day,” but because of the bloody TV it now lasts longer than most international breaks.
Every year I dream of an away draw against someone we never play, a mysterious club from the far reaches of the football map, or at least a ground that’s been sat on the “must visit” list since 2003. Instead, we got Charlton.
Now, Charlton isn’t a bad draw. Perfectly nice. Respectable. But exotic? Absolutely not. We spent seven years repeatedly bumping into each other in the Premier League not that long ago, like awkward neighbours who keep meeting at the bins. So it’s hardly unexplored territory.
In short, fine draw. Just not the sort that makes you open Google Maps with any form of excitement.
It’s also the first ground I ever visited. I was six, my next door neighbour had a season ticket, and I got to witness Charlton beat the mighty Southend United under the lights. Truly formative stuff. Oh, the glory days 😂 Charlton Athletic, the footballing equivalent of beige. Inoffensive, forgettable, but somehow still there.
This game is special, however, as it is the first in charge for Liam Rosenior. On Wednesday night, he sat next to Behdad Eghbali as Chelsea fans filled the air with songs asking him, calmly and in unison, to get out of our club. Asked if he’d like to sit with him again, Liam said he’d rather swim across the Thames, with a shopping trolley strapped to his back, in the depths of winter. Not as a protest, just for the warmth of knowing it would end.
I’m not going to comment on today’s changes. It’s a cup game against lower league opposition and it’s Liam’s first team selection, which meant anything could happen, and indeed it did.
That said, for anyone who believes every rumour they read or hear, Benoît Badiashile was not the captain. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Please log off and stop posting stupid things that you heard from a bloke in the pub, whose sister dated someone who worked in Waitrose, who knows someone on the board, who revealed all this while buying a meal deal on Thursday…
First off, Charlton are about a million light years away from being a Premier League club off the field. The turnstiles looked like they’d been dug up from an archaeological site, complete with someone inside wielding a handheld scanner that moved slower than a slug on a casual stroll into town.
The first bar couldn’t serve any beer at all (presumably a bold new temperance initiative), while the second bar offered Peroni. Just Peroni. No choices, no debate, no dreams. The toilets were impressively old school, like stepping back in time, but without the charm. To be fair, the rest of the ground looked decent enough. Maybe they’re saving up their loose change to bring the rest of it into the 21st century.
Managers come and go, but the game of two halves lives on. We were the better team by a mile in the first half, which is impressive considering we were slow, uncertain, and looked like we’d only just been introduced to each other and the ball.
The temperature was Arctic, Chelsea provided zero warmth, and entertainment levels were hypothermic. That was until 4 minutes into added time when Hato decided it was the perfect moment to absolutely leather a half volley into the top corner. His first goal for Chelsea, and he will do well to score a better one.
Whatever was said at half time must have involved shouting, and plenty of Anglo Saxon, because we came out for the second half like a team possessed by urgency, confidence, and basic footballing ability.
Five minutes into the second half and Tosin rose like a man who’d spotted a free buffet, powering in a header from a delicious free kick. Get in.
Charlton did briefly spoil the fun, despite Jorgensen pulling off a save that deserved its own slow motion replay and dramatic music, the ball ended up in the net. We all asked the familiar Chelsea questions… would we cave, wobble, panic?
Absolutely not. Within five minutes Marc Guiu popped up from close range to restore our two-goal cushion, calm restored, blood pressure lowered, crisis averted. Football, eh?
We had chances. So many chances. Chances that should’ve been goals, goals that should’ve been highlights, highlights that should’ve been looping on TNT, but for reasons known only to him and his gloves, the Charlton keeper decided to turn into prime Petr Čech.
Eventually, deep into added time, Pedro Neto lost patience with the concept of mercy and absolutely smashed the ball in to make it 4–1. Game over… or so we thought.
There was still time for one last bit of chaos, as Estêvão was flattened by their keeper and a penalty was awarded. Fernández calmly slotted it home with the very last kick of the match, because why not?
And that was that. Banana skin safely sidestepped, blood pressure returning to normal, and Chelsea still alive in all four competitions. We march on.
My takeaways…
Yes, it was Charlton, hardly a terrifying European superpower, but there was definitely something different about Chelsea tonight. Thirty shots, more than half on target, and a general sense of competence that felt… unfamiliar.
If this is the new normal, then the future looks good. Very good. We’ll reserve full judgment until after ArseNIL on Wednesday and Brentford at the weekend, but until then I suggest we all enjoy the rare and beautiful feeling of being happy about football.
Whether this new Chelsea is here to stay remains to be seen, but can we please just get a bit more behind the team? I’m no great fan of the owners either, but I can’t be the only one thoroughly bored of some of the songs doing the rounds.
Let’s try something radical and old fashioned like singing the players’ names. You know, encouraging them to play better rather than confusing them into submission.
And the political songs… why? I came to watch Chelsea, not accidentally wander into a party political broadcast. If I wanted that, I’d have stayed at home and turned on the news.
I know that’ll set a few cats among the pigeons, but there it is. My completely unreasonable request for football songs at a football match.
As in life, words don’t really count for much in football. It’s all about deeds, actions, results, vibes, and whether Twitter is calm for more than three minutes. But at this very early stage of his reign, all we’ve got to judge Liam on is what he’s said to the media and, to be fair, he sounds like a clever, thoughtful, insightful bloke who has clearly done some homework on the flight over from France.
Now, is that enough to succeed at Chelsea Football Club? Absolutely not. Not even close. But it’s literally all the evidence we have right now, so we might as well work with it.
The games are coming thick and fast, three a week for the next month or two, which means that by the end of February we’ll either love him with an alarming, borderline unhealthy intensity… or be actively googling whether the East Stand meets modern throwing people off it health and safety regulations.
For now, can we please just get behind him? Drop the yes man accusations, support the boys in blue, and save the full scale debates about Clearlake, BlueCo, and whatever the man in the moon is up to these days, for another time. (amen to that – Ed)
The atmosphere around the club has been toxic ever since Maresca’s slightly unhinged outburst after the Everton game. So let’s all take a breath, build a bridge and get over it (preferably not setting the bridge on fire halfway across).
Arsenal up next, let’s rub their arrogant noses in the mud!
Up the Chels 💙
Dave M
