Perhaps it was deliberately pointed. Perhaps it wasn’t.
Always stronger together. Always. KRO.
That was Tom Wagner’s message on his Instagram story after Blues 1-1 draw against Charlton Athletic.
Wagner was not in town, but you can bet he will have seen a live feed of the game and been in contact with key people in situ. He will be aware of the mood music around the place.
We know – because he has admitted so – that he and the club take notice of social media.
He is shrewd enough to realise, as well, that the majority of stuff posted immediately after a result that was not expected or wanted is from the ‘hang ’em high – all of ’em’ school of analysis.
I suspect that Wagner’s words were a gentle riposte to the disgruntlement after the final whistle (I believe the booing was aimed at referee Andrew Kitchen more so than the team) and an FEA reminder that Blues are better when it’s all of us, against all of them. And a tacit backing of manager Chris Davies.
Were Blues that bad against Charlton, that poor? No. For the 20 – 25 minutes after the start of the second-half they kind of just let the game happen, as Charlton had a real go. You could sense the equaliser coming. That was when they were not at it, the mentality was wrong, and you could level criticism that they should have carried on where they left off in the opening period.
Otherwise Blues were the better side, in the ascendancy for most of it and on another afternoon would have won.
Nathan Jones thought differently, naturally. Big chances, he chriped about. Sure, Miles Leaburn stuck a simple opening high into the Tilton Road End after the returning Ryan Allsop’s casual pass out from the back was seized upon five minutes after Blues went in front. However, the Addicks had one shot on target – the goal.
Charlton hardly cut Blues open and they spent the first-half scrambling to keep up as Davies’ side calmly and expertly negated their press in the kind of calculated manner that was reminiscent of so many League One games at home last season.
Blues had 16 shots in the first-half and – again, ike last season – to nit pick, they were not clinical enough and didn’t fizz enough balls across the face of goal.
That said, Demarai Gray – who was outstanding throughout – hit the base of the post and Blues could easily have been two to the good, given Christoph Klarer’s upright elevation to head Tommy Doyle’s free-kick into the top corner minutes afterwards.
Blues hit pot shot after pot shot and Charlton got bodies in the way and defended manfully. Blues got numbers into the box regularly, but didn’t carve out tap-in openings, as they did in the previous four-game winning spree at St. Andrew’s.
Doyle was another smooth operator for Blues. He knows which direction he is going before the ball is played into him, and he also knows where he is then sending it.
At the beginning of the second-half, there was a torpor about Blues. The energy and zip had disappeared. They stayed too deep. They let Charlton get after them and grow in confidence.
There was no outlet. Up front, the puzzle that is Marvin Ducksch was unsurprisingly replaced by Lyndon Dykes eventually and Jay Stansfield was quiet and not as impactful as normal.
Gray’s incisive run and strike that rebounded off the crossbar in the 70th minute – he probably hit the ball too well – roused the crowd and roused his teammates to wrestle the initiative again.
But it wasn’t to be for Blues, as they piled on the pressure. In so many home games, they gain a second wind after adversity and finish the stronger – this was the case too.
The angst stemmed off the back of the seemingly familiar away disappointments and the fact that recently Blues have brushed aside opposition at home following fast, ferocious starts. And they also dug in against Watford.
So, against a Charlton side having lost five on the spin and dealing with the emotion of the death of supporter Norman Barker, everyone expected another summary dismissal of the latest team to rock up to St. Andrew’s.
You have to give the visitors credit for the way they hung in there and their determination (often cynical) to eek out a result. Half of Greenwich seemed to be in Jones’ technical area in that last quarter – his staff urging, shouting, cajoling, in the hope to snare anything other than zero points again.
And with a 29-game unbeaten sequence at St. Andrew’s only ended in October, perhaps we are all getting a little spoiled and entitled, admittedly fuelled by Wagner’s and the ownership’s ambition and grand plans?
Maybe where and what Blues are right now is, indeed, an accurate represenation of where and what Blues are?
Improvements and tweaks need to be made, including assessments for ins and outs in the next transfer window.
As we approach the halfway point in the campaign, Blues remain a work in progress as they seek their milieu, with scope for an upside.
