Birmingham – aggression and “horrible” needed

After the last three games, we find ourselves desperately seeking a straw to clutch.

How about this? Could it be that the squad can find some motivation from the fact that they go into Saturday's game against Birmingham as massive underdogs? Could it be that managing to mount a  rear-guard action and stay on level terms, could somehow help rebuild their fragile confidence? Might every throw-in won be applauded? Would a 0-0 draw be greeted like a victory?

Matty Godden seems clear about what is needed:

"This club means too much to me to be that sort of person and hide behind the fact that I scored a goal. All I want to do is help the club achieve something. That’s what I set out to do, that’s why I came down from Coventry. I want to achieve something whilst I’m here, so when things don’t go our way it hurts. It’s about being more aggressive and horrible. We need to be horrible and we need a 1-0 win somewhere - a horrible 1-0 win that’s probably scrappy that we have to fight for because that’s what it was at the start of the season. It might not look the best, but we were really horrible to play against. We played some good stuff, but that good stuff comes when you’re horrible and then get the time to play the good stuff."

Nathan Jones has blamed himself for the abysmal performance at Bristol on Tuesday:

“I’ll take full responsibility for this result,” he said. “I got the team wrong – tactically I didn’t get it right today"

However, what he said following that does seem to point the finger pretty squarely at his players:

"I picked the team that didn’t perform. That’s what I said to the fans (at the end of the match) – we’ve let them down. I’ve let them down tonight. I haven’t done that before. It was a poor performance – we didn’t win our battles and they were more aggressive than us. We won’t get team selection wrong again. We got over-run all over. I tried to do something tonight that didn’t work and we were ineffective. Our front two were ineffective…our wide ones were ineffective…our midfield was ineffective. Basically we were ineffective all over.”

Charlton fans are becoming increasingly worried that Jones's much-lauded intensity is not helping his players. It looks as if he needs to find a way to wind down the tension a bit and allow them to express themselves with more confidence. He also needs to settle on his best starting eleven and let it find some stability.

Since drawing their first league game against Reading, Birmingham have won seven on the spin, including away wins at Wycombe, Leyton and Rotherham. They already have a five point lead at the top and their captain Krystian Bielik has no doubts about their quality. He scored the winning goal in their stirring 3-2 comeback against Peterborough and he believes they are "too good for League One" and will be "a Championship team again" at the end of the season. Few would argue with that but then again most League One clubs who could invest £25m in new players would expect the same.

As we look up the league table to see Stevenage, Exeter, Stockport and Mansfield above us, there is a growing despair among Charlton fans as to why, year after year, we don't seem able to match their achievements. Anger is near the surface and we really hope that an early Birmingham goal doesn't provoke such a negative reaction that the players' confidence dips even further. We just ask for a steely Charlton performance that keeps things tight and gets the crowd on their side.

And then why not finish it off with a Chuks and Miles cameo and a Matty Godden goal?

Any other straws, anyone?