In the days coming up to this match, I hoped the game would provide me with a bit more of a base for evaluations on how well we could expect to do this season. Whilst we controlled the midfield quite well at times, I felt we looked vulnerable defensively and lacked that bit of guile and ruthlessness in the final third. In the end, a point was probably about a fair result, but we could still consider ourselves a little fortunate to get it with Nikola Zigic's late goal. If I'm honest, I feel none the wiser.
Waking up this morning, I felt a little more confident about this season for Blues than I did just after the Antwerp game a week ago. We had knocked a few goals past Barnet in the Carling Cup on Tuesday, the sun was shining and I felt that sense of buzzing anticipation for the first game always typical of the new season.
I had had a bit of a boozey brunch by the time I got to the game. I went to meet up at one of my dad's friends for his traditional pre-season buffet, met up in Moseley for a drink with some of my West Brom-supporting cousins who were playing Liverpool and got to the ground 20 minutes early to the sound of chattering Blues fans from the tilton eagerly anticipating this one.
In the opening exchanges, I noticed that Lee Clark had implemented a progressive, control system in the middle of the park. Our two central midfielders, Ravel Morrison and Hayden Mullins prowled the halfway line, playing a sort of patient, probing, short passing game at a relatively low tempo.
The benefits of this were that it gave the more creative players, such as Peter Lovenkrands, Darren Ambrose and Chris Burke, the freedom to get forward, express themselves and support target man marlon king up front. It also meant that we had a fair bit of possession.
The problems with it were that the aforementioned players, maybe Chris Burke aside, lacked that bit of quality going forward- their movement off the ball seemed to be very prioritised on just finding space even when the player with the ball couldn't pick them out with a pass, so they weren't as able to get on the ball and really influence play.
This problem, combined with how well Chris Powell had organised his Charlton side, meant that on many occassions we would play a series of short passes, realise that it wasn't going to lead to a shot on goal, try to play a more clinical pass to someone further away, and then just lose possession.
I thought that then made us incredibly vulnerable to the pace of Bradley Wright-Phillips and Yann Kermorgant on a few of Charlton's counter attacks, as our players tended to lose their focus and positional discipline when we had the ball- we were often caught out of position. Steven Caldwell was forced to make a few last-ditch tackles to stop Wright-Phillips having a one-on-one chance, Jack Butland had to make some decent saves to keep us in it and I remember Charlton having at least three free headers on goal from around the penalty spot.
We were lucky to be going in at half-time at 0-0. Although we had had the better of the play in terms of possession, it was Charlton who had easily had the better of the chances and could have been a couple of goals ahead.
In the second half, I noticed a slight improvement. We had nudged our tempo up a little bit, we were playing with a little bit more urgency, but I didn't feel that it was our slow tempo that stopped us from creating chances in the first half. The main problem was that Marlon King was being marked out of the game by Charlton's defence and that the players given the free role to support him and make runs off him, weren't doing so in as well-timed and smart a way as they had been known to. As the game got deeper into the second half, there were more and more high balls from midfield in towards King, but with two centre-backs on him, he was forced to resort to just getting a shot away with his back to goal.
Defensively, we didn't learn from our mistakes and on a Charlton counterattack typical of what happened in the first half, Bradley Pritchard crossed the ball in from the right-hand side and Leon Cort scored with another free header at the back post to give Charlton the lead ten minutes from time.
Lee Clark then put on Zigic for the last five minutes and he made an instant impact. He held the ball up well and got a lot more of the flick-ons than King did which opened things up a bit, he scored a pretty good goal in the last minute to rescue a point- he received the ball near the edge of the 'D', flicked it past a defender and sidefooted it in the bottom-left corner to ignite our campaign and give us a point out of practically nothing.
It still remains to be seen whether we can gather some of that momentum and confidence that Chris Hughton instilled in the team last season, and whilst I like to be one of the more optimistic Birmingham City fans, Lee Clark hasn't quite provided that yet. But having said that, its difficult to be too critical of him too early. We've only played one league game under the new regime and things will undoubtably take time to settle. Though its not exactly a confidence-inspiring start from him from what I've seen, we have to wait until at least October to make much of a judgement.
In the opening exchanges, I noticed that Lee Clark had implemented a progressive, control system in the middle of the park. Our two central midfielders, Ravel Morrison and Hayden Mullins prowled the halfway line, playing a sort of patient, probing, short passing game at a relatively low tempo.
The benefits of this were that it gave the more creative players, such as Peter Lovenkrands, Darren Ambrose and Chris Burke, the freedom to get forward, express themselves and support target man marlon king up front. It also meant that we had a fair bit of possession.
The problems with it were that the aforementioned players, maybe Chris Burke aside, lacked that bit of quality going forward- their movement off the ball seemed to be very prioritised on just finding space even when the player with the ball couldn't pick them out with a pass, so they weren't as able to get on the ball and really influence play.
This problem, combined with how well Chris Powell had organised his Charlton side, meant that on many occassions we would play a series of short passes, realise that it wasn't going to lead to a shot on goal, try to play a more clinical pass to someone further away, and then just lose possession.
I thought that then made us incredibly vulnerable to the pace of Bradley Wright-Phillips and Yann Kermorgant on a few of Charlton's counter attacks, as our players tended to lose their focus and positional discipline when we had the ball- we were often caught out of position. Steven Caldwell was forced to make a few last-ditch tackles to stop Wright-Phillips having a one-on-one chance, Jack Butland had to make some decent saves to keep us in it and I remember Charlton having at least three free headers on goal from around the penalty spot.
We were lucky to be going in at half-time at 0-0. Although we had had the better of the play in terms of possession, it was Charlton who had easily had the better of the chances and could have been a couple of goals ahead.
In the second half, I noticed a slight improvement. We had nudged our tempo up a little bit, we were playing with a little bit more urgency, but I didn't feel that it was our slow tempo that stopped us from creating chances in the first half. The main problem was that Marlon King was being marked out of the game by Charlton's defence and that the players given the free role to support him and make runs off him, weren't doing so in as well-timed and smart a way as they had been known to. As the game got deeper into the second half, there were more and more high balls from midfield in towards King, but with two centre-backs on him, he was forced to resort to just getting a shot away with his back to goal.
Defensively, we didn't learn from our mistakes and on a Charlton counterattack typical of what happened in the first half, Bradley Pritchard crossed the ball in from the right-hand side and Leon Cort scored with another free header at the back post to give Charlton the lead ten minutes from time.
Lee Clark then put on Zigic for the last five minutes and he made an instant impact. He held the ball up well and got a lot more of the flick-ons than King did which opened things up a bit, he scored a pretty good goal in the last minute to rescue a point- he received the ball near the edge of the 'D', flicked it past a defender and sidefooted it in the bottom-left corner to ignite our campaign and give us a point out of practically nothing.
It still remains to be seen whether we can gather some of that momentum and confidence that Chris Hughton instilled in the team last season, and whilst I like to be one of the more optimistic Birmingham City fans, Lee Clark hasn't quite provided that yet. But having said that, its difficult to be too critical of him too early. We've only played one league game under the new regime and things will undoubtably take time to settle. Though its not exactly a confidence-inspiring start from him from what I've seen, we have to wait until at least October to make much of a judgement.
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