The French time difference doesn’t help when it comes to doing post-match reports, especially when your partner thinks you’ve been spending the last couple of hours sitting on your backside doing nothing while she’s been toiling away, when there are fish to gut and a BBQ to prepare. She just doesn’t understand what hard work it is to get through a Charlton game at the moment (ever?), especially the final 10 minutes away at Fleetwood defending a one-goal advantage in the face of a barrage of long throws and corners. If it was tough for us, Adkins must have been feeling it too, given the pressure he has been (and probably still is) under.
So how highly should we rank the performance and result? Think you’d have to say something between a six and seven out of 10. We would have taken three points ground out any old how, but it was better than that, some genuine positives. Just have to qualify them by the context of the opposition and the fact that the game would, as Curbs stressed, probably have turned out differently if Fleetwood had taken the lead in the first half with their one-on-one, while much of our good work would probably have been overshadowed had one of those late onslaughts seen us concede an equaliser, as might easily have been the case.
Adkins had opted for the same formation – a sort of 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, depending on whether Lee was operating as an outright second forward or in a deeper role. Fact is he seems to combine the two, to good effect. The full-backs from Tuesday night were both replaced (Gunter and Soare for Matthews and Purrington), as were the two central midfielders (Arter and Gilbey for Watson and Clare), while Kirk returned wide-left (replacing Blackett-Taylor). With Stockley and Washington, plus Clare, Morgan and Blackett-Taylor on the bench, what struck me was that we had just one defender, Pearce, in reserve. Looked like a gamble.
The game itself ebbed and flowed. After a non-descript first 20 minutes, during which we dominated possession but created nothing of note, Fleetwood had their chance, quickly followed by Lee setting up the returning Kirk with half the goal to pass the ball into but put it wide. Then not long before the break Leko, who had been dangerous from the start yet had also picked up one of the dafter yellow cards of the season, played the ball inside and kept moving in that direction, to the left side, where Kirk gave him the ball back around the edge of the area. He took one step to the right and fired in a kind of daisy-cutter. It was the kind of shot you don’t expect to end up in the net, but it may have taken a touch or two from any of three defenders who stretched but just failed to cut it out, then passed their keeper into the far corner.
We had a couple more chances to extend the lead before half-time, going into the break good value for the lead. But the feeling was that Fleetwood, kicking into the wind, had been content to play on the break and that the second half would probably be a different story.
It was in that it took Fleetwood only around five minutes to be back level. Lavelle was close to getting turned just outside the box and pulled back their guy, conceding a free kick in a very dangerous position: enough distance to get the ball over the wall and under the bar, the angle to be able to go either side. In the event their guy curled a dipper over the wall and through MacGillivray, who as was pointed out later had taken a step to his right as the kick was taken and was caught wrong-footed, like the step backwards as for Wycombe’s first goal).
We were flustered for a little while, Gilbey getting yellow for a poor late arial challenge and us almost getting caught out as their guy pulled the ball back from an unlikely position only for it to have crossed the line for a goal kick. But a couple of fresh chances turned the tide. First Lee latched onto a loose ball as their keeper parried a Leko shot and squared it, only for Davison not to be able to connect, then from a tight angle Davison hit a fierce shot which clipped the outside of the far post.
That was to be his final contribution as a knock saw him replaced by Stockley – and he took less than 10 minutes to score what proved the winner. Good play across midfield ended with the ball played to Leko in space on the right. He took on his marker for pace and squared it, for Stockley to smash it high into the net.
Not long after Blackett-Taylor came on for an understandably tiring Kirk, we nearly put the game to bed as Stockley was sent clear just inside their half. He wasn’t going to outrun their defenders from that far out, but played it left to Lee, whose fierce shot just cleared the bar (with him claiming their keeper had touched it). Then a little confusion as Leko was about to be subbed only for Arter to go down with cramp. Both carried on but soon Arter departed, Clare coming on.
That just left the final 10 minutes and six of stoppage time to endure. We managed to do that, just, although I’d say the Fleetwood club site reporter was overdoing it a little to suggest that “everyone in the ground was shocked that the game didn’t end on level terms with a goalmouth scramble right at the end”. He also suggests in his account that Stockley scored our second “completely against the run of play”, which rather overlooks the two near misses which preceded the goal.
The positives include being able to regroup after Fleetwood’s equaliser and going on to win the game; the obvious delight on the faces of the players at the final whistle, suggesting it meant a lot to them; and the fact that we carried a goal threat throughout the game. Leko will deservedly take the accolades; he even managed to turn his moment of madness in the first half into a positive. Not content with a silly pull of the shirt as his marker went past him deep in the Fleetwood half, he held onto the shirt and continued to pull it, making a yellow for him a stone-cold certainty but also eventually prompting a reaction from their guy which saw him booked too. That, as Leko mentioned after the game, put him on the edge as if he (the Fleetwood guy) brought him down it would probably be red (to be fair to the ref Leko did commit a foul after his booking, prompting Fleetwood appeals for another card, which were rightly rejected).
However, for me the stars were Arter and Gilbey (glossing over his yellow card), who both put in real shifts, with Lee not far behind. He does give us good continuity with intelligent movement and passing.
We so badly needed a win and we got one. We have now a lengthy break at least devoid of fresh speculation over Adkins’ position and renewed hope that an effective team can be forged from the large squad. Cautious and qualified optimism.
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