portsmouth home. what was the score? lost 1-0 It was never meant to be easy being a Charlton fan, and getting up before 6am on a Saturday morning to enable me to get to the pub in time for kick-off certainly wasn't easy. And then sitting there like Billy no mates wasn't overly exciting either. However after being away for all 4 of the previous games, it was nice to be able to witness the Dowie revolution, albeit decimated by injuries, first hand, well not quite first hand but you get the sketch.

The team selection was a strange one, although Hughes' injury may have been a deciding factor, and despite Marcus Bent's early effort, I thought we were dominated in the first half by a confident Pompey side. But credit to Dowie, he changed it and for the next 30 minutes we played some good enterprising stuff, although Romm's volley aside, we didn't look like we were going to break the deadlock and just as I started to consider a 0-0 draw, Carson failed to get a good hand LuaLua's shot.

After that we became a bit reminiscent of one of Curbs' late sides, expecially when Lisbie was introduced and the game was gone. There were some positives though. Faye was excellent when he moved into the midfield, Romm was lively when allowed more width and I thought El Kak played well too.

Pouso ran around a lot, but got a bit lost and needs more time, Ambrose made no impression on the game and he needs to start doing that. Kish continued to give the ball away and although he chases back after it, it's getting a bit tedious.

I would like to see Bent at least start on Tuesday as he looked a bit out of confidence, not helped by JFH keep giving the ball away, although it's a very fine line between a killer pass and a intercepted one. Still optimistic in Chicago.

Dowie watch: A brave but ultimately bad decision to start with the diamond shape but he wasn't afraid to change it at the half and he was disappointed to go down to Pompey's only 2nd half chance. It has been a tough introduction for ID, playing the two best sides in the country, twice having to cope with 10 men for a long period of the game and now having to juggle a depleted and still developing squad.
Quote: "For me if you're going to play with that many offensive players you have to have good ball retention and we didn't have enough of that in the first half. We looked edgy today but we shouldn't have been after playing so well at Chelsea last week."

Opinions from those that were there: BBC Sport; cafc.co.uk; All Quiet; Addicks Diary; Charlton Athletic Online; Independent.  ¶ 20:29