Charlton 2 Rams 2
My heads probably not in the right place to post anything constructive after that heart-wreching goal by Nathan Ellington well after the 4 minutes of injury time, which was a fucking joke in the first place.
The Charlton team did fill me with pride and encouragement tonight, as did the noisy Covered End but Derby's late goal was a killer blow, more to our confidence than our hopes of staying up. My normal pessimistic state of mind when it comes to all things Charlton was giving way to some good vibes in those last 10 minutes when we used the ball well and were defending stoutly. Grant Basey looked disconsolate at the end.
In what has to be a much improved performance, one that wasn't pretty but combative and organised it was devastating not to win though. 3 points would have been a massive gorilla off our backs approaching Christmas. However there are more battles to be fought and trying to stay positive the general look of the team was far better. I liked Gray and Waghorn up front together, Sam had a good game and avoided drifting into the middle.
The back two gave an excellent performance and practiced safety first and Elliot looked very assured and perhaps could have got to that ridiculous penalty, but I'm not knocking the boy, he did well as did Cranie.
We missed better than good chances however and bloody sods law, who has it's own chapter on Charlton hit us on the back of the head hard after Bouazza's two opportunities, one a sitter and although I thought we may have got away with it after the disallowed goal, we didn't.
Oh, and how rubbish was Varney tonight? Or should I say, how same as always was Varney tonight?
We were outnumbered by Derby fans in the pub and had to endure the game on the big screen from an internet feed. Horribly parts of the last 20 minutes were in slow motion as the website lost it's signal. God, the things we have to put up with. Mind you, it was great to see the team live again.
The burden now falls to Parkinson to raise the team, they certainly gave everything for him tonight.
Listen to this interview, Parky sounds like he might have done a bit of shouting!