Hello - Goodbye

Peter Gilbert 17.12.00

Leicester City 3 Charlton Athletic 1

After half an hour of this game the mood was glum, we looked as if the form we showed last week at Coventry was our true form and the rest of it had been just a flash in the pan. Charlton Athletic were being just what their name suggested and they were first to the ball in the majority of occasions. They were 1-0 up after Svensson had smashed the ball into the back of the net following a cute move on the edge of our box which left us flat footed and looking feeble.

They had followed this with two or three other such moves which was most worrying since we had apparently no answer to what they threw at us and we were pinned back in our own half for the majority of the time.

However things suddenly changed when our two Welsh boyo's passed the ball along the line to each other with great authority and precision and for the first time we looked something like. Savage brought Rowett into the play on the right hand side with a pass that cut like a knife. Rowett crossed intelligently and Akinbiyi pounced on the ball at the near post and smacked it into the back of the net.

It was a magical moment - all the more welcome since it came out of the blue and involved new boy Mathew Jones who at 20 years old seemed to suggest that he has all the qualities that we are looking for in abundance. He is a very confident young man who possesses great skill. He's not tall but he leaps like a salmon into the air and won several important headers. He's not brawny but he tackles like a tiger. Unlike his predecessor he's a quick runner and with experience will prove to be a more than adequate replacement. He's quite happy for the play to revolve around him, he doesn't hide, he invites the ball into his kinosphere and some of his manoeuvres with the ball were quite breathtaking. He looks like a little diamond, he sparkled for 60 of the 90 minutes and at the end of the game he saluted every corner of the ground which Lennon had done at the end of our last home game but unlike him he was acting out the happier side of the Lennon/Mcartney song 'Hello Goodbye' and he could have been singing some the words 'You say Goodbye but I say Hello.' Hello Hello I don't know why you said goodbye I say Hello.'

After being entertained by 'George Michael' at half time singing Last Christmas I couldn't help thinking back to that time when we had 29 points and a whole host of injuries, somehow I feel that we are now a much stronger outfit. Hopes are high The - Fox is on the run.

The second half belonged to Leicester City and PT was tinkering with the line up, reverting back to a 3-5-2 line up instead of the 4-4-2 we started with. Stefan Oakes came on and played well. Benjamin came on put himself about and carved out a couple of good chances. Arny Gunnlauggsson came on and couldn't make a mark initially.

Sustained pressure saw us win a string of corners, the only one taken by Oakes was delivered tastefully to the near post for Matt Elliott to bundle home and see us go into a well deserved lead.

The Charlton defenders began to crumble; Tiler in particular and it was he who misheaded a ball on the half way line which was seized upon by Arny and he ran at goal to confront the 'keeper. It was a foregone conclusion that he would score and it couldn't have fallen to a more suitable player, he skipped forward, gave the photographers time to get him in focus, invited the 'keeper to 'Come and Get it' and as he fell for the bait he flicked the ball nonchalantly over his sprawling body to score his third goal in three games, he's a bit of a class act and he looked well suited alongside Big Trev.

We finished the game totally in command of the situation and it was hard to believe that it was the same teams playing who had started the match............all's well that ends well.

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