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We’ve had to withdraw our offer of shares in Preview Percy on a technicality. That technicality being that Daisy has pointed out that if anyone owns Percy it’s her. Percy himself of course gets no say in this. In the meantime here’s his look at our first home league game of the season against Charlton Athletic...

Next up we play host to Charlton Athletic at the Ozempic. Kick-off on Saturday is at 3pm – long may it continue. Travelling in from the Wickford area? Good luck.




So Charlton, then. Last season they finished in 19th place with 53 points from the 46 games played. That was three places and six points from the final relegation slot which, as we have mentioned before, was the only one occupied by a team carrying their full quota of points earned.

This season, after dispatching Cheltenham in the League Cup 3-1 they saw off Derby at home, coming from behind to win 2-1, leaving them 6th in the fledgling table, for what it’s worth at this stage of the season.

The current helmsman is Nathan Jones who arrived after a less than spectacular spell at Southampton that lasted 8 games, in which time they won just the once. Jones appears to have had his feet up for a year before the chap from the valleys pitched up at The Valley in February 2024 and, after a so-so start, they embarked on a 14-game unbeaten run that kept them in Division 3 in old money.

The following season they managed to get themselves promoted, beating Leyton Orient 1-0 in the playoff final.

For this season, at the time of writing Jones has brought in six players on permanent deals plus another on loan. First to arrive was Slovakian defender Ivan Mesik. Mesik started his career with Spartak Trnava before heading for Scandinavia with Danish outfit Nordsjaelland. While there he spent some time out on loan with Odd Norwegians.

Sorry that should read “Norwegians, Odd”. And their second team Odd2. After a season in Italy with Pescara, he headed westward and spent the last two seasons at Heracles Almero in the Netherlands, leaving for Charlton after relegation last season, the fee being rumoured to be in the €500-600k region.

Next to arrive was French defender Billy Koumetio. Koumetio left his native Orleans for Liverpool – despite being under 18.

However despite appearances in various cups he didn’t make a league appearance for the divers and, after loan spells at Austria Wien, Dunquerque and Blackburn, he left for the frozen North to sign a two-year deal with Dundee who triggered an extension to his two year deal this summer, enabling Dundee to cash in, sending him south to Charlton for £500,000.

Returning for a second shift in south east London is striker Karlan Grant. Grant started out with the Addicks, scoring 16 in 80 league games in a five-year spell between 2014 and 2019. Since then he’s been on the books with Huddersfield and West Bromwich plus various loan periods. He rejoined the Addicks on a free at the conclusion of his deal at The Hawthorns.




Full-back Danny McNamara arrived on another free from Millwall. Whilst with the Lewisham mob, McNamara took a few of their less savoury habits on board, getting into what was described as an “altercation” with a Charlton fan. I wonder if they’ve met up yet.

Thought slightly less Irish-sounding, winger Millenic Alli is, none the less a compatriot of McNamara, having been born in Dublin. He received his first cap for the republic in March, and arrived from Luton for £1.5m, though he spent last season on loan at Portsmouth.

The final permanent deal was for Nathaniel Chalobah. He’s been about a bit. Having started out as part of Chelsea’s loan stock he had permanent deals at Watford, Fulham, the seemingly ubiquitous West Brom and, in what in retrospect, may not have been the wisest of moves, Sheffield Wednesday, whence he arrived on a free after their relegation.

Chalobah does have the one full cap for England, playing 6 minutes 54 seconds, making his the second shortest England career, eclipsing that of Martin Kelly by one whole second.

It may be our lack of knowledge, but neither Daisy nor I can remember any Kenyan footballers plying their trade on these shores. However, that’s exactly what Charlton have in the form of Timothy Ouma who goes by the name “Babu”.

Babu is on loan from Slavia Prague who he signed for in 2025. However, he’s made just the one league appearance for the Czechs, having spent most of his time on loan with Lech Poznan. The deal has an option to buy the midfielder if all goes well.

At this point we take our usual look at the wild and wacky world of association football in our feature called “The Wild And Wacky World Of Association Football. And Arsenal’s odds on a second successive title lengthened to 250,000-1 on the announcement that referees have been told to apply the laws of the game at corners. Properly. Irrespective of which teams are involved.

However, the odds shortened again when it was pointed out that referees are given similar instructions every year, instructions which are remembered for about 20 minutes of the first half of every opening match. Leaving PGMOL carte blanche to lie through their teeth when it suits them as is their wont, having no doubt got a few quid on Arsenal at their local turf accountants.

Meanwhile, sur le continent, Celta Vigo’s opener against Osasuna was postponed due to a fungal outbreak on the pitch. As we all know from our primary school days, a fungus is a living organism so Tottenham have put in a £25m bid as part of a bid to raise the average IQ at home games.




And so to us. Well a point away at one of the likelier candidates for promotion rivalry would, on the face of it, not be the worst result in the world to start a season with. However, such a perspective would ignore the uncomfortable truth that we threw two points away by going into defensive mode in the manner of England v Argentina, or, more accurately, West Ham v any number of clubs in recent years.

Now to a certain degree there were external factors affecting the game here. The calf injury picked up by Pablo changed the shape of the side in the second half and showed that, despite his lack of end product, there is a contribution to the pressing game that often goes unheralded. Ward Prowse simply didn’t bring the same element on arrival to the fray in the second half.

By that time we were 1-0 up, Kilman surviving having the shirt pulled off his back by Ramsey who might have been better advised trying to defend the corner properly. We bossed the first half without ever looking like running away with the game and Flemming, by fair means or foul – usually foul remained a threat.

The second half was disappointing in the extreme however. Flemming could have had a couple, though some questions would have been asked about one of them with his header coming courtesy of a two-handed bear hug around the neck, We may well yet.come to miss VAR .

So such is the nature of football we naturally doubled the lead against the run of play. The goal started with Kilman saving Burnley the bother of defending, blocking Bowen’s goalbound shot. Pleasingly, we kept the ball alive and Kante’s run echoed that of last week against Portsmouth.

We’ll give the ref the benefit of the doubt and credit him with playing advantage as Kante was chopped down by a defender, his stumble resulting in the ‘keeper clearing only as far as the danger area where the impressive Solomon hammered the ball into the roof of the net.

That was about as good as it got. With Burnley profligate in front of goal we might have survived the needless reversion into defensive mode had we not started using our feet for ballistic target practice.

Scarles’s challenge in the box showed all the impetuosity of youth where an older head might have stayed on his feet. After the penalty had been converted there was a bit of a skirmish and the home support were moaning that Taty’s kicking the ball away was not punished by a second yellow.

However Flemming’s wild hack at Hernandsen was a straight red card in anyone’s language. And he wouldn’t have been on the pitch to score the inevitable second had that happened.




Quite why we have developed this shut up shop approach once going ahead lord alone knows. But, if it’s all the same to you Nuno can you tell them to stop it.

For this one we have a brace of new players available. Arriving just a bit late for inclusion in these pages last week was Arne Engels. The Belgian international arrived having been linked heavily with a move to Forest during the winter window. Playing on the right side of midfield or as a winger, he has a handful of Belgian caps gained in the Nations League a couple of years ago.

The more intellectually-challenged among the Celtic support have been harrumphing a bit asking “why did he want to go there?”. The answer to which is obviously because he wanted to improve himself and Leyton Orient couldn’t afford him. Just how effective he will be at what is a massive step up in class will depend on who marks him.

Engels will be joined by Joel Piroe, who arrives on a season-long loan with an obligation to buy. On the face of it Piroe would appear to bring something different to the attacking options currently on the table.

I did see somewhere that we had never before had a player with the given name of Joel in the past, it being pointed out that we now have two. I did ask Daisy to enter into some research on the subject but the look she gave me was not so much “old-fashioned” as positively prehistoric.

On the injury front there is a doubt over Pablo after last week’s calf injury. If not available Pablo will join Souceck on the sick list.

Prediction time, then. After last week’s trip to Turf Moor this is likely to represent a more typical Championship encounter, and that will bring its own challenges, Charlton being more likely to seek a point, meaning we will need to break down an obdurate defence. Something I think we will do.

So the £2.50 I was going to spend on a packet of mushrooms to send to Harringay will instead be wagered on a home win. I reckon 3-1 to us.

Enjoy the game!




When Last We Met At The Ozempic: Won 3-0 (League Cup September 2020)
“Why don’t I remember this?” I enquired as the link to the video highlights arrived on my screen. The answer became apparent almost immediately as the shouts of both players and coaching staff echoed across an empty Olympic stadium, deserted thanks to the Covid lockdown. Haller acquired a brace before the interval before Anderson added a third in the second half. Haller was denied a hat-trick at the death by a last-ditch block.

Referee: Andrew Kitchen
With the game likely to be a 62,000 sell-out, let’s hope he can, er, stand the heat.

Danger Man: Tyreece Campbell
Early days so far but he has scored in both games played so far.

Percy & Daisy’s Charlton Fact Of The Week Type Thing
This is one of those circular coincidence things. In 1974 The Valley (a lot bigger then than the redeveloped stadium that occupies the site these days) played host to a concert by The Who, a gig often cited as one of the loudest ever. Two years after that gig the band’s management was taken over by a chap called Bill Curbishley, whose younger brother Alan played for and managed West Ham - and is also the second longest-serving manager of Charlton, whose ground hosted a Who gig in 1974.

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