Inside View with Charlton defender Christian Dailly
Footballers never like postponed
matches – although perhaps they have worked in my favour over the
past few weeks.
First and foremost, I hope everyone
had a better Christmas than I did because I felt rotten.
I picked up some kind of virus a few
days before the Boxing Day match against Swindon and, with my kids
ill as well, you can imagine things weren’t very festive in the
Dailly household.
The doctor quickly ruled me out of the
Brentford match as well and it was really only last week that I
properly returned to training.
The illness couldn’t have come at a
worse time in some ways. Throughout the first half of the season,
our back four of Frazer Richardson, Kelly Youga, Sam Sodje and
myself proved pretty successful, yet none of us were available for
selection at Griffin Park due to illness, injury and
suspension.
Of course, there will always be
disruption to a team for a number of reasons throughout a
season.
But what usually happens is that one
or two players get injured at a time, allowing others to come in
and be assimilated gradually. No manager likes losing an entire
part of his side at once.
Having said all that, everyone who has
come in has done brilliantly, not least Miguel Llera, who I played
alongside at the start of the season.
Unfortunately, I was too ill to attend
the Swindon game but after going down to nine men, that was a
magnificent effort on behalf of the lads and I saw Miguel’s
wonderful goal on television.
Not only could that point be vital,
the togetherness the players showed against the odds is a real
demonstration of how the squad is at the moment. Miguel had been
out of the side but he’s trained hard and showed he’s as valuable a
squad member as anyone else at the club.
It seems odd to still be talking about
Christmas but there hasn’t been much football since then.
The postponement of the Walsall and
Hartlepool games means I haven’t missed any more matches since
Brentford but while that’s worked in my favour, it’s gone against
Sam Sodje, who was due to be finishing his suspension this weekend.
Unfortunately, he still has another three games to go.
Training has been difficult due to all
the snow. We trained at The Valley on an unfrozen section of the
pitch one morning last week and we’ve also been using a gym in
Sidcup and the indoor dome in New Eltham.
There’s plenty of variety which is
good but players like to be playing football, on a full-sized grass
pitch, even in training.
I was working hard to be fit enough to
play last weekend against Hartlepool if the manager decided I was
needed and hopefully I will be available for selection this weekend
against Wycombe.
They may be near the bottom of the
table but Wycombe did us a favour by drawing against Leeds last
Saturday, so we know what will happen if we take our eye off the
ball.
All the players are looking forward to
pulling on our boots again, we’ll
be making sure there are no surprises on Saturday.
Wednesday, January 13 2010