Charlton Athletic midfielder Bradley Pritchard writes for the KM Group
Comments |
It's hard to
believe that just eight months ago I was playing non-league
football, and now I’ve just played against Premier League
opposition in the FA Cup for Charlton.
I spoke to the media after our defeat to Fulham at Craven
Cottage and they asked me where I was 12 months ago. I told them
that I was playing against Tamworth in front of 250 people rather
than 20,000.
I also started my first league match of the season the previous
Monday, against Brentford at The Valley, so it’s been a great week
for me. Unfortunately, although we won against Brentford, we were
on the wrong end of a harsh 4-0 defeat to Fulham but that’s just
the way it goes.
When you play a Premier League team, if you give them chances,
they will punish you.
We played well in spells. We weren’t too overawed by the
atmosphere at all and especially at the start of the second half,
we really put Fulham on the back foot.
In fact, there are a few things we took away from Craven Cottage
for our next few games which are going to be important.
We can work on taking our chances and on being a lot more
clinical and we can learn from the whole match experience.
I must say, our fans were great and they kept us going,
especially when we had that good spell at the start of second
half.
It was fantastic to see the entire stand packed full of fans.
They were pushing us on and were our 12th man – sadly, we might
have needed 14 men because Fulham’s movement was incredible!
The gaffer told us to go and salute the fans because they were
fantastic and told us to just enjoy the atmosphere.
We’ve had some wonderful support this season and away from home
in particular, and I’m sure the same will be true at Sheffield
Wednesday this weekend.
Sheffield United overtook them into second place on Tuesday
night, so Wednesday will be doubly keen to beat us on Saturday and
close the gap at the top.
It’s all about the league now.
We had a nice day out last weekend and so did the fans and there
is a lot we can take from the match but everyone knows what our
priority is and we don’t intend to let our focus slip.
Wednesday, January 11 2012
The KM Group does not moderate comments.
Please click here for our house rules.