Sunday 6 November 2011

Kermorgant: I want to face Foxes for Charlton

One reason Yann Kermorgant wants to secure promotion with Charlton is so that he can play against Leicester City where he feels he was not well treated.

For Leicester fans he is the man who missed a £90m penalty.   His chipped penalty in the play-off final against Cardiff City was easily saved, ending the Foxes' hopes of promotion to the top flight.  Of course, they would still have had to win the final.

The Breton is the subject of a feature article in today's The Football League Paper which suddenly seems to have woken up to Charlton as Bradley Wright-Phillips is also featured.

Kermorgant said, 'There is still a little bitterness over my time at Leicester because I think I deserved better and that I never really got a chance.   [As for the penalty] I'd come on ten minutes earlier, I had no confidence whatsoever and there was huge pressure on me.'

'I'd tried the chipped penalty before with success, but I was probably more confident when I'd done it before.  That time I wasn't in the right frame of mind and I executed it poorly.  I became the scapegoat.  I was the only Frenchman, everything was my fault.   It's easy to criticise but there weren't that many people who put their names forward to Nigel Pearson.'

As for the move to The Valley, 'When I got the opportunity at Charlton, it was with Chris and I knew him from my time at Leicester.   I didn't want to end my time in England as a failure.  And it was an opportunity to work with someone who knew what I could do, as well as at a big club in London.'

He notes, 'We've seen Norwich go up two years in a row, Southampton look like they might do the same.  Why not Charlton?'   He probably doesn't know that is just what we did in the 1930s under Jimmy Seed (my father always thought - rightly - that that was a more significant achievement that winning the FA Cup).  Most of us would settle for being in the Championship for now, whether Leicester are there or not.

Bradley Wright-Phillips is actually pictured on the front page of The Football League Paper.  You can buy an online copy more cheaply than in the newsagent.

If like me you find it difficult to stay up late to watch The Football League Show and don't want to use I-player, you can see it (repeated at least once) on Channel 301 on Sunday mornings.  It is then available later in the morning on the red button.

No comments:

Post a Comment