The year gone by

It's not been a good one for the Addickted. Relegation is never pleasant and it came after a year when we went through two managers before finding the right one. It also came at a time when there has been a further substantial boost in Premiership revenues.

The standard of play in the Championship is far worse than I remember it. There is a great deal of hoofing the ball and a lot of physical play which is not checked most of the time by the referees. If you lose possession in the Premiership, you don't get it back for at least five minutes. There is also a considerable difference in the quality of the defences. One worrying aspect of this is that the less hard core Charlton supporters are unlikely to come back for another season of the same fare, particularly without the lure of a free Premiership season ticket.

Which brings me to the question of the club's finances. Before the first instalment of the Darren Bent money came in, the club was effectively insolvent in the summer. The directors had to dig deep in the pockets to bail it out. We should be very grateful to them. But it is not a solution we can rely on for ever.

Nothing more has been heard about possible takeovers or injections of new capital. It may well be that the only offers that have come forward are not acceptable ones in the sense that are consistent with the kind of club Charlton is and hence have been turned down. If that is the case, I think it is the right decision.

However, if you had a wedge and no allegiance to a particular club, would you invest in Charlton? The money going to the Championship is favouring one club cities with a prosperous hinterland: Coventry, Leicester, Ipswich. Admittedly, there has been no deal at Southampton, but that is partly to do with the board there which includes a number of hangovers from the old regime who still hold substantial shareholdings.

The one exception is Queen's Park Rangers and I must admit that it baffles me. If I wanted to invest in a lesser London club I would choose Charlton over QPR every time. Apart from the fact that we have a stadium rather than a cramped ground based on a shoebox design, we have much more potential, given the housing planned for the Thames Gateway and the hinterland in Kent, criss crossed by Rickshaws. I suspect that the explanation is simply down to personal connections.

Sometimes the Charlton fans and their lack of ambition worry me. Although they grumble about managers, players and tactics, they seem broadly accepting of the club's second rank status. In particular too many of them seem to want the club to be a kind of Crewe, bringing on younger and non-league players.

If we don't go up next year, and we don't get any new investment, the future is bleak. The Championship is littered with ex Premiership clubs now engaged in a struggle to survive financially and to avoid the drop into League 1. Just consider the case of Sheffield Wednesday which we have recently looked at: Owls

My predictions for 2008 are:
1. Charlton make the play offs but are defeated at Wembley by Ipswich.
2. Alan Pardew leaves in the summer and is replaced by Phil Parkinson.
3. Reid, Thomas and Sam are sold in the summer window.

I hope that all three predictions are wrong!