Tuesday 18 November 2008

Apologists for Pardew

The apologists for Alan Pardew are now out in force in the blogosphere and on the lists. Now, I think that Pardew is a decent, sincere man who wants to do his best for the club. The problem is that it just isn't working out at Charlton. You only have to look at his passive, almost dejected body language at pitchside.

Pardew's stock has been rising since he gave a courageous and impressive performance at the NW Kent 'branch' of the supporters' club. No one has doubted that he can talk the talk, but those who think that he can walk the walk as well point to two battling away performances at Plymouth and Birmingham.

Battling and committed performances are fine, although I suspect that Charlton supporters overrate them relative to grinding out a result. What he now has to do is to replicate those performances in front of a critical Valley crowd.

It also looks as if it might be a depleted Valley crowd. Admittedly uncorroborated information reaching me suggests that 'walk up' ticket sales for Saturday's match against the Blades are well down on what one would expect at this stage. It won't look too bad on the day because quite a few organised junior groups are coming, plus there is a large number of complimentaries. And, of course, season ticket holders who don't come will be counted in the crowd.

I think that there are at least three worse sides than us in the division and I think that we can probably string together enough results to avoid relegation. But I don't think a lower mid-table finish will inspire season ticket sales for next year.

Of course, the optimists point out that Palace were languishing near the bottom at this stage last year and ended up in the play offs. Arithmetically, the division is tight. But I doubt whether we have the skill or will to do it however many loan players we bring in.

The apologists for Pardew say that he is a fine manager who has hit a patch of bad luck - quite a long one when you consider his Championship record at Charlton with, I recall, just seven wins. Others say he has not had enough money, but other managers have been more successful with fewer resources.

Perhaps their strongest argument is that we can't afford to sack him and that there is no suitable replacement available. Well, can we afford to keep him? And there are plenty of managers out of work, even if one discounts internal solutions.

The manager does make a difference. Just look at what Martin O'Neill has achieved at Villa. We can't afford someone of his calibre, but we could afford someone who raised morale and stopped tinkering with the squad.

What really worries me is that many Charlton supporters are not wired for success. They seem to enjoy being in a 'backs against the wall' situation and take a perverse satisfaction in failure. Yes, we have been through more difficult times, but a little bit of success on the pitch might not come amiss.

Of course, the real disaster was the Dowie era when all that money was squandered. But we need to move on and I had hoped that Alan Pardew would be able to do that for us.

Quite probably we will get four points out of the next two matches and fans will proclaim 'crisis over'. I don't think so. The one glimmer of hope on the horizon is that a takeover remains a possibility.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure the criticism of Dowie's squandering of money is fair when compared to Pardew.Yes,he brought in Faye & Traore who we moved on & lost money on.

He brought in Diawara,who we recouped the fee on,& Reid who we made a profit on.

Pards,amongst many others,has brought in Varney,McLeod & Gray who would not bring in a fraction of what he paid for them.The fact that he has now brought another striker in tells us all we need to know.

We should break even on ZZ,we made a loss on McCarthy but sold Iwelumo on for a profit.

Moots & Racon were barely used last season.

I do not believe Dowie was any worse in the market than the current manager & arguably somewhat better.

The one thing we would all agree on is that this group of players should be doing much better.

I do not think it is a case of 'if' Pards leaves,just when.

Anonymous said...

Echo your general sentiments and last para particularly Wyn.

We did the "plucky Charlton" bit in the nineties, and I'd hoped that we had gained "assets" from our time in the Premiership that we could now use to edge other clubs in the Championship and get back to the top flight.

Those assets seem to have been burnt up in a very short period of time; I have a feeling of being back to where we were 10 years again in many respects.

Its why I place such high stock on the potential buy outs - I feel that we still have many non playing assets that make us attractive - structure, stadium, training facilities, reputation, stability, fan base (starting to leach away), commercial base, and family atmosphere.

I hope that that this is where the years we have been in the Premeirship will provide payback in the form of a bigger investor. And a new era, that does homage to, but doesn't yearn for, the plucky past.

At the moment thought we have to live with the Pardew situation.....

Pembury Addick

Anonymous said...

Anyone criticising the board at Charlton usually finds theirselves on the receiving end of some unpleasant flak, but i'll take that risk.
I know what the board have done for us. I know without them we would not now exist. I supported our Chairman and board without question, until the end of last season. But that is the past. My concern is for the present and indeed the future.
I believe the board are now more concerned with finding a buyer than they are about making difficult decisions with financial implications.
Why was it they acted after thirteen games under Dowie? Why did they sack the much loved Les Reed after six games? Yet they sit back and watch Pardew for two years, destroy their work?
I can only guess they are reluctant to remove Pardew, at some financial cost, then have a buyer come in and remove Pardew's replacement for a manager of their own choice. Better to let the takeover happen first!
That may actually be a sound move in purely financial terms. But it won't look so sound if we find ourselves in League one!
The board already seem to have accepted a return to the Premiership is not going to happen, and are therefore content with 2nd Div. (Championship) football.

Anonymous said...

I daresay that the Board is currently pondering the financial balancing act between paying Pardew off, and the potential loss of ticket sales if he should stay. The Board should consider that Charlton fans have risen up in the past, and will do so again in the future if Pardew continues to serve up the tripe he has done thusfar.

Anonymous said...

Another excelllent article Wyn, right on the money.

We Charlton fans need to be wired for success and to recognise the signs of failure early. Then we can take positive action as opposed to digging trenches. I can only think that the loss of Andy Reid was the turning point - since then we have won about 8 times from 35 league matches.

As a fan base, we don't hate Pards in a Mike Ashley way, rather that we have had enough, would prefer he kept his dignity intact and resigned. His body language at the Cardiff away match was deplorable - slumped against the dugout like a ball-boy.

We have to overcome the fact that we cannot afford to get rid of him, and just bite the bullet.
I buy 2 season tickets each year, but probably won't bother next season and just pick my games as they come. if our decline continues, many others will do the same.

Talking of decline, why does Pards think that Sunderland's Waghorn / Ian Harte / Darren Powell are going to make a tad of difference?

We need to dispense with Pards and hire Poyet(available and lives locally), or make an internal (free of charge)appointment with the single objective of getting us to 50 points.

I hope the new takeover talk has some foundation - and I will be even happier if the foundations are as strong as the Blackpool Tower !!!!

As for fans rising-up against the Board - now that the fans' elected Director has been replaced with the soppy fans forum - we are totally without inside information. I am preparing myself to deal with the news that we are losing some part of our identity because of lack of money.

As for the future, well, what about this........
Why didn't Tony Adams go with Harry to Spurs ?

Then think,Dowie/Pardew/Hudson(??).

Anonymous said...

I read your views on the Pardew situation with some interest as I don't hear or see much comment about the real problem we have.

Basically, despite all his experience, he has bought a squad of players unsuited to being successful in the Championship and with one of the highest wage bills. A big good 'un will always beat a good little 'un and our collection of individual footballers cannot survive when confronted with brawn.

We need centre halves that forwards don't want to play against and a strong spine for the team.

No one else, as I understand it, is responsible for this apart from Mr Pardew and his coaches.

He as much as admitted this after the Barnsley match - but where do we go from here?

We obviously cannot afford now to bring in 6 or 8 new players so what are the alternatives?

Much as I believe in consistency and giving a manager time, the critical factors for me were the players attitude at home to Barnsley and now despite his 'new methods'of the past two weeks, we have only one point gained.

His strategy has therefore failed both in terms of his overall squad plan and also now in trying to correct his mistakes and make the best of what he has got. If the status quo is maintained then we will struggle all season with a few injuries being the critical relegation factor

One thing we do have in our favour is a Board that has been consistently wise (apart from the mad months of Dowie) and obviously know that we have two matches, QPR and Saints until the new transfer window opens.

I think they could be waiting until then before making a decision to bring in some one new with better player contacts and influence - the 'Redknap factor'.

I also can't see anyone taking an interest in us to buy the club in our present position apart from at a knock down price.

So the hard facts of life are that the Directors are going to have to take a big loss on their loans to the club just to get the club off their hands and inject funds before we go bust next year.

Anonymous said...

I will not be going on Saturday. I am a Season Ticket holder, but my daughter, living near Portsmouth has invite us for the weekend. On earlier occasions I would have gone to the Valley and then on to Portsmouth. I can't bring my self to disrupt the family Saturday this time.

I bet (or rather hope) that they win with a performance like the one against Reading to teach me a lesson

Otherwarwickaddick