Happier days?
Curbs is currently on. He is being interviewed alongside other 'football personalities' such as the Turnip.
Curbs made clear that there is no back to the future for him. As he put it, he served a 'long apprenticeship' at Charlton, i.e., he implied that he had stayed too long. During this time he achieved two promotions and was then accused of being 'boring mid-table Premiership' which clearly still rankles. He argued that Charlton needed to get someone else in to do a rebuilding job, which sounded sensible to me.
A fan texted in and pleaded with him to come back, but Curbs pointed out that he was just one of 22,000 or 23,000. He made a joke of it.
He is clearly still looking for a Premiership job. As he put in, a manager will fall by the wayside sooner or later and there will be a vacancy which might suit him. Whether he is right about that, we shall have to wait and see. But I doubt whether he is short of the readies to pay the gas bill in the meantime.
However, it was reported that his wife was across in the road in the new shopping mall. Curbs did say that he had now been out of work for ten weeks, but he was enjoying the absence of pressure. It had been particularly difficult at Upton Park because he was an ex-West Ham player and a West Ham fan. So no illusions about having a place for Charlton in his heart.
I was his kit sponsor for many years and got to know him reasonably well. Like any human being, he has his faults. He can be quite stubborn which was probably a virtue when he was building the club up but became a problem later on.
Curbs has just been complaining about players knocking on his door and asking for a place which he had a moan about to me when he was managing Charlton. I don't think he was the best man manager in the world, and he did tend to bear grudges. But, all round, he was and is very capable. He is mainly talking about the Hampsters now.
I don't think he is the answer to our present dilemma. I would still not rule out Parkinson becoming the permanent manager (as a forecast outcome rather than something I am advocating). It would be a low cost solution and I suspect it has been Plan B for some time. Indeed, the board's reluctance to get rid of Pardew may be in part because they were uncertain about Parkinson.
The fact is that there is little public domain information about much how much of a role Pardew allowed him, although I would suspect not much. While he is caretaker for a few matches, the fans can form a view. But for now he is the manager and I hope that fans will back him, at least in a temporary capacity.
10 comments:
You can never go back in life so Curbs was never an option. Given the Boards performance since his departure there is no guarantee they will get this stage right. They are partly to blame for what has been a shambolic year. How many games have we actually one since Andy Reid was sold by the Board?
We need to give the club a boost and get in a personality that will get the players respect, get the crowd behind them as they organise the team. The first priority has to be stop letting in goals. Pardew's lament after Barnsley that Primus was missing has seen us leak 10 goals in 3 games since his return.
Big Sam has to be the man.
I don't think the funds are there to bring in someone like Big Sam. He would have to take a lower wage than he is worth, and could dump us in it if a better offer comes along. Because of this, I think it will be hard for the board to attract a big name. Therefore I would like to see someone come in who can immediately gain respect from the players and who has a point to prove. possibly someone like Chris Powell (I appreciate it will be a big step up for him, but you know he would give everything), Darren Ferguson or Aidy Boothroyd.
The situation for a new manager.
Pluses:
Nothing to lose.
Minuses:
No money.
No sellable assets.
No financial backing from board.
Limited squad with limited ability.
A squad someone else built.
Poor league position.
Distractions from board trying to offload club.
Fans booing after a couple of losses.
Wyn,
Excellent articles as usual and well summed up. I think I might have been one of those Pardew apologists you mention a few blogs back but, my point then was as you raised today that Pardew seemed a decent guy and I for was hoping for him and the club that he could turn it around. He couldn't.
Was it the players, his tactics or a combination of both. Playing 4-5-1 at home yesterday wasn't good. Especially as the lone striker is out of form and has personal problems ( I read somewhere he hadn't trained much last week, it showed). I'm not sure what Pardew would think would happen but it smacked of an unconfident manager.
As you quite rightly point out how much sway has Parkinson had? He didn't do well at Hull. Napoleon liked Generals who were lucky, Pardew certainly didn't have much. Lets hope Parkinson can make himself some he'll definitely need it.
We don't need any old players taking the helm. It worked once I doubt it would work again. Neither do we want any of Pardew's old back room staff. The players we have may not be up to much, but some organisation and sensible tatics will at least give them confidence. Parky has to take he's share of the blame for the current shambles, and I doubt the players would have much respect for him because of his association with our current pradicatment.
Just to respond to a few of the points. Can I defend the board over Andy Reid? What Reid said was that he would stay if we could match Sunderland's salary offer - and the gap was a big one. The money wasn't there. As far as saleable assets are concerned, there is still Zheng Zhi. I am not a Parkinson advocate, but I am saying it is a possible outcome. In the meantime he should be backed as caretaker manager.
a possible solution considering the finacial situation would be darren ferguson, might not have the money to buy but could get a couple of decent loans in from man utd.also he is a young hungry manager who if like his dad will kick a few arses into touch
nigel clough,,,, wouldnt cost much to pry him away from burton
Darren Ferguson or Nigel Clough strike me as feasible, affordable suggestions, managers who might make an impact.
My understanding was that the sale of Reid was "forced" to prevent us from going into administration, so balance 10 points lost against the ones Reid would have been fit to gain us. Its naive to think we will pull in a real name - we don't haver the money, the squad or the position in the table. Why should Parkinson take any blame, the man who lead the back room staff was Pardew and Parkinson followed his lead, football management is not about being a democracy - what pardew wants Pardew gets - except three points. My biggest hope is that Parkie succeeds and we do not pay out £500k in compensation to back room staff, don't forget we retained parkie after he turned down the Huddersfield managers jobs for a new charlton contract. ZZ is unlikely to pull in huge funding, given that he has not really made his mark when playing and that his contract is up for grabs at the end of the season, £250 K. Incidentally, I noticed that he is no longer signing Charlton shirts, the one he gave away on the pitch yesterday was a chinese shirt.
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