I'm off to give evidence to a European Parliament Committee in Brussels today and it's a House of Commons reception tomorrow evening so I will be up the river from Charlton. Can't say I'm that disappointed to be missing the game against Coventry which I normally look forward to. Charlton must get a win eventually, but this one looks like another draw.
In all the calls for a new manager to be brought in, one uncomfortable fact is often overlooked: perhaps the players are not good enough. Our defence may have stabilised a little, but often gets caught out at set pieces. The midfield would be stronger if Racon and Zheng Zhi were available, but, as it is, it often goes awol and provides poor service to the forwards.
And we can't score goals because we lack a proven goal scorer. Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't recall Fleetwood and give him a chance to see what he can do.
The one ray of hope is that I wouldn't rule out a takeover. The club's position may lower the price somewhat, but that only increases its attractiveness given the quality of the assets and the potential of the catchment area.
6 comments:
This is a bit of a 'I told you so' but I said before a ball was kicked that we would struggle to avoid relegation this season. We are pretty poor all around the pitch. Pards bought a succession of lemons , most notably Andy Gray , the biggest most expensive lemon of all and continued to play Ambrose who sucks the spirit out of the team ( watched him do it for Ipswich yesterday).
However the biggest problem for the past 3 years is the midfield which has no strength or leader . Matt Holland is great , but he's past his best
On strikers, look who scored for Derby on Saturday...
Still no utterance from our leader Mr chappell.Where has all the money gone?If on players wages then the board is responsible and should hold their hands up
We have one of the most light weight midfields in the league. It is the one area that has been a problem since the Jenson, Parker, Holland partnership ended years ago. Semedo plays the 'Makelele role' quite well but then you need a creative player infront of him. As for the wingers, Bouazza and Sam go missing far to often and rarely run to the line to put a cross in. As for our forwards, i still think Dickson has something about him to come on for the last 20 minutes of a match. Toddy was a gamble that hasn't paid off. Gray does everything in slow motion. Mcloud has been left out for so long, he probably doesn't want to be there and Fleetwood was a waste of money. We can't keep getting loans in either as we will just go through this all again next season. A new manager with fresh ideas who can work on a budget is the only answer. For me that leaves Curbs, Big Sam and Billy Davies.
I totally agree on the quality of the players. The midfield have been really poor since Reid left. Our limited ability strikers get exceptionally poor service. And it's not often that the midfield chip in with any goals themselves. As for our strikers, god knows how Andy Gray cost us over a million. This has to go down as one of Pard's biggest mistakes.
I don't blame the board. I blame the two managers who frittered a lot of money on very average players. But I think we have to stick with PP for the time being. I don't understand the clamour for Allardyce. He plays awful football and has a proven record of signing out of contract players on big wages. Allardyce is the last thing we need right now. If we're going to get a new manager, we need someone who knows the lower leagues. So often clubs come to the Valley and you've never heard of a single player on their team sheet but they run us ragged. These are the players we want playing for us at the Valley - not Allardyce and his fat ugly cats.
The view that Dowie wasted a lot of money is a popular myth. Most of what he spent was recouped (Reid and Diawara and even Traore for example). Perhaps the real problem is that the club has never really recovered from the very poor and ageing squad Curbs left behind. Ultimately, this has made life very difficult for all who followed and it clearly went badly pear shaped under Pards. His transfer dealings, which seemed quite enlightened in his first summer in charge, were a complete disaster. He didn't have one real winner and made a number of bad mistakes of which Gray is perhaps the most obvious. However, back to my point above, you might expect a side that enjoyed seven successive seasons in the Premiership to enter the Championship with a number of fringe/young players who would then step up. The nearest Charlton have to that is Lloyd Sam and that is an appalling indictment of the way Curbs managed the squad I'm afraid to say.
On Allardyce, it should be remembered that he began, successfully, with Blackpool and then took Notts County to the Fourth Division Championship with a record points total before establishing Bolton in the Premier League. He is a good manager with a proven track record. That is why many people would like to see him at the Valley. For most, the "quality" of the football is of second order importance right now. If the Board had half a chance of hiring him (and who knows whether they did) and missed it in order to give Parky 2/3 games to show what he can do, they may well regret that indecision for as long as they are at the Club.
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