Sunday 28 December 2008

The poisoned chalice

The best case scenario for Charlton now would be for someone to buy the club who had reasonable funds at their disposal. They could then not just appoint a new manager, but undertake a fundamental review of the overall structure of the club. One might say that this is an impossible dream. I don't think it's out of the question, but I am not saying it is going to happen.

If this does not happen, then I think the way forward is not as simple as the 'get rid of Parkinson and bring anyone in' school would argue. Supposing the next manager fails as well? Where do you go from there?

The problem is that the position is not likely to be an attractive one to a manager of the right calibre. First, whoever comes in is going to have to achieve a very challenging win ratio to avoid relegation. And that is going to have to be done with a squad that is deficient in a number of respects. In my view the debate about our problems - as is so often the case in football - has focused too much on the manager and not enough on the shortcomings of the players. Some of them are talented enough for the Championship, but the sum of the parts is not good enough.

Moreover, any new manager is going to have little money to play with, particularly after Parkinson is paid off.

I am glad I am not on the board because I am not sure what I would do in these circumstances. I would keep looking for a buyer, but the board have been doing that anyway. I would cut back the size of the squad in January. There are simply too many players to whom we are paying wages who never feature. And I would see if I could find a good playmaker for central midfield at a realistic price and wages - which would probably be too big an ask.

I think my judgement about the managerial position would be influenced by whether there was a good manager with League 1 experience who was available and up for a very difficult challenge. Whether such a person exists I simply don't know.

What I think is clear is that either Parkinson needs to be replaced or he needs to be confirmed as manager for the rest of the season. Which way the board will go I simply don't know. It's not a call I could make myself without more information about the available alternatives.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with a lot of this. However the big problem is that the Board never learnt the lessons from 2 years ago. IMO if they had got rid of Parky at the same time they did Pardew we could now have a half decent man in charge and be heading out of this mess. All rather too late now i fear.

Ken Jennings said...

Just two weeks ago, Derek Chappell made this statement: "This season we must ensure we maintain our Championship status, which is a huge change from setting out in August with hopes of a play-off place."

I am dying to hear how he intends to go about it because there's nothing I've seen/heard since that remotely backs up the declared intent.

Call me impatient.

Anonymous said...

I am sure Chappell is a figment of somebody,s imagination

Anonymous said...

Wyn - I agree wih what you say about deep seated problems, but there is still something about the way the team is being coached that appears to be wrong. To return to my well worn theme, take corners as an example. Against QPR on Boxing Day we had a lot of corners. All of them, with one or two exceptions, were woeful. Bouazza made the same mistake three times in a row. Basey, who is normally quite good at them, was worse. Yesterday, listening to the commentary, it sounded like the same applied, really poor ccorners. Surely that is a matter of hard work on the training ground? Same for defending corners and free kicks. There is something not right in the way we approach them. Our throw-ins also always look much more static than those of other teams.

Corner Counter

Anonymous said...

I am listening to a Bob Dylan track called "Everything is Broken" which sums up our position. It must be back to basics. Notts Forest won without a manager yesterday so I propose that we get rid of the Board, Coaching Staff and CEO. On a strictly rotating basis, one stand chose the team, the next give the team talk before the match and the final stand do the half time and tactical substitutes. It can be no worse than what has happened so far this season.