No taxi for Jones

I wasn't greatly surprised by yesterday's result.   I had it down as a 2-3 in the Badger Prediction League and that would have been the actual result if one goal for us had not been mysteriously chalked off as offside.  As Jonathan Grade has pointed out on X, the value of Norwich;s squad is over £100m, two and a half times that of Charlton.

Those hoping for the early departure of Nathan Jones, possibly now the majority of Charlton supporters, were no doubt hoping that Norwich would provide the canary in the coal mine.  However, Jones's post match remarks gave no hint that he thought that he was under pressure from upstairs and there is no speculation that I can see in this morning's print media.

No doubt the hearts of those hoping for an early exit for the excitable Welshman beat faster with the news that Burnley had sacked their barmy Belgian after just 14 games in charge, but that was a strange appointment in the first place.  

There was also the sacking of Bromley manager Andy Woodman who had transformed them from a non-league team to a League One team in short order, winning the FA Trophy along the way.  Now there is no gratitude in football, but what made it odder was that the Ravens didn't seem to have a successor lined up. Woodman indicated in a statement that the decision was not entirely mutual when Bromley were just one point away from safety.

Former Mercury sports editor Rick Everitt has emerged from a long period in purdah* to start writing Charlton match reports again.    This is what had to say in the News Shopper after the Bromley sacking: 'Jones is the third longest-serving Charlton boss since 2006, behind Lee Bowyer (two years, 358 days) and Chris Powell (three years, 56 days). He will overtake Powell at the beginning of April next year if he remains in post. And based on his record he should.

It’s obviously no coincidence that all three of those managers achieved promotion to the Championship and two of them kept the team up, while the third was unlucky not to do so.  Others, notably Johnnie Jackson (195 days), might argue they didn’t get the chance.

Jones has benefited from more supportive ownership than either of the other achievers. Powell was actively undermined and Bowyer, at best, was left to get on with things. In the end, he walked away. Neither has had further success as a manager.

Nevertheless, a run of eight consecutive winless matches feels like a potential watershed for Charlton, even if five of them have been draws. The risk of the club slipping backwards is real and an ownership transparently interested in its resale value is bound to be concerned.

What is needed, alongside three points, is a sense of proportion in the stands as well as the boardroom if things don’t go well on Saturday.'

Inevitably there was no sense of proportion among Charlton fans, but no surprise there.  Unfortunately, the Rickster has not written an account of yesterday's game.

What follows is my entirely speculative account of board thinking.   I do not pretend to know that much about football, so I take no view on what should happen.  For what it's worth, my view is that we've had better managers and worse managers.   I think there are more fundamental problems at the club than the manager.

I do think that I know something about finance having managed multi-year seven figure budgets successfully; served as a company director; and as a chair of the trustees of two charities.  

The board might well think that spending money to compensate Jones might be better deployed on signings in the January window (albeit that we should be able to get £5m to £7m for Tyreece Campbell).

All that Charlton need to do is to stay in the Championship is for three teams to be worse than them. If it's not looking good by February, that might be the time to make a change.

However, then the problems start.   Would a good quality manager want to come to Charlton?   Most of the players are below Championship standard and there is little spare cash.

The brutal fact is that the strongest statistical relationship in football is between team budget and league position.   You can get a good fit for a two variable linear regression.   Of course, some teams will over perform or under perform, but not that many.

The club has suffered from a succession of owners pursuing their own agendas, including believing that success elsewhere in business can be easily translated to football.   A number of them might be described as 'spivs' to use post war parlance.

The current owners have brought greater stability and have sought additional or replacement investors. Interest in British soccer franchises remains strong in the US.   Indeed, the Non-League Paper today has a feature on overseas investors in non-league clubs.  One American investor has been convinced that Goole Town is a 'sleeping giant'.  Unfortunately, we are not told what has been smoking.

There's not much point in appealing for patience as football is increasingly a short-term business, egged on by the goldfish brains of supporters.

*For newer supporters, Rick Everitt is a lifelong Charlton supporter who was a prominent figure in the Valley Party which secured the return of Charlton to The Valley.   One vehicle he used for this campaign was his fanzine Voice of the Valley.  He subsequently became sports editor at the erstwhile Greenwich Mercury and pioneered internet coverage for Charlton.   In due course he became an employee at the club, leading the establishment of the coach service to The Valley for fans popularly known as the 'Rickshaw'.  He was dismissed after the Belgian takeover at The Valley and subsequently was compensated in a mutually agreed settlement. 

Voice of the Valley was eventually closed as a print outlet, although the website remained.  The Rickster occasionally wrote fluent long essays on the website about Charlton, but not as often as many of us had hoped.   He was by now Labour leader of Thanet Council and was the first target of the Spectator's ludicrous campaign against the 'Charltification' of football.   Following the untimely passing of journalist and Millwall fan Rod Liddle, Lord Gove seems to have dropped this campaign.  Unfortunately. I decided to tackle Spectator associate editor Lord Young of Acton (or 'Loftus Road') head on so I am now receiving taunting emails from 'Tobes' about the relative performances of the Super Hoops and Charlton.