I have tried several times to write something about what I and many others went through last night and failed.
I am not and will never be one of those calling for the departures of Les Reed or the Board. My history with this club goes back a long time and I am acutely aware of the service given by both.
I understand the reaction of the fans last night and in one area they were spot on. The players were not fit to wear the shirts on that pitch for any match or against any opposition, let alone a Cup quarter final against League Two opponents.
There is something seriously wrong within the squad that allows such ineptitude to continue, is it the coaching? Is it the tactics? Well in truth neither I, nor I suspect anyone on here, will know for sure.
What I do know is this. Professional people in whatever walk of life do professional jobs. In every walk of life there are people who are better at their jobs than others, but what you should always expect is that each professional will do what they are trained and paid to do, to the best of their ability and with a self pride to give an honest performance.
What we witnessed last night was a group of highly paid professionals hiding from responsibility, with no self pride and no honesty in their performance.
We were not just beaten by a plucky little club from League Two. We were outclassed by another group of professionals who regardless of their perceived stature actually wanted something more than their supposed superior counterparts.
I do not expect or require silky, sexy football that brings football riches beyond my wildest dreams. I do not expect or require the players of my club to bow down before me individually and thank me for helping put a healthy array of food and expensive goodies in their temporary homes.
What I do expect is honesty both to me, themselves and to the poor sods at the helm who despite either saving the club from extinction, or helping us get to the stage we are now at, are subject to abuse and ridicule from supporters who for their own reasons need to vent their spleen at witnessing what went on last night.
What is certain, is that we have lost our club spirit, a spirit that has helped keep us in a division that many outside of the Valley believe we do not belong in.
We have in the past been renowned for buying Charlton style players, ones with something to prove. Well if any of that dross that appeared on the pitch last night need to prove something both to fans, the management, the board, but equally to themselves.
THE TIME IS NOW!
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Comments
The club has lost its heart. It's not the board's fault as they were the ones who recussitated it in the first place. Unfortunately the writing's been on the wall for a while, we've grown to a stage where we were topping up the stadium with non-Charlton fans, hiring professional American-style pitch announcers and unfortunately filling the team with player who just don't care enough.
I'll never condone booing one of those board members, or Les Reed for that matter but that group of players have let us down badly and deserved everything they got last night.
(conceded 8 scored 1, and that was an OG) have destroyed what little
confidence the team gained from the blackburn result. Unfortunately Les
seems unable to lift them at the moment, but I'm not sure Pardew is the
answer. West Ham have a better squad, yet they were in free-fall and he was
unable to lift them, why think he can do any different for us?
There is obviously some discord in the changing room, so Janauary becomes
vital. Les needs to get rid of the trouble makers asap and get in some
grafters. I think you will see the following players leave in January:
Luke Young
Marcus Bent
JFH
Romm
Ambrose
and unfortunately
Darren Bent.
That will raise in the region of £18m and get our highest earners off the
wage bill. Les will then need to get in around 8 or 9 players with that
money, essentially building a new team. A team that will need to get about
20 points from 12-15 games.
although right it's not realistic. Young injured so going nowhere. JFH who will pay his wages. M Bent, Ambrose, Romm not worth a bean and who will want them. D Bent yeah I reckon he'll go. Five in and unrealistic to expect them to hit the ground running. It'll take till mod-Feb to mould a team and by then it's too late. Also, who will come. Even a winger from Gillingham will have second thoughts and wait for another Club to come in.
Anyway, I like the content of the thread, but the title got Moloko stuck in my mind!
Young will be fit before the window closes (just), and I fancy will be off if he possibly can be. Think Romm is worth a couple of million on the continent, Bent (Jnr) is going to go for £12m plus, there are at least 3 clubs after him, so the price will be high. Already rumours of JFH going, and his wages aren't that high (certainly no where near what he was earning at Boro).
So I don't think it's unrealistic for all or most of those above to leave and for there to be over £15m generated.
I agree that the problem will be getting players in, especially the sort of players we need. Even if they don't hit the ground running they will be better than what we've got at the moment. If we are going to only get around 4 players in then the essential ones are:
A centre back who can lead and organise (probably going to be a costa-like loan of an older player)
A centre midfielder with kish's workrate plus a bit of quality on the ball and again, leadership quality (god knows where we'll find this one!)
A goal scorer (£6m for Nugent? Anybody else worth going in for?)
An attacking midfielder (if we're losing Romm and Ambrose we need somebody to help Reid with the creating)
A full-back to replace Luke Young (on his recent performances we could get anybody from the conference in to do a better job).
The we've got to hope that Thomas, Pouso, Sorondo and Gibbs perform when fit. Also we've got Walton coming back from Ipswich and Sam looked good against Blackburn.
The board need to decide which way they want to go. Do they concede that we're almost certainly going down and therefore start building a team capable of gaining promotion, or do they cling on to hope and risk still going down and not having a team capable of promotion next season.
Romm is out of contract at the end of the season so worth 500k tops in January. Kent Messenger said last week that Pouso returning to Uruaguay in January window. Agree otherwise.