Could he? Could he just be one of those blokes who everyone secretly hates a bit but everything he touches turns to gold making unpopular decisions along the way? Time will tell obviously ... just so drained by all this... A couple of wins and we will all feel an awful lot better...
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We stay up he is half right.
We stay up and he invest in players not dumps players on us he is three quarters right.
Lets give the guy a break and have a little faith, after all moaning isn't going to have any affect.
You still moaned which you yourself say "will have no effect".
I haven't got a problem with you moaning about Powell but it is a bit rich for you to then ask others who disagree with you not to complain and give someone a break. You can't have both ways.
One thing is certain, he will try to make money from every club. My guess is he will try to first break even by signing players between his small network, most profitable team buying best quality available at one of those making a loss (if player A can genuinely help the more profitable team to improve further) etc. Build from there on all fronts and ensure a dividend is returned from TV money and as player sales to teams outside the network also help achieve this.
Where do the riches lie, Champions League and Premiership, based on TV revenues, merch etc.? I would hazard a guess that the two priorities would be SL to keep winning their league and gradually improving performance in CL yoy and us into the Prem over 3-5 years, predominantly built on our academy output.
One thing I'd be more confident about is how much information RD is willing to share with us, the media, every other football club in the world about his strategy - very little. I totally agree with that approach in business, quietly get on with implementing your strategy and gradually build the success based on the success criteria you have set for the venture.
Will this satisfy every fan's thirst for comfort messaging, no, but it will I believe give us more of an advantage over transfers and club transformation (securing the most attractive pricing deals etc) in future.
Good luck Roland - I am nervously excited about what results from your plans.
There are two ways in which an owner of a Club in the Championship might proceed. The first is to spend money, either for fun (as in the case of the owner of Huddersfield - who I saw on the train from London Bridge to Charlton last night) or more ambitiously to secure promotion to the promised land of the Premier League. Duchatelet has made it clear that he is not going to do either. The second approach, and the only option for Duchatelet, is to focus on "smart" player recruitment and development and to think hard about "the time value of money" when negotiating contracts.
Ironically, and I'm not criticising Chris Powell when I say this, or defending Duchatelet (who has a lot to prove at this point), the appointment of Jose Riga is the first thing Duchatelet has done which fits with his apparent strategy and suggests that he might actually be serious. Riga is clearly intelligent, analytical, perhaps even scientific. He is likely to be the antithesis of the traditional British Manager and, hence, much more compatible with Duchatelet. That does not mean he'll be a Yes man. Most importantly, his background is in player development. And that's the key point.
Who knows if its going to work out or even, as some are already suggesting, if Riga's long-term role will be to run the Academy and to advise, more generally, on coaching and development matters with somebody else taking over as Head Coach in the Summer. However, the Duchatelet experiment has to be worth a try and it's easy to understand why he prefers this, more intelligent approach to the alternative of throwing money down a bottomless pit. We may never know whether Chris Powell really did have the chance to be part of this strategy or, alternatively, whether he did, but just couldn't buy into it. If the latter then that's his prerogative, but we move on.
I suspect the answer to the question is, "Yes, Roland could be right, but only time will tell if he is right." What is not in doubt is that he's the only shot we've got. I certainly hope he's right, therefore.
There's a lot more to a club than the results on the pitch. We've managed as an independent entity for over a century. Hate the idea of being the UK branch of FC Duchatelet, even if it does bring results on the pitch (which it certainly hasn't so far).
The big decisions he has made so far are entirely consistent with that plan. Iindeed, I honestly cannot see how anyone would really want CP to be forced - by his own love for the club - to stay in a job where he was obviously unhappy and was not buying into what RD is planning, to me it is just selfishness for people to demand that, but that is only my opinion.
So I admire the way that he has a thought-out long-term strategy and is intent on sticking to it - that is what we need and I would say that it will be at least two or three years before we can make a proper assessment.
I don't know the man to like him or not, but I do admire what he has done so far.
That said, I do have misgivings about being part of a stable of clubs. I'm really not sure how healthy it is. I'm concerned that players will (continue to be?) foisted upon the team whether required or not, that someone looking at a bigger picture than just Charlton will meddle with team selections, or that we could lose our academy products before they've been given a chance to flourish with us. Although, when did we ever keep our starlets for long anyway?
I dream that one day we'll have a chairman/owner/benefactor who is not only minted but has a genuine love of Charlton. A Whelan, a Walker, Kenwright, Harding.... One of the things that really got to me about the last mob was that the only one with a voice was so open about his love of Man City. Not that I've anything against them, other than the fact that they are not Charlton. It's probably too much to ask but I long for a time when the club is owned/run by people who love the club for what it is, and don't see it as a potential cash cow.
Surely we had a project to get us out of League 1, no objections to that project was there?