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Why are we playing so badly?

NomadicAddickNomadicAddick
in General Charlton
So, I've not been to a single game this season - so far.

I am boycotting home games, I will be there to protest against Coventry. And unfortunately I haven't been able to make an away game yet due to various commitments but I'm hoping I can make it to port vale

Despite not going I obviously am still taking a massive interest in charlton as I always would I just don't want to line RDs pockets. I'm reading thread after thread of post match views but I still geninuely don't know what is the reason that we are doing so badly? From what I read initially Holmes seemed really promising and Lookman seemed like he was going to push on and make a proper name for himself, so I'm just really baffled as to what is going so wrong.

Is it down to Slade being tactically inept, the small crowds, the lack of signings? Obviously I haven't been to a game yet so I just am wondering what people actually think is the main reason that we have started, well I think it's at the point of the season we can say now, pretty badly.
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    All_Thaid_UpAll_Thaid_Up
    Stupid thing is 99.9% of us knew pre season our central midfield was too slow and old. Nothing has changed that - they had plenty of time to fix it but didn't.

    Now our 3 50+ goals last season can't score either.

    Surely we must have some U23's that could at least give us some legs.

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    daveydangerdaveydanger
    Last season, despite being crap, you always had the sense that amongst those players was some untapped quality waiting to be unlocked.

    Players like Makienok, Vetokele, Gudmundson, Diarra, Fanni, even the ghost of Poyet... there was always a hope that if we could just get them fit, firing and playing well together, we would have just too much quality to go down. That didn't happen, of course.

    The depressing thing is that this year I don't see any untapped potential in that side. We have some good players at this level, and several passengers that offer nothing.. and that's it. There is no great hope waiting to come back from injury, no players that feel like they could 'click' and start playing amazingly, and no loan market to rely upon. We are stuck with a dreadful midfield has no room to improve - it is what it is.

    The only tiny hope is that some youth prospects come through and give the whole thing a jump-start. I have no idea how good players like Aribo are, but they must surely be worth a shot at this point.
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    Kelvedon AddickKelvedon Addick
    I agree. With the players at our disposal, we should not be in the relegation zone of League One. In fact, but for two lucky draws against Oxford and Oldham (bottom club!), we would be third from bottom.
    Our lack of tactical ability and ineffectual formations has to be the fault of the manager. For instance, everyone could see that playing "one up front" wasn't working yesterday, why couldn't Slade?
    Quite clearly, the objective this season now has to be avoiding relegation to League Two. Forget any thought of trying to get into the top six!
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    TeslaGirlTeslaGirl
    Surely there's a young man with a spreadsheet somewhere, who also doesn't attend games, but who is certain that he's calculated that it's the right combination of players and strategy, so we should be winning hence it must be down to factors he can't control, like the mist rolling in from the Thames?
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    queensland_addickqueensland_addick
    As mentioned above, it's the midfield that makes a team tick. Without that it's pointless recruiting good goal scorers or retaining Lookman. We could see what was required, but it seems that despite more than enough time to identify numerous targets, they focussed on one, a loanee, who they failed to land. Cousins and Harriott could both have made a big difference. It was unrealistic to hang on to Cousins, less so Harriott. Even so, we recruited Botaka another player who can take on defenders and create chances, but Slade refuses to give him more than 10 minute cameo roles. It doesn't make any sense, we are not scoring goals, Ajose and Novak are not scoring, yet he persists with negative, pedestrian, team selections. My guess is that all is not well behind the scenes regarding player recruitment and Slade is sulking and refusing to play certain players. These are recurring problems and nothing will ever change while this mob are in charge.
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    vffvff
    edited October 2016
    Slade should be getting more of the squad at his disposal, and appears tactically clueless and leaden. This team has weakness in the central midfield but what has Slade tried to set out a different formation to focus on strengths and mitigate that weakness ? Why can't Botaka get a game ? It is pointless having Ajose, without providing him service from midfield, on the floor. Playing Magennis up front on his own, without pace on both wings and being miles away from supporting players to pick up knock downs is utterly pointless. Lookman is a very good player but why he is taking all the corners, why continue to play a dog's slow midfield ?

    But pinning everything on Slade is not right, as useless as he is turning out. Any manager would struggle under the conditions set up by Duchatelet & Meire. It is how Charlton ended up with such a poor manager in the first place. Changing managers is not going to remove the flaws, ineptness and complete absence of footballing sense with Duchatelet, Drieson and the SMT.

    Duchatelet, Drieson & Meire yesterday talk about mistakes. Meire did it again yesterday. We don't know what specific mistakes these are. It is clear that not building a stable squad with time for a pre season or leaving gaping holes in the team - this time the central midfield - was one of them.

    The players know the weakness of the squad, limitations of the manager, the ineptness of the SMT & the lack of ambition / interest from Duchatelet . The players don't appear to believe the spin. Neither does a very large number of the support.

    @queensland_addick is very likely right about all not being well behind the scenes. How many of the players joined on the promise at a proper shot at the Champtionship but don't see a properly constructed team ? Slade battled for Crofts, but lets face it, he is a squad back up player.

    Queensland also correct that the problems will recur whilst Duchaltet & Meire are in charge.
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    AddickFC81AddickFC81
    We played good against Wimbledon for 75 minutes. Did well at Sunny. Played ok but not badly at Oxford. The league games before then we done ok in most of them apart from Bury. So we have been off the boil in the last 2 at home. So we haven't been play playing bad all the time. We have enough quality in the squad to pull away. Maybe not challenge the top 6 though but enough to pull away from the bottom 4. Performances will iprove again.
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    LeuthLeuth
    AddickFC81 said:

    We played good against Wimbledon for 75 minutes. Did well at Sunny. Played ok but not badly at Oxford. The league games before then we done ok in most of them apart from Bury. So we have been off the boil in the last 2 at home. So we haven't been play playing bad all the time. We have enough quality in the squad to pull away. Maybe not challenge the top 6 though but enough to pull away from the bottom 4. Performances will iprove again.

    There's two sides to this, sure, but the positive side is being rather eclipsed by Slade's fatuous tactics.
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    stonemusestonemuse
    AddickFC81 said:

    We played good against Wimbledon for 75 minutes. Did well at Sunny. Played ok but not badly at Oxford. The league games before then we done ok in most of them apart from Bury. So we have been off the boil in the last 2 at home. So we haven't been play playing bad all the time. We have enough quality in the squad to pull away. Maybe not challenge the top 6 though but enough to pull away from the bottom 4. Performances will iprove again.

    Which is not good enough at this level
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    stonemusestonemuse
    Garrymanilow said:

    There's no plan, both for tactics and for game management. Slade hasn't been helped by the haphazard recruitment process but we haven't gone into this season with any idea of how we're going to play. We've tried the 4-4-2 with one winger, one wide midfielder (who isn't a wide midfielder) and the big man-quick man combo. It wasn't brilliant so we tried 4-4-2 with Novak and Magennis. That wasn't the best so we decided to cancel football against Scunthorpe and played 4-5-1 with the big man up front, one winger and FOUR holding midfielders, one playing as a wide midfielder. While that didn't fail it essentially caused football to stop existing so we actually tried 4-5-1 with a big man and two wingers on Saturday. We've also had five different centre halves in varying different combinations (Konsa, Johnson, Bauer, Pearce, Lennon) despite the fact we've only played 13 games.

    There's no logic or consistency to any of it, and the players must be as confused as we are. We've got no plan for what to do when we're attacking as there's no creative spark in midfield. Both Holmes and Lookman are talented but have a tendency to go alone or overplay and don't really bring players into the game, and our central midfielders just want to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, preferably sideways, backwards or to an opposition player. Forwards isn't on the menu. That isolates the strikers, making Ajose look like a tall, lost mascot, and means that because no-one's actually bothered to map out phases of play, Magennis's big shiny head is the only obvious outlet. We also don't have quick full backs, so there's no option for overloading in wide areas. Back into the middle it goes, and then lumped forward.

    I'm also amazed at how bad we are at managing games. Under Peeters and Luzon there was a running joke that it didn't really matter if we went 1-0 up because you just had to wait for the equaliser. That we put down to a young squad with very little experience playing in England and playing together. The introduction of an experienced manager and experienced players like Pearce, Foley and Crofts was supposed to bring that nous in. 1-0 up against Wimbledon and unable to take our additional chances, it was time to either bring on a fresh attacker to stretch a tired defence or kill the game. Ruin it. Make the people watching pray for death but come away with 3 points. But we didn't. Slade didn't make the obvious changes either way and instead we meekly allowed Wimbledon to change their play, move their playmaker, bring on a bunch of giraffes and beat us in 15 minutes. Only when it was too late did Slade change anything, but by then the panic had set in and it was frantic. Players should be coached on how to manage a game, how to deal with the inevitable assault that's coming when you're 1-0 up and the game's nearing the end. It's League One, it's hardly going to be tiki-taka; you're going to get high balls into the box and an overload of players in there. You either trust your defenders to clear their lines and bring on a fresh attacker to take advantage of the gaps the opposition are now leaving or you bring on more bastards to clear the ball away. Everyone in the stadium can feel these equalisers coming and yet the manager and the players seem to have no idea what to do about it. It's killing us. We could have at least 7 additional points if we just spent some time on game management, but it doesn't seem to even come up

    Good summary
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    ShootersHillGuruShootersHillGuru
    It's because of Slade. He has on the evidence so far zero tactical nous and is far too negative. Very good players at league one level are floundering under his coaching.

    It's very simple. We are very poor as a team because he is very poor as a coach.

    Until he departs we will continue to disappoint.

    The form in the first quarter of the season if it continues will see us relegated. Our points to games ratio is relegation form.

    He has in my estimation half a dozen games to turn it round but he can't. He's not tactically sound enough to do that.

    Either the regime get rid or we seriously in danger of finishing in the lowest position in the clubs history.

    It's a cluster fuck club from top to bottom.

    I personally don't have any faith that the tailspin can be stopped now.
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    limeygentlimeygent
    We got a "leftover" manager after all the good ones had found jobs. Trouble is if we got rid of Slade, who else would come and work for these idiots?
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    Covered EndCovered End
    Sometimes managers stumble across a winning formation, but Slade won't do this unless he tries something different.

    Like I say there are loads of possibilities, just try some, your meant to manage.
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    ricky_ottoricky_otto
    Covered End said:

    Sometimes managers stumble across a winning formation, but Slade won't do this unless he tries something different.

    Like I say there are loads of possibilities, just try some, your meant to manage.

    Spot on.

    His idea of trying something new is playing Foley at right back.

    He should have gone with Holmes and Lookman wide yesterday. Novak and Ajose up from and Konsa at RB. We were playing Rochdale not Barcelona.

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    AddickFC81AddickFC81
    We need to get into the players psychy. They just need a bit of confidence.
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    blackpool72blackpool72
    Three reasons we are playing bad.
    1 Slade
    2 Slade
    3 Slade
    He is totally inept he has a decent squad of players for this level even with an aging midfield. Problem is he seems incapable of getting the best out of them
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    ricky_ottoricky_otto
    blackpool72 said:

    Three reasons we are playing bad.
    1 Slade
    2 Slade
    3 Slade
    He is totally inept he has a decent squad of players for this level even with an aging midfield. Problem is he seems incapable of getting the best out of them

    I can think of a 4th as well....slade

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    SageSage
    Garrymanilow said:

    There's no plan, both for tactics and for game management. Slade hasn't been helped by the haphazard recruitment process but we haven't gone into this season with any idea of how we're going to play. We've tried the 4-4-2 with one winger, one wide midfielder (who isn't a wide midfielder) and the big man-quick man combo. It wasn't brilliant so we tried 4-4-2 with Novak and Magennis. That wasn't the best so we decided to cancel football against Scunthorpe and played 4-5-1 with the big man up front, one winger and FOUR holding midfielders, one playing as a wide midfielder. While that didn't fail it essentially caused football to stop existing so we actually tried 4-5-1 with a big man and two wingers on Saturday. We've also had five different centre halves in varying different combinations (Konsa, Johnson, Bauer, Pearce, Lennon) despite the fact we've only played 13 games.

    There's no logic or consistency to any of it, and the players must be as confused as we are. We've got no plan for what to do when we're attacking as there's no creative spark in midfield. Both Holmes and Lookman are talented but have a tendency to go alone or overplay and don't really bring players into the game, and our central midfielders just want to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, preferably sideways, backwards or to an opposition player. Forwards isn't on the menu. That isolates the strikers, making Ajose look like a tall, lost mascot, and means that because no-one's actually bothered to map out phases of play, Magennis's big shiny head is the only obvious outlet. We also don't have quick full backs, so there's no option for overloading in wide areas. Back into the middle it goes, and then lumped forward.

    I'm also amazed at how bad we are at managing games. Under Peeters and Luzon there was a running joke that it didn't really matter if we went 1-0 up because you just had to wait for the equaliser. That we put down to a young squad with very little experience playing in England and playing together. The introduction of an experienced manager and experienced players like Pearce, Foley and Crofts was supposed to bring that nous in. 1-0 up against Wimbledon and unable to take our additional chances, it was time to either bring on a fresh attacker to stretch a tired defence or kill the game. Ruin it. Make the people watching pray for death but come away with 3 points. But we didn't. Slade didn't make the obvious changes either way and instead we meekly allowed Wimbledon to change their play, move their playmaker, bring on a bunch of giraffes and beat us in 15 minutes. Only when it was too late did Slade change anything, but by then the panic had set in and it was frantic. Players should be coached on how to manage a game, how to deal with the inevitable assault that's coming when you're 1-0 up and the game's nearing the end. It's League One, it's hardly going to be tiki-taka; you're going to get high balls into the box and an overload of players in there. You either trust your defenders to clear their lines and bring on a fresh attacker to take advantage of the gaps the opposition are now leaving or you bring on more bastards to clear the ball away. Everyone in the stadium can feel these equalisers coming and yet the manager and the players seem to have no idea what to do about it. It's killing us. We could have at least 7 additional points if we just spent some time on game management, but it doesn't seem to even come up

    Fantastic post that says it all. Bloody hell I hope this somehow gets to Slade cause it would've taught him a lot.
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    mogodonmogodon
    All_Thaid_Up said:

    Stupid thing is 99.9% of us knew pre season our central midfield was too slow and old. Nothing has changed that - they had plenty of time to fix it but didn't.

    What a shame that the 0.1% was Russel Slade.
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    Covered EndCovered End
    LenGlover said:

    Having been to all the home games and one away so far my view is that this division appears to be full of athletes who press and work hard for what they get out of games. The division looks weaker both skillwise and technically than when we were here last but the superior skills of the likes of Lookman and to a lesser extent Holmes do not adequately compensate for the athletic deficiencies in the rest of the side.

    The goalkeeper, back four, Lookman, Holmes and Magennis are ok to good at this level. The rest are appalling. We effectively play their 11 against our 7 or 8 each week.

    This.
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    queensland_addickqueensland_addick
    Garrymanilow said:

    There's no plan, both for tactics and for game management. Slade hasn't been helped by the haphazard recruitment process but we haven't gone into this season with any idea of how we're going to play. We've tried the 4-4-2 with one winger, one wide midfielder (who isn't a wide midfielder) and the big man-quick man combo. It wasn't brilliant so we tried 4-4-2 with Novak and Magennis. That wasn't the best so we decided to cancel football against Scunthorpe and played 4-5-1 with the big man up front, one winger and FOUR holding midfielders, one playing as a wide midfielder. While that didn't fail it essentially caused football to stop existing so we actually tried 4-5-1 with a big man and two wingers on Saturday. We've also had five different centre halves in varying different combinations (Konsa, Johnson, Bauer, Pearce, Lennon) despite the fact we've only played 13 games.

    There's no logic or consistency to any of it, and the players must be as confused as we are. We've got no plan for what to do when we're attacking as there's no creative spark in midfield. Both Holmes and Lookman are talented but have a tendency to go alone or overplay and don't really bring players into the game, and our central midfielders just want to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, preferably sideways, backwards or to an opposition player. Forwards isn't on the menu. That isolates the strikers, making Ajose look like a tall, lost mascot, and means that because no-one's actually bothered to map out phases of play, Magennis's big shiny head is the only obvious outlet. We also don't have quick full backs, so there's no option for overloading in wide areas. Back into the middle it goes, and then lumped forward.

    I'm also amazed at how bad we are at managing games. Under Peeters and Luzon there was a running joke that it didn't really matter if we went 1-0 up because you just had to wait for the equaliser. That we put down to a young squad with very little experience playing in England and playing together. The introduction of an experienced manager and experienced players like Pearce, Foley and Crofts was supposed to bring that nous in. 1-0 up against Wimbledon and unable to take our additional chances, it was time to either bring on a fresh attacker to stretch a tired defence or kill the game. Ruin it. Make the people watching pray for death but come away with 3 points. But we didn't. Slade didn't make the obvious changes either way and instead we meekly allowed Wimbledon to change their play, move their playmaker, bring on a bunch of giraffes and beat us in 15 minutes. Only when it was too late did Slade change anything, but by then the panic had set in and it was frantic. Players should be coached on how to manage a game, how to deal with the inevitable assault that's coming when you're 1-0 up and the game's nearing the end. It's League One, it's hardly going to be tiki-taka; you're going to get high balls into the box and an overload of players in there. You either trust your defenders to clear their lines and bring on a fresh attacker to take advantage of the gaps the opposition are now leaving or you bring on more bastards to clear the ball away. Everyone in the stadium can feel these equalisers coming and yet the manager and the players seem to have no idea what to do about it. It's killing us. We could have at least 7 additional points if we just spent some time on game management, but it doesn't seem to even come up

    Game management doesn't form part of Brussels "Consolidation Report"
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    killerandflashkillerandflash
    My impression is that the majority of our goals are from a moment of magic, rather than team play. The Oldham goal was a rare moment of good team play, but it was the exception, as our interplay is so slow and predictable
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