to have lived long enough to see a few years top class football at The Valley.
Charlton were a struggling second division club when I started going in 1963 and that's probably our destiny once more.
The wheel has turned full circle for me. The tragedy is that we so very nearly got it right. Curbs was far, far, better at making a silk purse from a sow's ear than we realised. He had the ability to make ordinary players perform above themselves consistently.
Those who say he left us in the sh** are wrong. We are Charlton and have ordinary players not superstars. Curbs had the ability to organise and motivate them. Not many managers have that skill at the top level of the game. Chris Coleman appears to be one, maybe Paul Jewell is another. I'm struggling to think of many or any more.
It's not that Dowie or Les Reed are bad rather that Curbs was exceptionally good.
I have consistently said that we would not truly know just how good Curbs was until he left. It gives me absolutely no pleasure or satisfaction to be proved right.
0
Comments
here here
I think Curbs strength was in what we need right now. He had a good ability to pick up a player who may not of been brilliant, but he knew he would get 100% out of and 'do a job for the team'. Which is why he made sure he got the right character as well as ability, and is why so many of them could play in 3 or 4 positions.
But he was also largely unsuccessful whenever he tried to 'take us further' and sign players outside of this bracket. Rommedahl, Redfearn, Di Canio to a certain extent, Murphy, Smertin, M Bent. Not one of those big signings worked out long-term. He was largely one-dimensional in his approach and it worked fantastically well in getting a low league club to midtable, like the jobs that Coppell and Jewell are doing at present. Because he had a good run at getting things right, he also developed a belief in everyone around him, players, board, fans, media, that he would continue getting things right, and i think that carried us for a further year as little panic set in when we had a bad run.
I'm not aiming this as a dig at Curbs, he is a legend to me, but he mastered the average team pitting above itself, failed in the attempt to take us further, and once the set up was changed, was struggling to recreate the original remit. We are still in part seeing some of the fall out, the club has lost its core that made it so strong.
I'm also convinced that 70% of the signings we made this summer were Curbs signings, and i'm also convinced we would still be in the shit if he was still here.
Cool Rockers.Watch Them Who Watch The Bad Rose?
dude, i have read this twice now, mrs mcs read it too no avail! Aye??
Where HONESTLY and REALISTICALLY do we expect Charlton to be?
It was an achievement for Curbs to get us in the Prem at all yet alone keep us there and establish us in midtable.
Yes he plateaued, yes the football was sometimes defensive perhaps in part because Curbs was one dimensional but look at what Curbs had to spend compared with Spurs, Boro, Newcastle and others. He did what he had to do with the resources he had. To quote his book he "managed what he'd got".
We've lost an EXCEPTIONAL manager who got the maximum from limited players. We are now returning to our natural level which is top half championship maybe bottom 6 Prem if we play well.
I don't blame Dowie or Reed I say thank you Curbs.
Where we have been for the majority of the past 50 years. A second tier club, that in good times flirts with the top league and in bad times flirts with the third tier. The very recent history has skewed this to a slightly higher level. But we have had a 6-7 year period now punching above our weight, exactly the same as say Leicester, Derby and QPR did in the last ten years. Of course I don't want it to happen, but relegation will certainly not 'break my heart', you can't support a club like Charlton without expecting us to drop out the top level at some stage.
I said that Curbs was brilliant, no one is disputing that. But many, many people were accurately predicting from January / February that we were likely to be in serious trouble this season, and that was based on a squad that Curbishley accumulated.
And i'm convinced the majority of the signings we made this summer were not Mills signings, or Dowie's or Les Reed's, they were players Curbishley had already prioritised.
Curbs was an excellent manager for us, did a fantastic job. But we won't know if he is an exceptional manager until we have seen what he does in his next job.
You sure you're not me really - posting under a different name???
;o)
Within 12 months a comfortable, well structured, settled mid-table club, faces the possibility of being cut off from the rest of the pack with six months of a season still remaining.
If its not Reed, or Dowie, or Curbs, then who do you blame ? The chairman ? The board ? The players ? The fans ? Circumstances ? Luck ?
I don't think the blame can be laid at any one door. As I said above my view is that Curbs did an exceptionally good job and any successor will be hard put to match his achievements.
That said there are things I think we might have done differently. Why did we let Peacock go who, as Latimer says, would be an ideal "Harry Lime?" Tony Parkes stayed at Blackburn through numerous managers and was always caretaker when somebody got sacked. Peacock going of his own volition is fair enough but if he was pushed then that is a disgraceful way to treat such a long term servant of the Club.
I would also question the injury situation. How effective are our medicals for prospective new players? It amazes me that our new players bar Faye have all picked up injuries. One or two fair enough but nearly all of them?
Overall though I think we grossly underestimate just how good Curbs was.