you actually at least have seen the player play once in the flesh?!!!!!
This is a club that nearly didnt sign Kinsella for £150K!!!
I was asking for RM to come out and back the manager, all he's done is blame everyone else and probably taken off a sizeable chunk of any fee for Diawara with his comments!
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Dowie picked the players, it's not up to Murray to then scout them himself
All of it just seems very un-charlton like.
Being naive with £11m though...
It's all very well bringing out the old 'its a lot of money for Charlton' schtick and then in the next breath saying you'd never heard of him and not bothered to see him play.
The Ego has landed.
Do they? As Rothko said damned if he does, damned if he don't. I doubt RM had the final say on signing Marcus Bent either. He backed his manager's decision. The same with Darren Bent.
Whether he should have appointed those managers is another question but having done so he backed their judgement. Very Charlton-like IMHO
With Marcus Bent we all knew what we were getting, even if it was £1million over the top. A targetman whose goal scoring record was on the wane.
With Diawara, here is a player who most have heard the name banded about signing for Rangers but not a lot else.
I'm hardly saying Murray should've scouted him (although....) but he'd never have been so carefree in past IMHO.
I suggest that he will be 'scouting' ALL signings (managerial especially) in future, which is VERY Charlton-like. No??
Richard Murray, for the first time in his tenure at Charlton is dealing with something completely new. He and his board are bound to make mistakes it always happens with the unknown.
I do however have a strong belief that he has enough business know-how, as well as love for the Charlton that he will learn from any mistakes that he has made and go on to be a better chairman for all of us in the future.
We have to give him that chance purely on the time, effort and money he has invested in this club. Without him we would be nowhere.
(look at my posts now i have had 24 hours to calm down!!)
I'm neither here nor there when it comes to Reg but when you listen to him he is concise, to the point and portrays himself as very calm in the media. RM doesn't!
RM is a very shrewd, smart and calculated businessman. I just wish he'd get out of the media and stick to concentrating wholy on the business side of things and leave the PR stuff to others.
I was there at the 1st back to the valley meetings at the Meridian. About 30 people there (max!)...so I have the utmost respect for him.
I don't think he was carefree in terms of the players because quite rightly he doesn't gain-say the manager.
If Reed says I want to Ronaldo then RM would say we can't afford them. But if Les say I want those two hibs players, we can afford them from the budget you gave me and this is where thet'll fit into the side should Richard then say, "nah, saw them on the box. Not good enough. Who you should sign is Matt Jarvis from Gillingham. Looks great and my mate Paul Scully really rates him" . RM may well question as to why we need the two hibs players and who is leaving in their positions as we have too big a squad but that is not scouting or watching players. Not his role and nor should it.
As for Ego. Think about how little we hear from RM compared to most Chairman of bigger and smaller clubs (jordan, Scully, Papathitis, Gold, Lowe, Al Fayed, etc, etc) and you'll see that far from using his position to shout from the roof tops and massage his ego he stays out of the limelight. He's not even Chairman of the football club FFS.
Have a go at his decision making by all means but lay off the personal attacks please. I know some will say "arse licker" but I knew RM long before I joined the board and I thought then as I do now that he is a decent, fairly retiring man with an acute business brain who likes to make a deal and who has a very tough side and tongue when he needs it. I'd never play him at poker.
*shrugs*
Whether the club likes or not, the perception of Charlton by the media throughout the summer was that this was Richard Murray's show (and to be fair from quotes attributed to him that was how he wanted it, as though he received no credit for the clubs acheivements and had the hump that it was all supposedly down to Curbs...).
Once you stick yourself upfront the 'face' of the club you have to follow it through thick and thin.
You can't then stand back in the shadows when it all goes wrong.
The club always worked with a shrewd silent chairman, Reg as spokesman and 'the manager'.
To start playing the 'skysports personality' doesnt work. Ask David Sheepshanks, Rupert Lowe etc etc
BACK TO BASICS PLEASE!
anyway were you there at bristol city 1972 when we ....
I'VE DONE MY TIME SONNY JIM!
I also think its worth stressing that not one person i know wants to instigate a negative campaign against Richard Murray, or in any way try to force him out.
But from an outsiders point of view, after a period of being extremely low key, he was very public in the leaving of Curbishley, and even more so with the appointment of Dowie, and the beginnings of the public spat with Jordant. Whether correct or not, it appeared as if he was trying to raise his media profile. Since then when things have turned negative he has not been seen media-wise since.
Varney to me has come out with credit. Whether you like the guy or not, he is an employee of the club, as well as a fan, and is never afraid to come out and speak to the point, even if you may not fully agree with it.
We took a massive gamble in both the structure of the management team, and with the funds available, at our most crucial time. Both of them have gone horribly wrong. I really hope Murray is angry, seething about the situation. He himself holds a fair chunk of the 'blame', but i hope he is angry with a determination to help the club build again, not to a way out.
We've had so much change in the last 6 months, the last thing we need is Richard Murray deciding he has had enough. I think he is making a dreadful mistake backing Les Reed so fully, but i don't know or understand the day to day running of the club and will reluctantly fully back his decision for now.
But i hope he is not stubborn enough to make further big decisions if things continue to regress.
But they are going to regress until Reed departs.