That season we were 2nd for a spell in the autumn, before settling into our 'rightful' position of 5th for most of the remainder of the season - except for a disasterous finish that saw a final 11th placing.
After Reid had been injured and then sold, Gray bought but suffered serious personal problems, and a plethora of loan signings who turned up for an easy ride ....... it seemed obvious that there was huge dressing room unrest manifesting itself in sliding results and loss of form.
With the wisdom of hindsight, just supposing if Pardew had been sacked straight after that final game of the season and Parky appointed that close season ......... bearing in mind key players were being sold by the Board to raise funds.
Also bearing in mind Parky's track record in signing decent players with good attitudes for very little money, how do you think Parky would have rebuilt the team - and would Charlton have avoided relegation?
All academic, I know ...... but over to the panel for opinions.
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Sometimes I wish somebody would invent a 'Groundhog Day' machine so people like Pardwash could restart each day until he got it right...
Question is, how long do you think it would be before he actually succeeded in getting it right...
And what song do you think he would wake up to each morning...
The way Parky had the team playing in the last 15 matches (only 3 defeats, I seem to remember) of our Championship relegation season showed to me that he brought a balance to the side that made us difficult to beat - but despite bringing in the determined Darren Ward at CB, he couldn't quite sort the soft core of our defence which consistantly leaked easy chances for opponents. But in that period, our goalscoring was better than most teams in the lower half of the table.
Personally I think, given a close season to wheel and deal, Parky would have built a more competitive team with a bit more backbone. Together with using the remaining more 'quality' players it would have been a decent enough team - but perhaps would have finished lower mid-table..... say around 13th.
But I feel we'd still be a Championship side today, if Parky had been appointed manager in the previous May, rather than November/December with the team bereft of confidence and the damage in the dressing room already done.
I dont think we would have gone down that year, but I still think its possible we could have gone down the year after, depending on finances.
Where do I claim my prize?
Talk to RedZed.
;o)
It would have been a brave call from the board - especially given the fact that Pardew needed to be paid-off and that people would have claimed he had not been given enough time - but in hindsight it would have been the right call.
Don't forget though that we won the last game of that season 4-1 at home to Coventry and people were mildly optimistic about the next season......
pardew really did one of the worst jobs ive ever known a manager to do.
Good point. Would he still be manager now, or would he have been sacked for bringing us so close to relegation?
I don't believe Parky would've had such an unbalanced squad. A couple of weeks before the start of the season, I remember we had 7 or 8 strikers and one centre back.
That's right.
We brought in Hudson - swapped him for McCarthy - sold Bougherra to Rangers and so went into the season with Hudson and the injury prone Fortune as our only two senior centre halves.
Once Fortune got injured we ended up playing the 5 foot Matt Holland as centre-half......
makes me laugh...
Last season promotion was the aim so yes he failed in that way. We were so close though. He did have a big budget, but still over £1m of that would have been spent on players he never wanted, Yassin, Fleetwood, Sinclair even Dickson and McLeod, despite using them last season.
Last season we played half the season without a left footed left winger, and forced to use Pardew's strikers McLeod and Dickson alongside Burton when the 451 became predictable. We then had to find strikers to bring in on loan, perhaps Parky picked the wrong ones, we'll never know what else was available, but Mooney and Akpo came in and slightly improved on McLeod and Dickson.
This summer he's building a balanced squad of what seem to be good characters with experience of League One. Still wants 4 more and who they turn out to be (if we get them) will be interesting. So this new season he has done well so far but of course it's results he needs to be judged on.
IMO already, even allowing for the fact the squad is incomplete at the moment, we have a better team than we had last season.
Maybe we've lost some very good players over the summer, but the team itself already looks improved and more balanced.
17 points the return from those 15 games the same number as curbs achieved in his last season as he was "running out of steam"
Haha, maybe, Dazzler.
But I meant it just to paint a possible scenario in a different dimension ......just "a what if".
And see what other people reckon may have happened; could it have possibly had a different result? .....rather than just regurgitating the past ad infinitum.
But anyway, all speculation, of course. That was all it was meant to be.
My thoughts entirely, it would have been an impossible sell really because Pardew would have complained that the board had sold his best player (Andy Reid) in the January and buggered up the promotion push.
Sacking two high-profile managers in less than 18 months (Dowie/Pardew) would have been a very tough call, they could only really sack him once his position became untenable.
Our best player was signed by Pardew.
I'm not saying things wouldn't have been different, but I doubt it, I think the main thing would be that the deficit would have been less. Anyone saying differently isn't looking at the probability evidence.