[cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]Still no more news on this since the Mail piece. If he comes in on the scouting side then it is certainly a statement but I'm still not sure how he is a Director of Football or even less he is, at 44 and no management experience a mentor to Powell.
Will have to see the job description first IF it happens.
Yes, but whoever updates the O/S doesn't work on Sundays as a rule (think it's Matt Wright).
I'll ask Richard Murray for you Tuesday & let you know :-)
[cite]Posted By: Mendonca In Asdas[/cite]and may not happen
if as according to PaulCAFC above (and we have no reason to disbelieve him), Vetere was at the U18 game yesterday then it's nailed on that he'll be back in some role
[cite]Posted By: ShootersHillGuru[/cite]Why would he leave Villa for us ?
I suppose Job wise chief scout to DOF is a promotion and he already knows some of our people well apparently. Maybe an interesting challenge to him aswell, probably not loads he could change at Villa and there's a lot more can be (needs to be!!) done with us. Who knows.
Jeff isn't going to be Director of Football - that part of the story was nonsense.
Keith is already Technical Director, and there is no desire or intention to move Charlton to a model which has a Director of Football.
He was at Villa, and also, obviously, at Newcastle with Tony Jiminez, but he's always kept close links with Charlton since he left. In fact, he's always kept very close links with everywhere. I met him just before Christmas, and we had a coffee. In the space of half an hour I discovered just how many different languages a man can answer a phone in. His scouting net casts wider than most...
He's going to be involved in scouting, and personally, I hope he's given the scope to overhaul the whole system. There is a long term plan from those in charge to rebuild the club, to make it sustainable and to repair some of the damage that's gone on in recent years. Losing a string of games hasn't been fun for anyone, and I genuinely admire those who have paid to watch some of it, especially the away trips which have held the promise of nothing but travel costs and misery.
That said, the club desperately needed someone with a vision, and in Peter Varney it's got that. I'm no building expert, but as an analogy, Charlton is like a house which had a massive, threatening crack running through it. It would have been in administration by the end of January. The takeover has shored it up in the short term, but the people behind it have bigger plans.
They could have stuck some polyfilla in, painted over the cracks and smiled at everyone, but that's storing up troubles. PV has a plan, akin to the one he put in place a decade ago, which was so comprehensively buggered up by the former board deciding to gamble on player purcheses and wages. Some blame them, some say good luck and they would have done the same - I'm not taking sides, other than to say that's clearly where it began to go wrong. Now we have a chance to start again.
Jeff is a very formative part of that plan, and Chris is a more integral part. Nobody is more aware than him of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the squad, nobody knows better what they can and cannot do as individual players and nobody has a clearer vision as to what is needed to turn this squad into a competitive one. He, like Jeff and like Peter is the right man for a long journey, but it's early days with early stumbles.
I don't blame those who complain and boo, because having seen some of those players, their body language and their inability to do even the basics, had I paid for a ticket, I'd want to as well. I don't blame them because I don't pay for my ticket, and people who sit in press boxes shouldn't lecture people who pay to sit elsewhere on what they shout out. As long as it's decent, not overtly abusive and legal, that's what the ticket price allowed you to do. I would ask people, for what my view's worth, as someone who knows everyone involved in this, and who speaks to some of them daily, to give it a chance, even through the frustrations.
This club was on the brink financially. I got abuse and derision for various stories I wrote about finances, and they all turned out to be right. That's not self-justification, but just to say that I was aware, because I was being made aware by people who knew, how desperate the state of the balance sheet was. We could have gone under, and had offers been accepted by certain parties, our future would have been in very serious danger indeed. I know less than I'd like to about the source of the money funding the current takeover, the same as many, but I put my faith in the people the takeover has brought to the table.
Peter Varney has the vision to put this mess straight and re-build it. Chris Powell has the energy and the talent to re-build a squad as bad as any we've seen for a long, long time, and Jeff Vetere, even though he's not going to be Director of Football, has the contacts to help with that re-building. Putting the last coat of paint on after a renovation is done is the easy bit - digging new foundations and sorting out that large crack running through the middle of the building is rarely attractive to watch. But even though, as I say, I'm no builder, if you don't do it, sooner or later, the whole lot comes falling down.
[cite]Posted By: MickCollins[/cite]
This club was on the brink financially. I got abuse and derision for various stories I wrote about finances, and they all turned out to be right.
exactly , the club apologists didn't like the truth and never have
Great post. No big surprises in there (for me anyway). I always saw the appointment of Powell as part of a longer-term plan - certainly not a quick fix and I hope Vetere will just stregthen that. Looking forward to next season but won't be too happy until we've secured a couple more wins to make sure its Division One (never thought I'd be thinking that)!
Firstly, while I think I can identify where it all started to go wrong (and saying goodbye to Curbs, then finding £12m for Iain Dowie's spending spree, plus the lunacy of the Pardew "free-signings" era were both examples of huge errors, surely?) it would be very wrong to blame everything on the last board. They were good people, few of whom emerged with anything other than large losses, who made a few bad decisions. All the good ones they made gave us years of Premiership football a club of our size had no reason to expect. Rather than castigate them, we should refelct on what it tells us about modern football. It's like climbing an ice-face. Loads of good decisions move you up a fraction at a time, and one bad one sends you skidding into oblivion.
Secondly, I'm reverting to silence, because when I'm told things in confidence, people shouldn't fear that they will appear on the internet. This one was different, and the little speech which accompanied it (for which apologies if it sounded like a sermon) should remain very much the exception. There are very good people working at the club, putting in absurd hours to bring the fans the news as swiftly and accurately as they possibly can. They don't need people playing the "guess what I heard?" game.
Ten years before we beat Arsenal at Highbury, around the period when we were beating Chelsea so often we could have put them in our trophy cabinet, when we beat Liverpool with decent regularity and when Manchester City were little more than an irritation, we were being beaten at home by Cambridge United. We didn't make the leap from Cambridge to Arsenal with pots of money, but with intelligent thinking and a carefully-followed plan. It's harder to bridge that gap without a conveniently benevolent billionaire these days, but it's not impossible. Charlton have done lots of things nobody else thought possible over the years, from Simonsen to Selhurst. We've never been a club to bemoan our fate, refusing to cheer as the first rung of the ladder back beckons. I don't think, regardless of a few recent stumbles, we are now, either.
Thanks for posting that Mick. It does at least give us something to hang our hat on and temporarilly put the razor blades away! But the question has to be asked, why on earth would Jeff leave a scouting job at a club like Villa for a similar post with us?
Great, considered thoughts Mick, very much appreciate your input. Getting away from the naturally reactionary post match thoughts, on paper that all sounds encouraging and a long-term plan appears to be in place.
Other than who the investors are and the extent of their committment to 'the project', the other key unknown emerging more and more prominently is whether the manager can cut it. Its one thing having great vision and knowing the game inside out, but it all boils down to what emerges on the field on a matchday, and so far people are right to question it.
Have no idea how the board or string-pullers are viewing the latest freefall, but for the majority of supporters, Powell has till the end of the season to prove there is something there worth investing in for the future, both financially from the board and emotionally from the supporters. If little encouragement emerges over the next twelve games, he may find himself out of the long term plan before it has even properly begun.
Virtually everyone wants Powell to succeed as manager, but its the most important position at a club and as a result, you have to take a relative cold, unemotive stance towards it.
Mick thanks for both of your posts, both very well wrtten. They contain enough in my opinion to see that far from this being a 'quick fix' job we are once again going to move foward but at a pace that ensures foundations are laid from which to build. It does, for me anyway, back up what Mr Slater said on taking over "Promotion this year would be a bonus", hence not a absolute must. I guess that if we make the play-offs now then sobeit, if not CP has longer to re-build for League 1 next season.
I would like to think that with the back-room staff we now have, the first of these foundations are being laid with Vetre coming in to use his contacts to get a winning side together for an assult next seasons title be it League 1 of fizzy-pop.
I believe also that the next few seasons are going to be an interseting ride, lets just hope we have more ups than downs!!
I have enthusiasm about Vetere being involved - he certainly has the connections and you'd like to think he will play a pivotal role in the club going forwards - but the key thing for meis PV's desire to put us back in the big time. I think we'd all agree that this season is pretty much over and so, provided we are safe from relegation, we need to try a few things out. Blood some youngsters and see where it gets us.
I think Powell is proving a point - he wants us to play a certain way and the majority of the current players are either not up to it, not interested in it or just know they are out of the door soon. Those who roll their sleeves up and get on with it will be appreciated - thats the Charlton way - whereas those who throw it back in the fans faces will not go unnoticed and will be out of the door come the summer.
I suspect there will be a very busy summer of activity coming up and my only request of the signings is that the players want to be a part of the project and give a toss about the club and fans. No more mercenaries.
Thanks Mick. I know you are a professional so it's no surprise that it is one of the best, most enlightened posts I have read on CL in ages. I hope every member gets to read it as it is stuck in a thread about Jeff Vetere that some may not bother to open.
And AFKA, you're right as well; I think every CAFC fan wants Chris to succeed but even with this crop of players we need to see at least some improvement plus some results to show that he can cut it at managerial level.
[cite]Posted By: AFKABartram[/cite]Great, considered thoughts Mick, very much appreciate your input. Getting away from the naturally reactionary post match thoughts, on paper that all sounds encouraging and a long-term plan appears to be in place.
Other than who the investors are and the extent of their committment to 'the project', the other key unknown emerging more and more prominently is whether the manager can cut it. Its one thing having great vision and knowing the game inside out, but it all boils down to what emerges on the field on a matchday, and so far people are right to question it.
Have no idea how the board or string-pullers are viewing the latest freefall, but for the majority of supporters, Powell has till the end of the season to prove there is something there worth investing in for the future, both financially from the board and emotionally from the supporters. If little encouragement emerges over the next twelve games, he may find himself out of the long term plan before it has even properly begun.
Virtually everyone wants Powell to succeed as manager, but its the most important position at a club and as a result, you have to take a relative cold, unemotive stance towards it.
WOW, Mick !! Thanks so much for that very positive post. It's how I HOPED things were beginning to evolve and now I'm satisfied.
You've made an old lady very happy. I can't wait to thank Peter on Thursday evening for his hard work & vision
We should all keep Mick's words in mind when "we " make the decision to boycott games between now and the end of the season. Aren't we better than that ?
After all, no-one wants to be called a fair weather supporter...do they ?
I agree with what Mick says all in all and I by no means want to put a dampener on things but actions do speak louder than words.
I'm fed up of hearing people saying that this season has been written off and we're planning for next season. I've paid good money and expect to see a Charlton manager, team and board to make 100% effort and commitment every game of the season regardless of league position or what the "long term" plan is. Bottom line is that the past 8 games or so have been absolute awful in terms of performance, and most importantly results.
It's nice to see building blocks being put in place to try and secure the "second coming" a la Curbs and Gritt when we returned to The Valley. The only thing that matters however when alls said and done, is whether or not the eleven that the manager sends out on the pitch can win a game of football. At the moment we can't and I don;t see any signs of it changing.
Mick thankyou for your posting , its reassuring that things are going on behind the scenes , which will take time to filter onto the pitch , i believe pretakeover we werre in serious financial trouble , we can harp on about whether we'd would have been better off sticking with Parky rather than CP , but remember when Parky 1st came , didn't he set a club record of 18 games without a win?
I don't want CP to do this , but we always want everything instantly in life , and throw our toys out of the pram if we don't get our own way.One poster above mentioned the fact that Cp is giving the current players a chance to see if they can play the way he wants , if they can't then seeya later , we need to be ruthless with clearing out players with the wrong attitude / ability.
Short term for me is about staying up this season , the fight starts at Dagenham on Saturday , i hope the players are up for it , cos i know the fans will be.
What we are seeing on the pitch at the moment is a culmination of the club being run on a shoestring , setting itself up for being sold on, the current mob of players need to up their game to win the fans back.
Comments
Chance to build a team from the ground up?
I hope.
Yes, but whoever updates the O/S doesn't work on Sundays as a rule (think it's Matt Wright).
I'll ask Richard Murray for you Tuesday & let you know :-)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1365147/Former-Villa-chief-scout-Vetere-returns-The-Valley-Chartlons-director-football.html
if as according to PaulCAFC above (and we have no reason to disbelieve him), Vetere was at the U18 game yesterday then it's nailed on that he'll be back in some role
I suppose Job wise chief scout to DOF is a promotion and he already knows some of our people well apparently. Maybe an interesting challenge to him aswell, probably not loads he could change at Villa and there's a lot more can be (needs to be!!) done with us. Who knows.
Keith is already Technical Director, and there is no desire or intention to move Charlton to a model which has a Director of Football.
He was at Villa, and also, obviously, at Newcastle with Tony Jiminez, but he's always kept close links with Charlton since he left. In fact, he's always kept very close links with everywhere. I met him just before Christmas, and we had a coffee. In the space of half an hour I discovered just how many different languages a man can answer a phone in. His scouting net casts wider than most...
He's going to be involved in scouting, and personally, I hope he's given the scope to overhaul the whole system. There is a long term plan from those in charge to rebuild the club, to make it sustainable and to repair some of the damage that's gone on in recent years. Losing a string of games hasn't been fun for anyone, and I genuinely admire those who have paid to watch some of it, especially the away trips which have held the promise of nothing but travel costs and misery.
That said, the club desperately needed someone with a vision, and in Peter Varney it's got that. I'm no building expert, but as an analogy, Charlton is like a house which had a massive, threatening crack running through it. It would have been in administration by the end of January. The takeover has shored it up in the short term, but the people behind it have bigger plans.
They could have stuck some polyfilla in, painted over the cracks and smiled at everyone, but that's storing up troubles. PV has a plan, akin to the one he put in place a decade ago, which was so comprehensively buggered up by the former board deciding to gamble on player purcheses and wages. Some blame them, some say good luck and they would have done the same - I'm not taking sides, other than to say that's clearly where it began to go wrong. Now we have a chance to start again.
Jeff is a very formative part of that plan, and Chris is a more integral part. Nobody is more aware than him of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the squad, nobody knows better what they can and cannot do as individual players and nobody has a clearer vision as to what is needed to turn this squad into a competitive one. He, like Jeff and like Peter is the right man for a long journey, but it's early days with early stumbles.
I don't blame those who complain and boo, because having seen some of those players, their body language and their inability to do even the basics, had I paid for a ticket, I'd want to as well. I don't blame them because I don't pay for my ticket, and people who sit in press boxes shouldn't lecture people who pay to sit elsewhere on what they shout out. As long as it's decent, not overtly abusive and legal, that's what the ticket price allowed you to do. I would ask people, for what my view's worth, as someone who knows everyone involved in this, and who speaks to some of them daily, to give it a chance, even through the frustrations.
This club was on the brink financially. I got abuse and derision for various stories I wrote about finances, and they all turned out to be right. That's not self-justification, but just to say that I was aware, because I was being made aware by people who knew, how desperate the state of the balance sheet was. We could have gone under, and had offers been accepted by certain parties, our future would have been in very serious danger indeed. I know less than I'd like to about the source of the money funding the current takeover, the same as many, but I put my faith in the people the takeover has brought to the table.
Peter Varney has the vision to put this mess straight and re-build it. Chris Powell has the energy and the talent to re-build a squad as bad as any we've seen for a long, long time, and Jeff Vetere, even though he's not going to be Director of Football, has the contacts to help with that re-building. Putting the last coat of paint on after a renovation is done is the easy bit - digging new foundations and sorting out that large crack running through the middle of the building is rarely attractive to watch. But even though, as I say, I'm no builder, if you don't do it, sooner or later, the whole lot comes falling down.
exactly , the club apologists didn't like the truth and never have
Firstly, while I think I can identify where it all started to go wrong (and saying goodbye to Curbs, then finding £12m for Iain Dowie's spending spree, plus the lunacy of the Pardew "free-signings" era were both examples of huge errors, surely?) it would be very wrong to blame everything on the last board. They were good people, few of whom emerged with anything other than large losses, who made a few bad decisions. All the good ones they made gave us years of Premiership football a club of our size had no reason to expect. Rather than castigate them, we should refelct on what it tells us about modern football. It's like climbing an ice-face. Loads of good decisions move you up a fraction at a time, and one bad one sends you skidding into oblivion.
Secondly, I'm reverting to silence, because when I'm told things in confidence, people shouldn't fear that they will appear on the internet. This one was different, and the little speech which accompanied it (for which apologies if it sounded like a sermon) should remain very much the exception. There are very good people working at the club, putting in absurd hours to bring the fans the news as swiftly and accurately as they possibly can. They don't need people playing the "guess what I heard?" game.
Ten years before we beat Arsenal at Highbury, around the period when we were beating Chelsea so often we could have put them in our trophy cabinet, when we beat Liverpool with decent regularity and when Manchester City were little more than an irritation, we were being beaten at home by Cambridge United. We didn't make the leap from Cambridge to Arsenal with pots of money, but with intelligent thinking and a carefully-followed plan. It's harder to bridge that gap without a conveniently benevolent billionaire these days, but it's not impossible. Charlton have done lots of things nobody else thought possible over the years, from Simonsen to Selhurst. We've never been a club to bemoan our fate, refusing to cheer as the first rung of the ladder back beckons. I don't think, regardless of a few recent stumbles, we are now, either.
Other than who the investors are and the extent of their committment to 'the project', the other key unknown emerging more and more prominently is whether the manager can cut it. Its one thing having great vision and knowing the game inside out, but it all boils down to what emerges on the field on a matchday, and so far people are right to question it.
Have no idea how the board or string-pullers are viewing the latest freefall, but for the majority of supporters, Powell has till the end of the season to prove there is something there worth investing in for the future, both financially from the board and emotionally from the supporters. If little encouragement emerges over the next twelve games, he may find himself out of the long term plan before it has even properly begun.
Virtually everyone wants Powell to succeed as manager, but its the most important position at a club and as a result, you have to take a relative cold, unemotive stance towards it.
I would like to think that with the back-room staff we now have, the first of these foundations are being laid with Vetre coming in to use his contacts to get a winning side together for an assult next seasons title be it League 1 of fizzy-pop.
I believe also that the next few seasons are going to be an interseting ride, lets just hope we have more ups than downs!!
I have enthusiasm about Vetere being involved - he certainly has the connections and you'd like to think he will play a pivotal role in the club going forwards - but the key thing for meis PV's desire to put us back in the big time. I think we'd all agree that this season is pretty much over and so, provided we are safe from relegation, we need to try a few things out. Blood some youngsters and see where it gets us.
I think Powell is proving a point - he wants us to play a certain way and the majority of the current players are either not up to it, not interested in it or just know they are out of the door soon. Those who roll their sleeves up and get on with it will be appreciated - thats the Charlton way - whereas those who throw it back in the fans faces will not go unnoticed and will be out of the door come the summer.
I suspect there will be a very busy summer of activity coming up and my only request of the signings is that the players want to be a part of the project and give a toss about the club and fans. No more mercenaries.
And AFKA, you're right as well; I think every CAFC fan wants Chris to succeed but even with this crop of players we need to see at least some improvement plus some results to show that he can cut it at managerial level.
This
You've made an old lady very happy. I can't wait to thank Peter on Thursday evening for his hard work & vision
We should all keep Mick's words in mind when "we " make the decision to boycott games between now and the end of the season. Aren't we better than that ?
After all, no-one wants to be called a fair weather supporter...do they ?
Keep the faith !!!
I'm fed up of hearing people saying that this season has been written off and we're planning for next season. I've paid good money and expect to see a Charlton manager, team and board to make 100% effort and commitment every game of the season regardless of league position or what the "long term" plan is. Bottom line is that the past 8 games or so have been absolute awful in terms of performance, and most importantly results.
It's nice to see building blocks being put in place to try and secure the "second coming" a la Curbs and Gritt when we returned to The Valley. The only thing that matters however when alls said and done, is whether or not the eleven that the manager sends out on the pitch can win a game of football. At the moment we can't and I don;t see any signs of it changing.
I don't want CP to do this , but we always want everything instantly in life , and throw our toys out of the pram if we don't get our own way.One poster above mentioned the fact that Cp is giving the current players a chance to see if they can play the way he wants , if they can't then seeya later , we need to be ruthless with clearing out players with the wrong attitude / ability.
Short term for me is about staying up this season , the fight starts at Dagenham on Saturday , i hope the players are up for it , cos i know the fans will be.
What we are seeing on the pitch at the moment is a culmination of the club being run on a shoestring , setting itself up for being sold on, the current mob of players need to up their game to win the fans back.