Curbs did make some desperate signings at West Ham but he was given lots of cash and was under sever pressure to keep them up at all costs. To his credit and against the odds, he achieved that goal, albeit with the luxury of Carlos Tevez in his squad. I also doubt he was reasponsible for the fees or the salaries - even Muzza didn't let him do that so I doubt very much that Magnus Egghead would have done. Besides, them staying up wasn't all down to Tevez because despite losing Tevez Curbs got them stabilised on the field and had them in a high league position when he left - they weren't such horror signings when he was still manager because he had them performing. It was only when he left and his successors couldn't get anything out of them that they turned into horror signings.
That was always Curbs biggest strength - he knew the players that he could get the best out of and that was often players that outsiders thought were odd signings and that thers failed to get as much out of. We paid a lot of money for players like Euell, Jensen, JJ, Young and all were players people were a bit skeptical about in one way or another but all went on to have the best years of their career's under Curbs in a competetive top flight side. Hell, even Darren Bent was apparently too one dimensional for the Premiership and Dean Ashton was the pick of the young English forwards. So many of Curb's players had their best years under him at Charlton and faded when they left, he was like Holloway in that way but without the post match interview carisma. The only time it went a tiny bit wrong for him at Charlton was when he broke away from his traditional type of signing and gambled on players like Rommedahl/Jeffers etc. Those decisions and the money it wasted were arguably the catalyst for the runaway chain reaction that has been going on at the Valley for 5 years, but it's hard to blame Curbs for trying to find away to push us on and no-one was complaining at the time. That maybe shows what we all know!
I know he's only managed 2 clubs, but he got excellent results with both sides in the top flight - why can't he get a job when a car crash of a manager like Dowie got chance after chance? Personally I think he's paying the price for the court case with West Ham, i.e. behaving like a man of princial in a world of scrupaless arseholes. I think that sucks and a good Chairman who wanted to work with Curbs, not over him, would not regret appointing him. I really feel the Villa job would be a good home for him as Randy Lerner seems to have the right attitude to football club ownership. I'm amazed he would rather have McLeish who has just relegated their local rivals and will be about the last man on the fans wish list.
I'd have Curbs back tomorrow, like most Charlton fans would, and he'd be welcome round my house for a takeaway curry and bottle of wine any day of the week, no matter how dour his interview technique may be. Top bloke and right up there in the list of all-time Charlton greats.
Agree with most of what you say - I don't think we can be critical of signings that didn't flourish. The market we were dealing in meant we had to take some punts- most paid off under Curbs which is as good as anybody could achieve. I always thought Curbishley's secret was a great undertsanding of the relative strengths and weakneses of players. He always new where things could be improved and who had the attributes to make the improvement. It is subtle and takes time but Curbs was able to slowly make the team better year in year out.
You are right about the case and maybe now the biggest influence now is the length of time since working - the longer you go without a job the more difficult it gets. If Curbs is going to get another job it is going to be a club who want him to do a Charlton on them so not likely to be a big one. He could walk into a smaller club tomorrow but his sights are aimed higher than that.
As for Murray, I have no animosity towards him - all the decisions he made were done for the right reasons. I just feel he made some bad ones and basically if you get relegated from the Premiership, it is a struggle. You don't just have to look at us - there are many examples where established premiership teams do not fair well after relegation- the trick is not to get relegated.
One decision I don't think he got wrong was letting Curbishley go. Curbs is a Legend and will always be so and we needed him. But we needed a committed Curbs not a tired one who had had enough. He made it clear he wanted out and was going to see out his contract out of respect and honour but that isn't the right reason. He always said that he would know when he had had enough and well, he knew. Murray bought himself the necessary time to find the right replacement but that's where it went wrong.
Chrissy could be the new Curbs and take us back up the leagues. If he does so, history may have taught him and us lessons and hopefully we will be able to keep him when the big guns come sniffing around. Last season will also help as he will know that if he was say at a club like Spurs, he would have got the sack with the results he achieved. The grass isn't always greener. The problem is that the best managers should have confidence in themselves and their ability and if you do you want to manage at the very top - 2003/4 showed that there is a glass ceiling - Charlton can be in the top 4 teams in the country -yes but not for long. The money will come and shoot us down. I suspect this was the thing that hurt Curbs the most. In the days when Clough brought success to Forest, the highest success could be achieved by a smaller well run club but in today's game it is impossible.
Dont agree that Curbs is "not the brightest spark" as somebody said above. .
That is certainly not Gary Nelsons view in his first book Left Foot Forward (which is a must read).
His opinion of Curbs was that he is quick-witted - sometimes to sharp/barbed. He wasn't schooled in the media bullshit of some but to say he is not the brightest spark does him a real injustice imho.
Curbs has proved time and time again he is one of football's thinkers. As a player, he performed intelligently and with vision.
He also did his homework to the nth degree, almost obsessive with the detail. That's called, in my book, being thorough.
Sure, he can be cautious, over-cautious, perhaps.......(see, I resisted the Curbs-ism for once!). And his approach in the Premiership especially, was primarily twofold:
1) Let's not lose.
2) Let's get to 40 points and safety, as soon as possible.
Nobody can argue against that those 2 strategies each season which stood Charlton in good stead. They were the cornerstones of our comparative success.
As Bing suggests, Curbs rarely played to the audience in his media interviews. Maybe that cautious, and perhaps to viewers, dull manner wasn't important to Curbs'?
He was manager of a football club - and that was his focus.
'Perhaps. perhaps perhaps' should be played at every game as a tribute to the great man -as well as naming a stand after him. Don't wait till he pops his clogs, he deserves the honour now.
I was at a Q&A session with Curbs about nine months ago and among the things he said was that just before he decided that he would not be renewing his contract he asked Richard Murray for £5ml as he had both Jimmy Bullard and Steve Sidwell lined up for the following season.
He was refused........................ The rest is history!
I was at a Q&A session with Curbs about nine months ago and among the things he said was that just before he decided that he would not be renewing his contract he asked Richard Murray for £5ml as he had both Jimmy Bullard and Steve Sidwell lined up for the following season.
He was refused........................ The rest is history!
So in all seriousness, Murray really didn't do us any favours in all this did he.
He made mistakes but was also our chairman for the successful times when most of his calls were right. He made the decisions he thought right at the time and as there is no doubt he loves the club I am not going to crucify him for his mistakes.
He made mistakes but was also our chairman for the successful times when most of his calls were right. He made the decisions he thought right at the time and as there is no doubt he loves the club I am not going to crucify him for his mistakes.
He made mistakes but was also our chairman for the successful times when most of his calls were right. He made the decisions he thought right at the time and as there is no doubt he loves the club I am not going to crucify him for his mistakes.
Absolutely - and he doesn't deserve the abuse he has received from certain idiots. I didn't see anyone else stumping up as much cash as him when we needed it.
Just my opinion ..........but I can't help thinking that Murray would have found the funds for Curbs to sign Bullard and Sidwell IF Curbs had extended his contract, as he was invited to do by Murray.
Murray perhaps considered that: 1) It would create uncertainty within the club if Curbs was allowed to run down his contract
2) A new manager would need the funds for building his own team.
Worse than the above murray tried to play hardball with tim cahill thinking he'd rather stay down here and agree lesser terms with us than move up north to everton .... One that got away
Thought he moved up North because his wife wanted to get him away from the area as he was knocking off a secretary at Millwall. Allegedly.
Whilst Curbs' signings at West Ham looked quite crazed at the time, and became pretty poor over time, his first tranche of buys was to save a club almost definitely heading towards relegation. He never signed Ashton, though he did sign Bellamy and Parker. Unfortunately adding Ljunberg, Dyer and Calum Davenport to the mix meant he signed a fair few players pretty common at picking up injuries or in Davenport's case massively over-rated.
West Ham did at this time start making massive profits on average or below average prem footballers.
Pity he missed out on Sidwell and Bullard, as they both seem players on the verge of making themselves names in the prem, before their huge wages and slowing careers. Counter that to Faye and Traore, it makes you wonder what Murray was thinking. Decisions are made and new environments encourage different eventualities. It's just a shame someone didn't wrap up Bullard early instead of Cory Gibbs. Curbs pragmatism certainly placed him higher above countless English managers such as Pardew and Dowie, who just weren't able to adapt their style of play when under pressure. It'll be interesting to see if Pardew is able to effect a pragmatic team ethic now his effective physical players he inherited are being sold off. Somehow I doubt if he has the pragmatic intelligence of Curbs', but most fans don't want pragmatism. I know I certainly fell for Pardew's more engaging media personality, until I saw his choices up close.
I think what people forget about some of Curbishley's signings at West Ham is that he was being told he was buying players to take them into the Champions League. At the stary some of the players were, indeed, to keep them up and the total price he paid for them (transfers and wages) way way too high, but there needed to be a good reason for these players to sign for a club that looked like it was going to be in the 2nd division the following season.
Ljunberg et. al. were the type of player a club needs to sign if they mean business. They needed to sign a few top names so that they could convince others to join them. The total cost of Ljunberg was way more than he contributed, but if they had really been able to finance a top four challenge then they needed to indicate to the younger players they were trying to sign that they had arrived. As it happens, many players have been signed into their 30s and made a massive contributuion to their new club. The money that was wasted on some of the players pales into insignificance when compated with some of the top four teams gambles, and that was what Curbishley was told he was to do. Build a team to challenge for the top four, and very, very quickly.
The truth is that the money ran out, or was never really there in the first place, and they were saddled with the first tranch of highly paid players, who were, realisically, always going to be the older/injury prone/bad attitude/greedy money grabbing players that you move on when you can convince better players to come instead.
Comments
of cash and was under sever pressure to keep them up at all costs. To his credit and against the odds, he achieved that goal, albeit with the luxury of Carlos Tevez in his
squad. I also doubt he was reasponsible for the fees or the salaries - even Muzza didn't let him do that so I doubt very much that Magnus Egghead would have done. Besides, them staying up wasn't all down to Tevez because despite losing Tevez Curbs got them
stabilised on the field and had them in a high league position when
he left - they weren't such horror signings when he was still manager
because he had them performing. It was only when he left and his
successors couldn't get anything out of them that they turned into
horror signings.
That was always Curbs biggest strength - he knew the players that he
could get the best out of and that was often players that outsiders
thought were odd signings and that thers failed to get as much out of. We paid a lot of money for players like
Euell, Jensen, JJ, Young and all were players people were a bit
skeptical about in one way or another but all went on to have the best
years of their career's under Curbs in a competetive top flight
side. Hell, even Darren Bent was apparently too one dimensional for the
Premiership and Dean Ashton was the pick of the young English forwards.
So many of Curb's players had their best years under him at Charlton and
faded when they left, he was like Holloway in that way but without the
post match interview carisma. The only time it went a tiny bit wrong for
him at Charlton was when he broke away from his traditional type of
signing and gambled on players like Rommedahl/Jeffers etc. Those
decisions and the money it wasted were arguably the catalyst for the
runaway chain reaction that has been going on at the Valley for 5 years,
but it's hard to blame Curbs for trying to find away to push us on and
no-one was complaining at the time. That maybe shows what we all know!
I know he's only managed 2 clubs, but he got excellent results with both
sides in the top flight - why can't he get a job when a car crash of a
manager like Dowie got chance after chance? Personally I think he's
paying the price for the court case with West Ham, i.e. behaving like a
man of princial in a world of scrupaless arseholes. I think that sucks
and a good Chairman who wanted to work with Curbs, not over him,
would not regret appointing him. I really feel the Villa job would be a
good home for him as Randy Lerner seems to have the right attitude to
football club ownership. I'm amazed he would rather have McLeish who
has just relegated their local rivals and will be about the last man on
the fans wish list.
I'd have Curbs back tomorrow, like most Charlton fans would, and he'd be welcome round my house for a takeaway curry and bottle of wine any day of the week, no matter how dour his interview technique may be. Top bloke and right up there in the list of all-time Charlton greats.
You are right about the case and maybe now the biggest influence now is the length of time since working - the longer you go without a job the more difficult it gets. If Curbs is going to get another job it is going to be a club who want him to do a Charlton on them so not likely to be a big one. He could walk into a smaller club tomorrow but his sights are aimed higher than that.
As for Murray, I have no animosity towards him - all the decisions he made were done for the right reasons. I just feel he made some bad ones and basically if you get relegated from the Premiership, it is a struggle. You don't just have to look at us - there are many examples where established premiership teams do not fair well after relegation- the trick is not to get relegated.
One decision I don't think he got wrong was letting Curbishley go. Curbs is a Legend and will always be so and we needed him. But we needed a committed Curbs not a tired one who had had enough. He made it clear he wanted out and was going to see out his contract out of respect and honour but that isn't the right reason. He always said that he would know when he had had enough and well, he knew. Murray bought himself the necessary time to find the right replacement but that's where it went wrong.
Chrissy could be the new Curbs and take us back up the leagues. If he does so, history may have taught him and us lessons and hopefully we will be able to keep him when the big guns come sniffing around. Last season will also help as he will know that if he was say at a club like Spurs, he would have got the sack with the results he achieved. The grass isn't always greener. The problem is that the best managers should have confidence in themselves and their ability and if you do you want to manage at the very top - 2003/4 showed that there is a glass ceiling - Charlton can be in the top 4 teams in the country -yes but not for long. The money will come and shoot us down. I suspect this was the thing that hurt Curbs the most. In the days when Clough brought success to Forest, the highest success could be achieved by a smaller well run club but in today's game it is impossible.
That is certainly not Gary Nelsons view in his first book Left Foot Forward (which is a must read).
His opinion of Curbs was that he is quick-witted - sometimes to sharp/barbed. He wasn't schooled in the media bullshit of some but to say he is not the brightest spark does him a real injustice imho.
Curbs has proved time and time again he is one of football's thinkers.
As a player, he performed intelligently and with vision.
He also did his homework to the nth degree, almost obsessive with the detail.
That's called, in my book, being thorough.
Sure, he can be cautious, over-cautious, perhaps.......(see, I resisted the Curbs-ism for once!).
And his approach in the Premiership especially, was primarily twofold:
1) Let's not lose.
2) Let's get to 40 points and safety, as soon as possible.
Nobody can argue against that those 2 strategies each season which stood Charlton in good stead.
They were the cornerstones of our comparative success.
As Bing suggests, Curbs rarely played to the audience in his media interviews.
Maybe that cautious, and perhaps to viewers, dull manner wasn't important to Curbs'?
He was manager of a football club - and that was his focus.
So in all seriousness, Murray really didn't do us any favours in all this did he.
Agreed
Murray perhaps considered that:
1) It would create uncertainty within the club if Curbs was allowed to run down his contract
2) A new manager would need the funds for building his own team.
Just my opinions, of course.
Thought he moved up North because his wife wanted to get him away from the area as he was knocking off a secretary at Millwall. Allegedly.
West Ham did at this time start making massive profits on average or below average prem footballers.
Pity he missed out on Sidwell and Bullard, as they both seem players on the verge of making themselves names in the prem, before their huge wages and slowing careers. Counter that to Faye and Traore, it makes you wonder what Murray was thinking. Decisions are made and new environments encourage different eventualities. It's just a shame someone didn't wrap up Bullard early instead of Cory Gibbs. Curbs pragmatism certainly placed him higher above countless English managers such as Pardew and Dowie, who just weren't able to adapt their style of play when under pressure. It'll be interesting to see if Pardew is able to effect a pragmatic team ethic now his effective physical players he inherited are being sold off. Somehow I doubt if he has the pragmatic intelligence of Curbs', but most fans don't want pragmatism. I know I certainly fell for Pardew's more engaging media personality, until I saw his choices up close.
I think what people forget about some of Curbishley's signings at West Ham is that he was being told he was buying players to take them into the Champions League. At the stary some of the players were, indeed, to keep them up and the total price he paid for them (transfers and wages) way way too high, but there needed to be a good reason for these players to sign for a club that looked like it was going to be in the 2nd division the following season.
Ljunberg et. al. were the type of player a club needs to sign if they mean business. They needed to sign a few top names so that they could convince others to join them. The total cost of Ljunberg was way more than he contributed, but if they had really been able to finance a top four challenge then they needed to indicate to the younger players they were trying to sign that they had arrived. As it happens, many players have been signed into their 30s and made a massive contributuion to their new club. The money that was wasted on some of the players pales into insignificance when compated with some of the top four teams gambles, and that was what Curbishley was told he was to do. Build a team to challenge for the top four, and very, very quickly.
The truth is that the money ran out, or was never really there in the first place, and they were saddled with the first tranch of highly paid players, who were, realisically, always going to be the older/injury prone/bad attitude/greedy money grabbing players that you move on when you can convince better players to come instead.
West Ham were being financed by an Icelandic consortium and their investments were made almost worthless overnight.
Or something like that.