Right, other sites and radio stations are full of anti-Dowie stuff at present. With no wind-ups and few agendas, i think this board has a good selection of age ranges and demographics across the Charlton support.
So lets see where things really stand. Do you:
a) Happy with what Dowie has done so far, fixtures and injuries have been unkind, am confident he will turn it round and we will stay up.
b) Indifferent to Dowie so far, fixtures and injuries have been unkind, but am confident he will turn it round and we will stay up.
c) Not happy with Dowie so far, but think we will be ok
d) Not happy with Dowie so far, and think we are going down.
Lets see what the true picture is. Be honest.
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Comments
Curbs (sorry to bring him up) would have gone back to basics at Villa, 5 in Midfield, Romm on the bench and we may have ground out a draw. Who knows.
Given that we got out of jail against Bolton, we could be sitting here with nil point.
I have to admit that I wasn't even that bothered on Saturday, because I'm just feeling that we won't get anything out of a game.
I'm sorry but it's relegation all the way ...
And totally agree with Riscardo that we would have more points under Curbs with the injuries we have, but still dont think we'll be relegated.
The players havent had a chance to settle and get to know one another because of the injury list. Once they do we'll be fine
b) Indifferent to Dowie so far, fixtures and injuries have been unkind, but am confident* he will turn it round and we will stay up. *not so sure about confident, more hopefull.
Glad we spent the money when we did as it's hard to attract players when you're down the bottom in January.
We didn't get out of jail against Bolton, we just out performed them in every area of the pitch.
We missed Tarore on the left as he gives a lot of energy and width, miss Reid who has shown he can play the killer pass, we miss the competition at centre half that Diawara and Sorondo would give.
I'm confident we can get out of this, just I get the horrible feeling the negativity might drag us in, almost like theres a death wish within some of the support
Think we would have struggled at least as much with Curbs this season - you only have to look at our record after the opening 10 games of last season to see that we have been relegation fodder for about a year now.
They put it away and we lose ... now that definately is our get out of jail card ...
no real issue with dowie apart from some unconfirmed worries about the training methods used (which may not be entirely down to him). The injuries have been unfortunate but the sheer number is cause for concern in my book. i think we may go down but I think it will be a close run thing.
The problem will be the crowd factor. It won't take many more defeats for them to really start getting at him (there were quite a few rumbling against Pompey) and that will help bring things down even faster.
I'm impressed by his attitude in terms of trying to win games but you feel that Curbs would have probably shut up shop, stopped the rut and as a result we would have probably had a couple of dire, boring 0-0's and a couple more points.
Bolton had a pen, and Scotty saved it. BUT if they had scored, they would have won.
Scotty saved it and we went on to win ... that was our get out of jail card.
Jesus ....
We could say that WHU GOOJC was Djimi getting sent off
We could say that Chelsea's GOOJC was us having that goal disallowed
could go on and on. These things go on in football but we have to learn to cope, we just can't score goals at the moment so when we go one down it rarely looks like we can get back into the game at all.
As for having more points if Curbs had been in charge, then I think that some need to take off the Curbs tinted spectacles and remember how bad things were last season.
Under Curbs, maybe we would have got a point out of Portsmouth, by strangling the life out of the game with 10 behind the ball but aside from that I can't see what else he would have done.
Carson
Young Diawara HH(Traore) Traore(Gibbs)
Romm(Ambrose) Pouso Faye Reid
Bent JFH
would get relegated. However, if we are bottom b4 we play Fulham (likely) and us fans start getting at Dowie then that negativity alone could take us down. The Board will stand by their man even if we are relegated so let's make sure it doean't happen. It's up to us as well as the players and ID. I saw much,much worse under AC last season than I did at Villa on Saturday. Remember Wigan away anyone ??
But there's a long way to go yet and hopefully we're learning a lot from this difficult spell.
I know you might say "well he would say that, he's got to back the manager" but I agree with Large. This is not Dowie's team yet and large's eleven would be close to Dowies IMHO with maybe Thomas wide rather than Ambrose or Romm. Also Walton may come back in Jan a much better player.
My fear is that the injuries don't clear up and we do what Birmingham did. Spend all season moaning about bad luck and good sqaud injuried and still go down.
Some of you were saying "like to see us go down, this is boring, it was better in the old days" last season. Still think that? It was bollax then and it's bollax now.
i don't think anybody is trying to say things are just rosy. It would be idiotic to think that everything is rosy and beautiful in the Charlton garden.
By no means was i trying to say that if all the if's and but's worked out we'd win the league - that would be equally idiotic.
There is an awful lot of work to be done by everyone at the club, i am concerned that the majority of our injuries which are associated with the hamstring and the fact that the players don't seem to know each other.
I am however confident that we have the quality of players that will mean that we will remain in the league quite comfortably.
Anyone Laugh at yiddo's and the Hampsters and Mirwall losing. I did!
I think Henry is spot on here. The problem is that if we keep picking up injuries, we are stuck with the likes of Hughes, Kish and Holland, players that simply aren't good enough.
There are a number of factors that contribute to our current position. The number of late arrivals some clearly nowhere near match fit hasn't helped and that has added to the disastrous injury problems. The fixtures have been difficult too with most of the teams we do poorly against being added to the likes of Man U and Chelski in the opening few games.
I guess the jury is still out on Dowie as he hasn't been able to field a first team selected on merit as yet and it has been very much a make do and mend situation.
I think that when the players start coming back and a settled side is put together we will start to climb the table somewhat but I still expect it to be bottom half all the way.
The first rule of management is that if you don't concede you don't lose and whilst it wasn't attractive it was effective. I'm not saying he shouldn't have gone, just saying that he had a little more nous about him. After all would Curbs have played 3 up front against Pompey knowing that due to injury we were short of numbers in midfield and then let that carry on for 45 mins. Would he have allowed Herman to be so exposed at LB against Villa (where their 1st goal stemmed from) for 90 mins.
There's no surprise that we played well against Pompey when we put 4 across the middle.
I'm not slagging ID off and believe that he will turn things around. I was just hoping that Les Reed would have more of an impact on his lack of tactical experience than he appears to have had.
After the bolton game it was an A, but we now need points and as someone posted recently, a winning mentality needs to be installed otherwise we will be in trouble.
The players have to take some responsibility and some of them have just not been up to the required standard. I know the buck stops at the management by i think ID has been made a scapegoat because he is new and a lot of people have their favourites and are not prepared to criticise them - HH, El Kak, Kish and i would even throw Darren Bent into that mix - and take the easy route and blame the new manager.
That said, whilst I consider 6 games too early to be on his back, if we are still bottom 3 after 12-14 games, i.e a third of the season, I will be concerned as ultimately it is a results business and Premiership survival is vital to us and our future.
My big concerns with Dowie are that he does not appear to learn from his mistakes. If BOTH Holland and Hughes play defeat is as inevitable as a dog pi$$ing on your leg if you stand on the pavement dressed as a tree or lampost. Dowie has been here long enough now to have learned that lesson you would have thought. Yet he hasn't. He also comes across like a rabbit in the headlights tactically sometimes. If Plan A fails what the hell do I do now?
I therefore have to conclude B with a fair spattering of D at present.
Exactly Len! We all knew that he would be a little "naive" and I thought that's why Les was brought back to give him some support and guidance
8.00 at the Bickley and Widmore Club Tylney Rd, Bickley. No need to be a member and you get to meet your elected director and more excitingly - as most of you have done that and weren't impressed - I hear AFKA is going to be there too