I know I should probably just give up argueing haha, But it's easy to forget the good points ie getting a new pitch, Upgrading training ground, Having a world wide scouting network, Signing wiggins on 4 year deal ?
Be honest with us, are you Roland? Because these aren't positives, these are all to help his money making and network, the pitch is a must as without it we can't function as a football team.
Your looking at it with blinkers on how is wiggins signing a 4 year deal bad oh it's all for money isit ? It's a joke like I said everything he does he can't win he does something good it's for money he does something bad which apart from the sale of yann I can't see anything else maybe not bring in more players. He gets slaughterd . And no it isn't a given that the pitch would get renewed look at nla post to see how bad it was before !
CL would not be the same would it without the unrestrained unsubstantiated hysteria we see on it.
RD owns kit and caboodle, he will do exactly as he pleases and there is NOTHING you can do about it. Like all things in life it will work or not. Tiresome as it is for some on here rant away by all means but bear in mind this. IF you replaced the RD with SCP on any of the ridiculous threads appearing on CL atm the threads would be banned along with the poster who wrote the stuff such is the vitriol spite and absurdity in them.
To the majority on here, your man has gone, he was always going to go. While everyone in football and out seems to sympathise with his plight as I do as well btw we need to push on and support CAFC AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS...
Stand up sit down face the pitch turn around stand your head tonight at the match. Boo hiss be silent. My gauge of the man, RD that is, is that he won't give a toss.
The lads tonight, limited as they have proved so far this season need unreserved support, I hope every Charlton fan will give them that.
That sums it up for me. Go tonight and i will be surrounded by such head in sands lets win this match and not cause a fuss ?fans and will get wound up.
My protest is now clear to me. I will not attend the valley with such just as i did not attend selhurst with the sheep of that era, til the regime has gone.
At least my conscience will be clear and I will not be leap frogging into the directors box to get at RD.... would look a bit silly at my age.
There is a problem with Roland asset-stripping Charlton to feed Liege. The taxman takes a very dim view of assets being sold at less than their true value. So RD may be able to sell one player to Liege for less than he's worth, always assuming the player wants to go to Belgium, but when he tries it with the second or third one, he's running a big risk.
So KentRed tell us what club you want and then tell me how you are going to pay for it.
The Samuels piece is a very well written article. The problem is it complete and utter b******s.
It is the sort of jingoistic clap trap you can normally expect from the Mail but selective in the extreme. Heaven forbid he address the fundamental financial distortion the many overseas investors have brought to the UK game, which has so many medium sized clubs teetering on the brink of financial ruin just trying to compete.
Can't jeopardise his seat at the top table can he?
Rather than attack the UK authorities for allowing such foreign interference in our game, he blames UEFA and picks on us to attack an innovative international model (not uncommon in France & Belgium) and which has the opportunity to bring some financial stability. So don't understand it, so don't like it, lets just stick the knife into this "jonny foreigner". (nothing to do with mate of a mate getting the sack)
All based on BBC editing. I am not sure how familiar you are with the media but the interview was edited in such a way as to produce a good sound bite or headline. It is what they do. I once had the pleasure of watching my father (Regional Director of a Utilities company) being interviewed by the BBC. The broadcast interview was a complete distortion of the facts.
I am just wondering if I have missed something - who did we transfer to Standard Liege? I was under the impression we signed 1 player from SL and had two more on loan, and of course we have a lad on a youth loan. Not quite the 8 or 9 Watford brought in.
Now I am getting on in years and my judgment of players is not what it once was but could someone please enlighten me which of our current squad are of Champions League Standard. Perhaps Mr Samuels could use his crystal ball and put a few names in the frame as to who of our future prospects may be heading to mainland Europe.
Still believe it if you must. For me I will put it alongside our playing in a UEFA competition any time soon.
Does RD have a vision and an outline of the future? Yes but the truth is very simply RD at this point does not yet know how it will all hang together because he needs to assess exactly what he has bought and how it will all fit together.
His focus at this point is trying to understand how he gets the club to be viable financially. I really tire of people trundling out they are not interested in the business. At what point do you not realise if the business fails then the club does not exist? It is akin to buying a house and not worrying whether it has any foundations. At some point the whole thing falls over.
The dismissal of Powell is controversial and yesterday was a very sad day. A good man has lost his job. Ultimately it turned out he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A good manager, in the right circumstances, I had 3 challenges with CP.
1. His coaching ability - Powell appears a very decent coach but the performances of several individual players left a great deal to be desired - 30% have to all intents and purposes been discarded making absolutely no contribution to the club.
2. His inability to structure a balanced front six to provide any pattern of sustainable attacking play. It is simply not enough to produce a platform to restrict the other side and rely on an individual piece of flair to nick a goal for a win.
It worked very well in L1 and with the purple patch at the end of the first championship season we reached 9th largely due to Obika snatching very late goals. Such results are to be applauded but we were always going to face 2nd season syndrome where other sides just suss you out. He needed to change the game plan.
I recognize the recruitment challenges. In many ways this season was always an accident waiting to happen but you cannot keep rejecting players as not good enough - because after a while you run out of options. Too many players were simply not performing and that is a primary responsibility/ function of a head coach.
Hence we have Cousins on Sunday looking like he had never played before. A midfield of Cousins, Poyet and Jackson with Harriott tucked in on the left offers little balance, very modest passing range, little pace and bugger all open play attacking threat.
3. Would he fit with the Head Coach job description - With loss of the final say in terms of player recruitment - the answer was always likely to be - No.
I respect his view but the head coach model is common and works well in Europe.
It is a sad day and I understand the emotion but any friction between a manager and his board will transfer to the pitch. RD & CP sought to find a compromise but regrettably failed to do so. In many ways our club will be poorer for his departure but we have to move forward.
It is a time for reflection and but also a time for renewal. We face a significant challenge in the coming weeks and can understand some may no longer have the stomach for the fight but I for one have every intention of giving my full support to those seeking to meet the challenge.
For all those rambling about their Charlton identity, for me it is what I have done for over 50yrs and what I will continue to do.
CL would not be the same would it without the unrestrained unsubstantiated hysteria we see on it.
RD owns kit and caboodle, he will do exactly as he pleases and there is NOTHING you can do about it. Like all things in life it will work or not. Tiresome as it is for some on here rant away by all means but bear in mind this. IF you replaced the RD with SCP on any of the ridiculous threads appearing on CL atm the threads would be banned along with the poster who wrote the stuff such is the vitriol spite and absurdity in them.
To the majority on here, your man has gone, he was always going to go. While everyone in football and out seems to sympathise with his plight as I do as well btw we need to push on and support CAFC AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS...
Stand up sit down face the pitch turn around stand your head tonight at the match. Boo hiss be silent. My gauge of the man, RD that is, is that he won't give a toss.
The lads tonight, limited as they have proved so far this season need unreserved support, I hope every Charlton fan will give them that.
That sums it up for me. Go tonight and i will be surrounded by such head in sands lets win this match and not cause a fuss ?fans and will get wound up.
My protest is now clear to me. I will not attend the valley with such just as i did not attend selhurst with the sheep of that era, til the regime has gone.
At least my conscience will be clear and I will not be leap frogging into the directors box to get at RD.... would look a bit silly at my age.
Just away games like with lennies team.
Good luck to you all
Enjoy supporting the team by not being there to cheer them on, get behind them and trying to inspire them to a desperately needed win. I am very glad you will have a nice clean conscience, so will I, my conscience will be more than clear knowing that I have done all that I can to support the club the best way I know how.
People are saying to avoid games, not renew season tickets, boycott this that and the other, fine, that's up to them. I will be going to every game I can make to support the players and my fellow fans. I don't give a toss what Roland makes of it all, my allegiance is to the players and the fans.
So KentRed tell us what club you want and then tell me how you are going to pay for it.
The Samuels piece is a very well written article. The problem is it complete and utter b******s.
It is the sort of jingoistic clap trap you can normally expect from the Mail but selective in the extreme. Heaven forbid he address the fundamental financial distortion the many overseas investors have brought to the UK game, which has so many medium sized clubs teetering on the brink of financial ruin just trying to compete.
Can't jeopardise his seat at the top table can he?
Rather than attack the UK authorities for allowing such foreign interference in our game, he blames UEFA and picks on us to attack an innovative international model (not uncommon in France & Belgium) and which has the opportunity to bring some financial stability. So don't understand it, so don't like it, lets just stick the knife into this "jonny foreigner". (nothing to do with mate of a mate getting the sack)
All based on BBC editing. I am not sure how familiar you are with the media but the interview was edited in such a way as to produce a good sound bite or headline. It is what they do. I once had the pleasure of watching my father (Regional Director of a Utilities company) being interviewed by the BBC. The broadcast interview was a complete distortion of the facts.
I am just wondering if I have missed something - who did we transfer to Standard Liege? I was under the impression we signed 1 player from SL and had two more on loan, and of course we have a lad on a youth loan. Not quite the 8 or 9 Watford brought in.
Now I am getting on in years and my judgment of players is not what it once was but could someone please enlighten me which of our current squad are of Champions League Standard. Perhaps Mr Samuels could use his crystal ball and put a few names in the frame as to who of our future prospects may be heading to mainland Europe.
Still believe it if you must. For me I will put it alongside our playing in a UEFA competition any time soon.
Does RD have a vision and an outline of the future? Yes but the truth is very simply RD at this point does not yet know how it will all hang together because he needs to assess exactly what he has bought and how it will all fit together.
His focus at this point is trying to understand how he gets the club to be viable financially. I really tire of people trundling out they are not interested in the business. At what point do you not realise if the business fails then the club does not exist? It is akin to buying a house and not worrying whether it has any foundations. At some point the whole thing falls over.
The dismissal of Powell is controversial and yesterday was a very sad day. A good man has lost his job. Ultimately it turned out he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A good manager, in the right circumstances, I had 3 challenges with CP.
1. His coaching ability - Powell appears a very decent coach but the performances of several individual players left a great deal to be desired - 30% have to all intents and purposes been discarded making absolutely no contribution to the club.
2. His inability to structure a balanced front six to provide any pattern of sustainable attacking play. It is simply not enough to produce a platform to restrict the other side and rely on an individual piece of flair to nick a goal for a win.
It worked very well in L1 and with the purple patch at the end of the first championship season we reached 9th largely due to Obika snatching very late goals. Such results are to be applauded but we were always going to face 2nd season syndrome where other sides just suss you out. He needed to change the game plan.
I recognize the recruitment challenges. In many ways this season was always an accident waiting to happen but you cannot keep rejecting players as not good enough - because after a while you run out of options. Too many players were simply not performing and that is a primary responsibility/ function of a head coach.
Hence we have Cousins on Sunday looking like he had never played before. A midfield of Cousins, Poyet and Jackson with Harriott tucked in on the left offers little balance, very modest passing range, little pace and bugger all open play attacking threat.
3. Would he fit with the Head Coach job description - With loss of the final say in terms of player recruitment - the answer was always likely to be - No.
I respect his view but the head coach model is common and works well in Europe.
It is a sad day and I understand the emotion but any friction between a manager and his board will transfer to the pitch. RD & CP sought to find a compromise but regrettably failed to do so. In many ways our club will be poorer for his departure but we have to move forward.
It is a time for reflection and but also a time for renewal. We face a significant challenge in the coming weeks and can understand some may no longer have the stomach for the fight but I for one have every intention of giving my full support to those seeking to meet the challenge.
For all those rambling about their Charlton identity, for me it is what I have done for over 50yrs and what I will continue to do.
Wow, with all that tactical knowledge they should have hired you.
Would those that feel being part of the network means we lose our identity feel the same if a billionaire came in and spent millions on transfer fees and a huge wage bill to take us up to the Prem? I wouldn't call that "the Charlton way" either, but if it works we'd probably enjoy the success.
We needed a new owner and unless they're happy to put that sort of money into the club to attempt to buy promotion we need a way for the club to keep running at Championship level.
Ideally we'd have an owner willing to put in a few million (at least) every season to keep the club running, invest in the academy to take it to category 1, sort out the pitch and give the manager a decent Championship budget. They'd have no links to other clubs and perhaps they'd even be a Charlton fan.
Look at the sort of owners other clubs have. Sacking managers every season, building up unsustainable wage bills, some even change clubs names or colours. I'm not sure that ideal owner is out there. Maybe RD looked the best option at the time. Maybe he was the only option.
Nothing to do with things being the Charlton way. I wouldn't be totally comfortable with it but at least that scenario would mean players being brought in for the sole benefit and success of Charlton. Many are not convinced that the current network has the sole interests of Charlton at heart and that we may be used for other peoples/clubs benefits before our own. Perfectly happy to be part of a network that's well run and in our individual interest as a unique club. It isn't clear whether that is going to be the case or not and events since the take over have people rightfully questioning. Time will tell.
I think this gets to the heart of the matter. Being a supporter is for the vast majority of people a lifelong labour of love. The level of loyalty involved exceeds almost all other relationships; by contrast, that formally lifelong commitment called marriage seems a positively casual undertaking. Any model of football without supporters at the heart of it is inconceivable. But for it to work, the supporters must be given something in return for that enormous loyalty. What? Perhaps supporters only have one non-negotiable requirement: that the club they support be managed in a way that tries to achieve as much success as possible within certain financial parameters. If owners betray this unspoken understanding, then, over time, the supporter base must decline.
Is Duchatalet intent on such betrayal? I don’t think we know. The Supporters Trust has identified the questions that need to be answered for us to really understand his intentions. So far, we know that he wants the club to at least break even; that he believes in youth development (possibly just as means to the end of breaking even); and that he seems to have some sort of fascination with using football as a means to conduct the social experiment of running football clubs in a different kind of way. It is not at all clear to me that he is motivated by financial gain. He might be, but alternatively one could say that his somewhat gnomic utterances so far are consistent with a desire to leave a permanent mark on the way things are run in the world. Presumably his founding of a political party was to achieve this in broader society. In the world of football his big idea could be to show that football clubs can be run on a more sustainable basis through a network of cooperating clubs, pooling knowledge, resources, etc. That his core aims lie in this area, rather than in financial gain, is supported by the clubs he has chosen to put in his network, for surely there is negligible chance of financial gain of a size to be of any interest to a man of his wealth in some of the minnows he has bought so far. He seems to be a man who is proud of his intellect, someone who, having already demonstrated that he can become a self-made multi-millionaire, is now looking to show that he is also smarter than all those who have got involved in football so far - that he has discovered the secret of running football clubs of different sizes on a sustainable financial basis.
However, if this is to work, he must exercise some restraint. He must not get so carried away with his big idea of the ‘network’ that he contravenes the unspoken contract that a football club must have with its supporters. He must not, for example, insist that the manager of one of his clubs, one fighting to avoid relegation, plays someone who does not merit his place in order to deliver some benefit elsewhere in the network - that would be to betray that lifelong commitment that the club’s supporters have made. By the way, I am not convinced that he has done this. (If Thuram is in the starting eleven tonight, I will change my opinion, but I will be very surprised if he is.) However, one thing we do know - for he and CP have both said as much - is that he will reduce to some degree the authority of the manager (head coach). This in itself is not automatically wrong for we have seen over the last several years a good number of clubs in the upper reaches of the English leagues (and elsewhere) adopt such a model. However, there are different ways of implementing the sporting director / head coach model and some don’t work. Doing it within a network model is almost untried (for networks are almost untried) and increases the scope for unworkable friction, and maybe we have already observed the unworkability of our version of it.
First time for me on here. I must say I have been getting really worked up with all the negativity of some fans - Chris Powell is a great bloke amd always will be but change was needed. so many 'fans' have been saying that Chris Powell should go - hes gone; many were saying a while ago that Ben Hamer was useless and now moaning that he will be one of the next ones to go. Fans are so fickle it really makes my blood boil. Surely we must wait and see what now happens under Roland and Jose before we start slagging them off - we could be 'doomed' or not. As for fans not wanting to renew or go to matches what is that going to achieve? We need to stick by our club and I for one will still be doing so as I have for the last 40 years
Very interesting post KHA. I really do buy in to what RD is trying to achieve: I think it is a good idea, and that - for the most part - he has acted and spoken very well since he took over the club in a terrible situation.
However, I think you touch on my one real fear: in my work I am the editor of a trade magazine, so I get to know a lot of self-made me and one thing that I find a lot of them have in common is the absolute belief that they (and normally they alone) have discovered the 'special sauce' - they have the big idea or the extra bit of understanding that will change the world. Everyone - to varying degrees - is a bit behind the curve or actual idiots, because they have seen the future.
It is a kind of confidence which makes many of them great.
I see a lot of this trait in RD and I can perfectly imagine that he has the drive to push things through to a success, but there is just a little something that makes we worry that he might not be right and there might be a reason why such a scheme has not been done in the past.
Still, I do think that he deserves a proper chance to try and, if he is right, it will be a great opportunity for the club. I certainly think that he will also be working very hard to have us succeed because people like that also do not like to be seen to fail in public.
There will be protests soon enough .... and soon enough Roland wont be allowed near the ground without security... F*** him... The reason this all hurts so much is we had a chance of sublime perfection with one of our own taking us back to the big time and with a small amount of investment (comparitively) I feel we had a decent chance of that and the back end of last season hinted at that, and now hes ripped the heart out, sold our talisman, and now sacked Powell, he deserves his fucking head kicked in, hard....
Ive been pissed off for 2 days, and if he does turn it around its still like losing your first love, its like seeing perfection slip from your hand losing Powell...
If we go on the slide, and if this continues much longer I can see a lot of people walking away and rightfully so, if he wants to get Charlton sustainable in either league one, hes dreaming its not possible to be competitive and not lose money, the only shot is the premier league, and when he had a sniff of stability and keeping the man that could have kept us, hes **** **** of the highest order and Im furious as you may be able to tell... I didn't vent yesterday so apologies its coming today but I want to take a cricket bat to this bloke or have him fall in front of a train or something to disrespecting Powell and my club... time to find him and brace him...
First time for me on here. I must say I have been getting really worked up with all the negativity of some fans - Chris Powell is a great bloke amd always will be but change was needed. so many 'fans' have been saying that Chris Powell should go - hes gone; many were saying a while ago that Ben Hamer was useless and now moaning that he will be one of the next ones to go. Fans are so fickle it really makes my blood boil. Surely we must wait and see what now happens under Roland and Jose before we start slagging them off - we could be 'doomed' or not. As for fans not wanting to renew or go to matches what is that going to achieve? We need to stick by our club and I for one will still be doing so as I have for the last 40 years
Just a thought, but maybe they were different fans, each with their own opinions?
And change was needed, on that we agree. But I think they should have backed our manager for a change because he deserved it. Unfortunately, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater and now we're the poorer for it.
The Samuels piece is a very well written article. The problem is it complete and utter b******s
As soon as I saw that Martin Samuels had written an article on Charlton I knew immediately I'd disagree with it. He is always opinionated, strident and at times even indignant, but he is always much less welll informed and insightful than he seems to think he is. That's the polite version. You're right. Like most of his stuff this piece is sensationalist crap.
The reason this all hurts so much is we had a chance of sublime perfection with one of our own taking us back to the big time and with a small amount of investment (comparitively) I feel we had a decent chance of that and the back end of last season hinted at that, and now hes ripped the heart out, sold our talisman, and now sacked Powell, he deserves his fucking head kicked in, hard....
How on Earth do you think that RD deserves such vacuous vitriol?
It wasnt RD who failed to invest last summer, in fact he did invest when he came in bringing in new players (not all of whom are on loan and from SL. In fact from what Ive heard he was prepared to stump up close to £1m for the total deal for Max Gradel.
Yes he sold Yann but Yann had turned down the contract offered to him so he had no real option but to do so. Dale Stephens has been trying to do the off since 2012 and had too turned down the contract offered to him.
Im sad that Chris has gone as I too would have loved nothing more than Chris to lead us back to the PL, but we have to stop looking at his time through such rose tinted glasses. He was tactically naive, he made formation and positional mistakes, he lacked nous and some of the reason we're bottom of the league is down to Powell.
Grapevine49 you have put into prose what I felt about the Daily Fail and the Powell sacking. On top of this we have a full page in the Standard tonight...and when was the last time we had that? Opinionated parasites are gleaning the Web for soundbites and hoping we lose tonight so they have more copy to run against Jenny foreigner and the project. Why? Because they are scared that this experiment is successful for the implications are truly massive. This reminds me of something I learnt 20 years ago on an MBA... If you want the most radical change in business model then go to the most outdated industry. CAFC has to work its way to the top and I hope that starts tonight
Comments
The Samuels piece is a very well written article. The problem is it complete and utter b******s.
It is the sort of jingoistic clap trap you can normally expect from the Mail but selective in the extreme. Heaven forbid he address the fundamental financial distortion the many overseas investors have brought to the UK game, which has so many medium sized clubs teetering on the brink of financial ruin just trying to compete.
Can't jeopardise his seat at the top table can he?
Rather than attack the UK authorities for allowing such foreign interference in our game, he blames UEFA and picks on us to attack an innovative international model (not uncommon in France & Belgium) and which has the opportunity to bring some financial stability. So don't understand it, so don't like it, lets just stick the knife into this "jonny foreigner". (nothing to do with mate of a mate getting the sack)
All based on BBC editing. I am not sure how familiar you are with the media but the interview was edited in such a way as to produce a good sound bite or headline. It is what they do. I once had the pleasure of watching my father (Regional Director of a Utilities company) being interviewed by the BBC. The broadcast interview was a complete distortion of the facts.
I am just wondering if I have missed something - who did we transfer to Standard Liege? I was under the impression we signed 1 player from SL and had two more on loan, and of course we have a lad on a youth loan. Not quite the 8 or 9 Watford brought in.
Now I am getting on in years and my judgment of players is not what it once was but could someone please enlighten me which of our current squad are of Champions League Standard. Perhaps Mr Samuels could use his crystal ball and put a few names in the frame as to who of our future prospects may be heading to mainland Europe.
Still believe it if you must. For me I will put it alongside our playing in a UEFA competition any time soon.
Does RD have a vision and an outline of the future? Yes but the truth is very simply RD at this point does not yet know how it will all hang together because he needs to assess exactly what he has bought and how it will all fit together.
His focus at this point is trying to understand how he gets the club to be viable financially. I really tire of people trundling out they are not interested in the business. At what point do you not realise if the business fails then the club does not exist? It is akin to buying a house and not worrying whether it has any foundations. At some point the whole thing falls over.
The dismissal of Powell is controversial and yesterday was a very sad day. A good man has lost his job. Ultimately it turned out he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A good manager, in the right circumstances, I had 3 challenges with CP.
1. His coaching ability - Powell appears a very decent coach but the performances of several individual players left a great deal to be desired - 30% have to all intents and purposes been discarded making absolutely no contribution to the club.
2. His inability to structure a balanced front six to provide any pattern of sustainable attacking play. It is simply not enough to produce a platform to restrict the other side and rely on an individual piece of flair to nick a goal for a win.
It worked very well in L1 and with the purple patch at the end of the first championship season we reached 9th largely due to Obika snatching very late goals. Such results are to be applauded but we were always going to face 2nd season syndrome where other sides just suss you out. He needed to change the game plan.
I recognize the recruitment challenges. In many ways this season was always an accident waiting to happen but you cannot keep rejecting players as not good enough - because after a while you run out of options. Too many players were simply not performing and that is a primary responsibility/ function of a head coach.
Hence we have Cousins on Sunday looking like he had never played before. A midfield of Cousins, Poyet and Jackson with Harriott tucked in on the left offers little balance, very modest passing range, little pace and bugger all open play attacking threat.
3. Would he fit with the Head Coach job description - With loss of the final say in terms of player recruitment - the answer was always likely to be - No.
I respect his view but the head coach model is common and works well in Europe.
It is a sad day and I understand the emotion but any friction between a manager and his board will transfer to the pitch. RD & CP sought to find a compromise but regrettably failed to do so. In many ways our club will be poorer for his departure but we have to move forward.
It is a time for reflection and but also a time for renewal. We face a significant challenge in the coming weeks and can understand some may no longer have the stomach for the fight but
I for one have every intention of giving my full support to those seeking to meet the challenge.
For all those rambling about their Charlton identity, for me it is what I have done for over 50yrs and what I will continue to do.
People are saying to avoid games, not renew season tickets, boycott this that and the other, fine, that's up to them. I will be going to every game I can make to support the players and my fellow fans. I don't give a toss what Roland makes of it all, my allegiance is to the players and the fans.
EDIT: Grapevine49's post, obviously
The most difficult thing for me was seeing Chris in a Charlton kit.........
Is Duchatalet intent on such betrayal? I don’t think we know. The Supporters Trust has identified the questions that need to be answered for us to really understand his intentions. So far, we know that he wants the club to at least break even; that he believes in youth development (possibly just as means to the end of breaking even); and that he seems to have some sort of fascination with using football as a means to conduct the social experiment of running football clubs in a different kind of way. It is not at all clear to me that he is motivated by financial gain. He might be, but alternatively one could say that his somewhat gnomic utterances so far are consistent with a desire to leave a permanent mark on the way things are run in the world. Presumably his founding of a political party was to achieve this in broader society. In the world of football his big idea could be to show that football clubs can be run on a more sustainable basis through a network of cooperating clubs, pooling knowledge, resources, etc. That his core aims lie in this area, rather than in financial gain, is supported by the clubs he has chosen to put in his network, for surely there is negligible chance of financial gain of a size to be of any interest to a man of his wealth in some of the minnows he has bought so far. He seems to be a man who is proud of his intellect, someone who, having already demonstrated that he can become a self-made multi-millionaire, is now looking to show that he is also smarter than all those who have got involved in football so far - that he has discovered the secret of running football clubs of different sizes on a sustainable financial basis.
However, if this is to work, he must exercise some restraint. He must not get so carried away with his big idea of the ‘network’ that he contravenes the unspoken contract that a football club must have with its supporters. He must not, for example, insist that the manager of one of his clubs, one fighting to avoid relegation, plays someone who does not merit his place in order to deliver some benefit elsewhere in the network - that would be to betray that lifelong commitment that the club’s supporters have made. By the way, I am not convinced that he has done this. (If Thuram is in the starting eleven tonight, I will change my opinion, but I will be very surprised if he is.) However, one thing we do know - for he and CP have both said as much - is that he will reduce to some degree the authority of the manager (head coach). This in itself is not automatically wrong for we have seen over the last several years a good number of clubs in the upper reaches of the English leagues (and elsewhere) adopt such a model. However, there are different ways of implementing the sporting director / head coach model and some don’t work. Doing it within a network model is almost untried (for networks are almost untried) and increases the scope for unworkable friction, and maybe we have already observed the unworkability of our version of it.
As DRAddick says, ‘Time will tell’.
However, I think you touch on my one real fear: in my work I am the editor of a trade magazine, so I get to know a lot of self-made me and one thing that I find a lot of them have in common is the absolute belief that they (and normally they alone) have discovered the 'special sauce' - they have the big idea or the extra bit of understanding that will change the world. Everyone - to varying degrees - is a bit behind the curve or actual idiots, because they have seen the future.
It is a kind of confidence which makes many of them great.
I see a lot of this trait in RD and I can perfectly imagine that he has the drive to push things through to a success, but there is just a little something that makes we worry that he might not be right and there might be a reason why such a scheme has not been done in the past.
Still, I do think that he deserves a proper chance to try and, if he is right, it will be a great opportunity for the club. I certainly think that he will also be working very hard to have us succeed because people like that also do not like to be seen to fail in public.
Ive been pissed off for 2 days, and if he does turn it around its still like losing your first love, its like seeing perfection slip from your hand losing Powell...
If we go on the slide, and if this continues much longer I can see a lot of people walking away and rightfully so, if he wants to get Charlton sustainable in either league one, hes dreaming its not possible to be competitive and not lose money, the only shot is the premier league, and when he had a sniff of stability and keeping the man that could have kept us, hes **** **** of the highest order and Im furious as you may be able to tell... I didn't vent yesterday so apologies its coming today but I want to take a cricket bat to this bloke or have him fall in front of a train or something to disrespecting Powell and my club... time to find him and brace him...
And change was needed, on that we agree. But I think they should have backed our manager for a change because he deserved it. Unfortunately, the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater and now we're the poorer for it.
It wasnt RD who failed to invest last summer, in fact he did invest when he came in bringing in new players (not all of whom are on loan and from SL. In fact from what Ive heard he was prepared to stump up close to £1m for the total deal for Max Gradel.
Yes he sold Yann but Yann had turned down the contract offered to him so he had no real option but to do so. Dale Stephens has been trying to do the off since 2012 and had too turned down the contract offered to him.
Im sad that Chris has gone as I too would have loved nothing more than Chris to lead us back to the PL, but we have to stop looking at his time through such rose tinted glasses. He was tactically naive, he made formation and positional mistakes, he lacked nous and some of the reason we're bottom of the league is down to Powell.
Opinionated parasites are gleaning the Web for soundbites and hoping we lose tonight so they have more copy to run against Jenny foreigner and the project.
Why? Because they are scared that this experiment is successful for the implications are truly massive.
This reminds me of something I learnt 20 years ago on an MBA... If you want the most radical change in business model then go to the most outdated industry.
CAFC has to work its way to the top and I hope that starts tonight