I don't think Riga set out not to win every game. The problem was we didn't have the quality up front to chase a game - especially against a decent side. It didn't help against Leicester that their opener was offside and when we hit the bar for a possible equaliser against Brighton only to find we were 2-0 less than a minute later. What Riga did do was accept that we wouldn't win every game and he ensured the lads didn't let a defeat get to them, so they were ready and prepared for the next game. This is something Chrissy was good at too and the character of the players may have played its part.
There was only one time in all honesty when I really feared relegation would happen, and that was when the massives went 2-0 up! Even when we were bottom of the league, a major reason was that we weren't playing matches. But Riga was terrific and I would feel much more comfortable if he was in charge next season than have a new manager!
This Only going 2 down and the Barnsley game. The rest was perfect delivery of coaching, tactics, subs and bottom line...results
TWONK Derogitary term, roughly equivalent to idiot. More insulting than berk, but less insulting than gimp. Thought to originate in the Victorian Era meaning a lower-class foreigner.
How can twonk be more insulting than berk? Berk is rhyming slang for what is considered the most offensive swear word in the English language, so offensive that even The Guardian is wary of printing it.
I agree that Riga has done a great job in keeping us up, but we did suffer some appalling thrashings under his leadership.
What appalling thrashings ???
Multiple 0-3 losses. Or has the euphoria of survival clouded your memory?
You sound disappointed we survived. I don't care that we took a few 3-0 beatings we won seven out of sixteen under Riga that is what kept us up. I am still celebrating because I really thought we were doomed to relegation.
From what do you infer that I'm disappointed with staying up? I made a point, against which others have argued strongly, that some of the results under Riga were far from satisfactory.
Yes some of the results were less than satisfactory, but he won seven out of sixteen which kept us up. That is what Riga set out to do and he succeeded. At the time I was not happy losing games 3-0, but now I don't give a monkeys because we are safe. What I haven't recovered from is going out of the FA Cup 6th round 2-0 to a Div 1 club. That one really hurt and still does.It has been my lifetimes ambition to see Charlton at Wembley in the FA cup and we were so close to fulfilling my ambition.
Jose Rigaalong with Karel Fraeye, Alex Dyer and Damian Matthew had a nice neat and tidy narrow brief, these are your (limited) resources guys, now keep us up. They all succeeded excellently.
To me it felt like a combination of good fortune, like Hamers pen save at Leeds, or Dorians last minute header against Bournemouth, flying by the seat of their pants (especially the early results and the loan signings), a needs must attitude in sacrificing energy in some games to keep it for others (hence some convincing defeats), a change of style to a degree to fit the available squad, a great attitude from the players (for example Sheffield Wednesday) and support not getting on their backs.
As I said the brief was narrow, and a get the job done attitude had to prevail. There was not really a masterplanned fresh template downloaded onto us that solved all of our problems, it was a moment by moment thing.
I think a clean slate, approaching a new season in this most competitive and unforgiving of divisions is an entirely different problem. Knowing about the context and the opposition is an essential, building right from pre season to the last day is a tricky challenge which many can face in theory, but it is more difficult in practice. Jose Riga may be up for the challenge and may do well at it, but the evidence of his success is very particular, and taking over for a fresh start may not be the same thing at all.
Under Riga we were a comfortable mid table team in terms of points haul. Does anyone think that we had a comfortable mid table squad ? I certainly don't. I think what was achieved by Riga was astonishing.
Yes, Alex Dyer and Damien Matthew must have played their part too but let's not underestimate Riga's role. AD and DM were also contributory factors in us being relegation candidates too or was that solely SCP ?
I'm not having a dig at Chris but I don't think we would have survived under his management. He had been damaged by lack of support and then regime change far too much to turn things around. The club was near rock bottom in morale and was rock bottom of the league. That atmosphere and gloom had to be swept away and I think it was the right thing to do.
There were certain people that said that nobody could get more out of these players than Powell, they were wrong. I must admit that I was one of the people, at the beginning of the season, who thought this was a poor group of players and that we were doomed to relegation. I agree with Shooters, Riga did a good job and it would be awful if we had to change the Manager again.
They need to keep AD and DM in the mix if they are to keep JR or as we are all understanding push JR to head of academy and then KF as our head coach, get rid of AD and DM and they'll be a fish out of water imo. Not sure what I'd like personally, but I'll judge anything coaching related on the results and what I'm seeing.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, and it's already pretty obvious from the interviews, but I've had it confirmed that Riga really has no idea if he'll be here next season, or what the plans for management are.
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
Totally disagree. That squad was completely unbalanced. No right or left sided midfield. No midfield creativity and until the last few games a strike force not worthy of the name. I blame TJ and MS for that. IMHO that squad were always going to be flirting with relegation.
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
Did you really expect Powell or any other manager for that matter to actually say, 'well our team is pretty bad to be honest, we should be getting relegated'? Imagine how demoralising that would be for a team of players, especially after some new signings.
In reality, as Powell has said in interviews since he's been sacked, he has actually said that he always knew it was going to be a long tough season after we failed to strengthen at all in the summer, I can only agree with SHG above.
But keeping the thread to Riga, according to Dr.Kish he's meeting Roland today to discuss his future:
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
Did you really expect Powell or any other manager for that matter to actually say, 'well our team is pretty bad to be honest, we should be getting relegated'? Imagine how demoralising that would be for a team of players, especially after some new signings.
I reality, as Powell has said in interviews since he's been sacked, he has actually said that he always knew it was going to be a long tough season after we failed to strengthen at all in the summer, I can only agree with SHG above.
But keeping the thread to Riga, according to Dr.Kish he's meeting Roland today to discuss his future:
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
Totally disagree. That squad was completely unbalanced. No right or left sided midfield. No midfield creativity and until the last few games a strike force not worthy of the name. I blame TJ and MS for that. IMHO that squad were always going to be flirting with relegation.
Just quoting Powell's words, are you disagreeing with his assessment? Who did we lose from the squad that almost made the play offs last season?, Ricardo Fuller, Danny Haynes, BWP & Waggy, Kerkar were the notable one's. All were bit part players and none have set the world apart since they left. Kermo and Sordell should have been a good strike force, Kermo, Church less so, but still more than adequate. Wiggins/Harriot on the left should have been good enough, same with Solly/Wilson on the right. Stephens, Cousins, Poyet, Jackson, Pritchard, Harriot, Wilson is a group of midfielders that should have been more than good enough for a mid table team, all were available to Powell. The defence was never a problem, perhaps a loan right back was needed when Solly got injured but I'm talking about the squad that started the season. The fact is that some of these players suddenly stopped performing under Powell but mysteriously started performing again under Riga. We had a squad limited in numbers and we couldn't cope when important players, were, for whatever reason, left out of the team. IMO it was the negative style of football that prevented us from scoring goals and that lead to a big drop in confidence. Riga started playing a more confident style of football and put faith in players who had previously been frozen out. These players gradually found their form and the better football started to produce goals. All this was achieved with basically Powell's team, bar Astrit, the team that you think were relegation fodder, they proved post Powell, that they most definitely were not.
It intrigues me that Riga and his backroom team got performances out of our indigenous players (bar Green and Pritchard) but not out of the takeover imports.
I'm one of the many fans that hope he stays. I started to support Charlton when Curbs was the manager and then two years later I witnessed the most chaotic period in our club's recent history when we had three managers in one season. Things didn't work out well at all until three years ago when we finally found SCP, the right person to lead us out of misery. So I've always seen it as a risk or say a highly difficult task for us to appoint a new manager. Like everyone else I had big doubts when Riga came but now that he has proved he's well capable of keeping us in this league, I really hope he will be given the chance to do the job for at least a whole season. He seems to have already built a bond with the squad and the club so why tear it all apart after such a big success? Considering RD's tendency to bring someone within his own network, it would be a risk to replace Riga with yet another new face as we would be back to square one.
It intrigues me that Riga and his backroom team got performances out of our indigenous players (bar Green and Pritchard) but not out of the takeover imports.
That is true. You have to give CP and co some credit for the players being 'real' Charlton in character, ethos and personality even if the ability isn't truly top-end Championship. That said, get a preseason under their belts and I think the likes of Reza and AA (if he returns) would fit in well enough and benefit the team in the long term.
It intrigues me that Riga and his backroom team got performances out of our indigenous players (bar Green and Pritchard) but not out of the takeover imports.
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
Totally disagree. That squad was completely unbalanced. No right or left sided midfield. No midfield creativity and until the last few games a strike force not worthy of the name. I blame TJ and MS for that. IMHO that squad were always going to be flirting with relegation.
Just quoting Powell's words, are you disagreeing with his assessment? Who did we lose from the squad that almost made the play offs last season?, Ricardo Fuller, Danny Haynes, BWP & Waggy, Kerkar were the notable one's. All were bit part players and none have set the world apart since they left. Kermo and Sordell should have been a good strike force, Kermo, Church less so, but still more than adequate. Wiggins/Harriot on the left should have been good enough, same with Solly/Wilson on the right. Stephens, Cousins, Poyet, Jackson, Pritchard, Harriot, Wilson is a group of midfielders that should have been more than good enough for a mid table team, all were available to Powell. The defence was never a problem, perhaps a loan right back was needed when Solly got injured but I'm talking about the squad that started the season. The fact is that some of these players suddenly stopped performing under Powell but mysteriously started performing again under Riga. We had a squad limited in numbers and we couldn't cope when important players, were, for whatever reason, left out of the team. IMO it was the negative style of football that prevented us from scoring goals and that lead to a big drop in confidence. Riga started playing a more confident style of football and put faith in players who had previously been frozen out. These players gradually found their form and the better football started to produce goals. All this was achieved with basically Powell's team, bar Astrit, the team that you think were relegation fodder, they proved post Powell, that they most definitely were not.
Powell.might have stated that he was happy with the strength of the squad but quite frankly what was he going to say. Fuller and Haynes were not replaced and that's why we couldn't / didn't score goals. If you can't score goals you are always going to struggle. We lacked any creativity in midfield and struck very lucky in unearthing Cousins and more latterly Poyet. We had no width of any quality as we were forced to play Wilson as cover for the unfortunate Solly and couldn't afford another right back. I stick to my comment that the squad this season was as about as unbalanced and lacking in quality in key areas as you can get.
Pretty sure Powell said "it's going to be a long old season" after the first game. Riga did exceptionally well but let's not kid ourselves that makes the squad strong enough to perform over a whole season.
A bit off topic but I still find it surprising that the Sheff Utd game is often cited as a reason why we were bound to get relegated. I really don't think it was significant and we had beaten QPR and Sheff Weds in the prior 3 games. If you look at it, there's plenty of reasons why we had a fair chance of losing, ignoring any behind the scenes issues that may or may not have taken place:
1 We don't do cup runs 2 We don't do televised games 3 Sheff Utd were on an eight game winning run 4 Sheff Utd hadn't conceded a goal in 6 games 5 Sheff Utd had beaten TWO premier league teams before playing us 6 The bookies had them as favourites 7 We don't do cup runs 8 We don't do cup runs ....100 We don't do cup runs
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
Totally disagree. That squad was completely unbalanced. No right or left sided midfield. No midfield creativity and until the last few games a strike force not worthy of the name. I blame TJ and MS for that. IMHO that squad were always going to be flirting with relegation.
Just quoting Powell's words, are you disagreeing with his assessment? Who did we lose from the squad that almost made the play offs last season?, Ricardo Fuller, Danny Haynes, BWP & Waggy, Kerkar were the notable one's. All were bit part players and none have set the world apart since they left. Kermo and Sordell should have been a good strike force, Kermo, Church less so, but still more than adequate. Wiggins/Harriot on the left should have been good enough, same with Solly/Wilson on the right. Stephens, Cousins, Poyet, Jackson, Pritchard, Harriot, Wilson is a group of midfielders that should have been more than good enough for a mid table team, all were available to Powell. The defence was never a problem, perhaps a loan right back was needed when Solly got injured but I'm talking about the squad that started the season. The fact is that some of these players suddenly stopped performing under Powell but mysteriously started performing again under Riga. We had a squad limited in numbers and we couldn't cope when important players, were, for whatever reason, left out of the team. IMO it was the negative style of football that prevented us from scoring goals and that lead to a big drop in confidence. Riga started playing a more confident style of football and put faith in players who had previously been frozen out. These players gradually found their form and the better football started to produce goals. All this was achieved with basically Powell's team, bar Astrit, the team that you think were relegation fodder, they proved post Powell, that they most definitely were not.
Powell.might have stated that he was happy with the strength of the squad but quite frankly what was he going to say. Fuller and Haynes were not replaced and that's why we couldn't / didn't score goals. If you can't score goals you are always going to struggle. We lacked any creativity in midfield and struck very lucky in unearthing Cousins and more latterly Poyet. We had no width of any quality as we were forced to play Wilson as cover for the unfortunate Solly and couldn't afford another right back. I stick to my comment that the squad this season was as about as unbalanced and lacking in quality in key areas as you can get.
Pretty much how I see it. Good quality strikers replaced with poor or untried. No width or pace outside the full backs and consequently no creativity. The new strikers had little chance to shine, even had they been up there with Fuller & Haynes on quality & pace. Kermo probably let his head drop subsequently. Maybe we forget what Fuller & Haynes brought us last year - it was a lot! Poyet's arrival on the scene and the return of Solly probably played as big a part in our survival as Riga's arrival.
same points per game for whole season[as got by riga] we would have been on brink of play offs.
Statistically that may be so but you have to be realistic in that the squad was good enough to win games against and up to a certain standard. All credit to Riga and the players for that improvement. Watford, for example, were technically better than us but we had more to play for and they were a weakened side. As I see it, we must strengthen in certain areas, improve the movement and creativity and then we can be a force. As soon as we reach the level of being comfortable with playing a move & support, quicker passing game, moving the ball quicker and with pace on each flank as well as up the middle, we can be a threat to anyone. Defensively, we need to deal with set pieces better and, maybe quick counter attacks - we all too often look vulnerable at the back and showing that weakness only encourages the opposition. If we want to be better than a mid table side we need to buy.
I think you'll find that following the signings of Church and Sordell, Powell stated that he was happy with the strength of his squad. Then after about ten games or so, he stated that we should be doing much better and should not be near the bottom. That was with Yann and Stephens still in the squad. At that stage I agreed with him, I though we had a squad easily good enough to finish mid table. The fact that Riga managed to get us performing like a top half of the table team without Yann and Stephens proves that we should never have been flirting with relegation.
What else could SCP say at the start of the season? "I'm not happy with the squad" would not exactly fill the players with inspiration.
If we agree we should have been higher up the table under SCP, who's fault was it, the players, the manager, or both?
Comments
Only going 2 down and the Barnsley game. The rest was perfect delivery of coaching, tactics, subs and bottom line...results
To me it felt like a combination of good fortune, like Hamers pen save at Leeds, or Dorians last minute header against Bournemouth, flying by the seat of their pants (especially the early results and the loan signings), a needs must attitude in sacrificing energy in some games to keep it for others (hence some convincing defeats), a change of style to a degree to fit the available squad, a great attitude from the players (for example Sheffield Wednesday) and support not getting on their backs.
As I said the brief was narrow, and a get the job done attitude had to prevail. There was not really a masterplanned fresh template downloaded onto us that solved all of our problems, it was a moment by moment thing.
I think a clean slate, approaching a new season in this most competitive and unforgiving of divisions is an entirely different problem. Knowing about the context and the opposition is an essential, building right from pre season to the last day is a tricky challenge which many can face in theory, but it is more difficult in practice.
Jose Riga may be up for the challenge and may do well at it, but the evidence of his success is very particular, and taking over for a fresh start may not be the same thing at all.
Yes, Alex Dyer and Damien Matthew must have played their part too but let's not underestimate Riga's role. AD and DM were also contributory factors in us being relegation candidates too or was that solely SCP ?
I'm not having a dig at Chris but I don't think we would have survived under his management. He had been damaged by lack of support and then regime change far too much to turn things around. The club was near rock bottom in morale and was rock bottom of the league. That atmosphere and gloom had to be swept away and I think it was the right thing to do.
In reality, as Powell has said in interviews since he's been sacked, he has actually said that he always knew it was going to be a long tough season after we failed to strengthen at all in the summer, I can only agree with SHG above.
But keeping the thread to Riga, according to Dr.Kish he's meeting Roland today to discuss his future:
http://www.cafcpicks.com/cgi-bin/drkish/display.pl?month=201405&date=20140507&time=0747
It also says that ''Karel Freye, has already left to take up his position as head coach at St Truiden'', so that must mean he's not taking over.
http://www.eendrachtzele.be/html/technischestaf.htm
The fact is that some of these players suddenly stopped performing under Powell but mysteriously started performing again under Riga. We had a squad limited in numbers and we couldn't cope when important players, were, for whatever reason, left out of the team. IMO it was the negative style of football that prevented us from scoring goals and that lead to a big drop in confidence. Riga started playing a more confident style of football and put faith in players who had previously been frozen out. These players gradually found their form and the better football started to produce goals. All this was achieved with basically Powell's team, bar Astrit, the team that you think were relegation fodder, they proved post Powell, that they most definitely were not.
A bit off topic but I still find it surprising that the Sheff Utd game is often cited as a reason why we were bound to get relegated. I really don't think it was significant and we had beaten QPR and Sheff Weds in the prior 3 games. If you look at it, there's plenty of reasons why we had a fair chance of losing, ignoring any behind the scenes issues that may or may not have taken place:
1 We don't do cup runs
2 We don't do televised games
3 Sheff Utd were on an eight game winning run
4 Sheff Utd hadn't conceded a goal in 6 games
5 Sheff Utd had beaten TWO premier league teams before playing us
6 The bookies had them as favourites
7 We don't do cup runs
8 We don't do cup runs
....100 We don't do cup runs
Should have had a bet on the result in hindsight!
No width or pace outside the full backs and consequently no creativity.
The new strikers had little chance to shine, even had they been up there with Fuller & Haynes on quality & pace.
Kermo probably let his head drop subsequently.
Maybe we forget what Fuller & Haynes brought us last year - it was a lot!
Poyet's arrival on the scene and the return of Solly probably played as big a part in our survival as Riga's arrival.
Watford, for example, were technically better than us but we had more to play for and they were a weakened side.
As I see it, we must strengthen in certain areas, improve the movement and creativity and then we can be a force.
As soon as we reach the level of being comfortable with playing a move & support, quicker passing game, moving the ball quicker and with pace on each flank as well as up the middle, we can be a threat to anyone.
Defensively, we need to deal with set pieces better and, maybe quick counter attacks - we all too often look vulnerable at the back and showing that weakness only encourages the opposition.
If we want to be better than a mid table side we need to buy.
If we agree we should have been higher up the table under SCP, who's fault was it, the players, the manager, or both?