Where has Duchatelet admitted he underestimated the strength of The Championship? I haven't seen that anywhere. I hope he has realised that but I'm not convinced.
Where has Duchatelet admitted he underestimated the strength of The Championship? I haven't seen that anywhere. I hope he has realised that but I'm not convinced.
A few people went to the dinner and said Katrien admitted the directors/owners underestimated the Championship.
Or from RDs point of view his advisors told him those players would improve the Charlton team. Why would RD trust Powell over his own advisors? It's not as if we were having a good season. Thuram and Nego came in and were dropped very quickly. Reza and AA were in and out of the team. PP came on once from the bench.
It was concerning to read what Dyer had to say but I can kind of see why RD expected those players to get more games. Of course that doesn't make it right, Powell was the manager rather than head coach and had previously chose signings himself.
From what a few people have said he's since admitted they underestimated the strength of the Championship. I don't think this will be much of an issue any more since we probably need 10+ signings, most of the squad will be players RD has agreed to sign or academy players.
I'm expecting a number of signings to come from English clubs. Network players won't develop or increase in value if we're falling down the leagues, it might have been the original plan but it's clear that a team made up of those players would struggle.
As far as I'm aware the only occaision when Duchatelet could be interpreted as saying anything to suggest they may have underestimated the championship was in the round of interviews he gave on February 20th (when he also confirmed they were in talks to extend CP's contract) where he said:
"we brought in some other players and maybe they are not so good but in football this is always a problem".
One thing that is clear from AD’s interview is that RD does not pick the team. We know that because AD says that RD wanted more use of the network players, but allowed both CP and JR not to conform to his preferences. Clearly he put some pressure on CP, certainly more than CP wanted, but he didn’t order conformance. It would be strange if he did, for surely he would realise that if managers/coaches came to understand they couldn’t pick the team when working for RD, then he’d be unable to hire anyone of any value.
So what was going on in RD’s mind during this period? None of us know for sure, but we try to put ourselves into his head. Here’s my attempt to do that, using Thuram as the case study.
It seemed odd to virtually all supporters that Thuram was shipped over when we were already well covered with goalkeepers: two competent and experienced keepers, another very promising one not that far away from first-team standard and even yet another promising one in the pipeline.
But, perhaps RD was seeing a number of potential benefits:
1 Perhaps (he thought) Thuram was better than all those already here and so would strengthen Charlton, even though the position wasn’t the most urgent one to tackle.
2 The player could benefit from game time and from playing in a league that was very different from what he was used to. We certainly saw that he was uncomfortable with the physicality in the box - having to deal with that would improve him.
3 The network would benefit financially - more on this below.
So Thuram came over. It must have been a puzzle for RD that not only did he not get above Hamer in the pecking order, but he also didn’t get above Alnwick. He must have wondered how this could be right. After all Thuram had cost him around £1.5m, whereas Alnwick had come in just a few months earlier for nothing (I think). It would be natural for RD to wonder whether CP was trying to make a point, one that would be signalling that he was not buying into network principles. It would be inevitable then that RD would apply some pressure to test out what CP was up to.
So what might have happened next? Perhaps RD eventually got some advice from someone he could trust that said that CP was just picking his best players and that Hamer and Alnwick were indeed at present more suited to the Championship than Thuram. Perhaps he accepted this. If so, he had then let go of benefits (1) and (2) above. However, there was no reason for him to abandon benefit (3). Perhaps he then said to CP: “OK, I understand why you’re not playing Thuram, but you certainly don’t need three experienced keepers, so we’ll use the network in one of the ways I want to use it: to achieve cost savings. In other words we’ll off-load one of the other two keepers. You’re still well covered for goal keepers and the network has reduced its wage costs by one person.” (I’m assuming here that there was no way he could have sold Thuram at that point for anything remotely close to what he paid for him.)
Of course, CP won’t like this. He’ll think that he and his staff have done a fantastic job over the last three years getting Hamer, Alnwick and Pope on board for very little. And what does he get from the network in return - a lot of disruption and hassle, and ominous signs that the days are over when he can use his skills to assemble a squad and work with a high degree of autonomy. If he stays, he is no longer going to be a manager, but a head coach, and one without a good, close working relationship with a director of football that would allow him to have strong influence over player recruitment.
I think we could paint a similar picture of the Stephens transfer. The network is used to bring over a player (AA) not being used at SL (not quite like-for-like, but a reasonable replacement with no agent’s fee or loan fee) allowing Stephens to go and so a few hundred thousand to come into the bank before Stephens’ contract comes to an end. Net benefit to the network: the transfer fee plus reduction of one player’s wages.
I’m not yet convinced that these sorts of network benefits will ultimately prove to be sufficiently substantial to make it all worthwhile, but I think it’s plausible that RD would see them as part of what he is trying to achieve through having all these clubs. The fact that we’ve just let eleven players go does point to the fact that football clubs do carry a lot of players who are of marginal value to them; it would seem that there must be some scope to reduce the number of these if you have a network and can move players around quickly.
I don’t doubt that Alex Dyer has conveyed honestly his perception of what was going on, but it will inevitably have been influenced by what he and CP would have seen as unwelcome and unhelpful interference by the owner in what had previously been their sphere. I think it very likely that RD’s approach to dealing with people made things worse and it is easy to see how all this led to a breakdown in relationships. This is concerning as it suggests we have an owner who will find it hard to bring stability … but none of this means he has been picking the team - he clearly hasn’t.
This is all speculation and could be way off the mark, but it’s hard to make sense of it all.
Could just be a case of RD saying to Powell "why aren't the new players playing if you are losing matches? The players i have given you might help turn things around". Admittedly Powell has said they ain't good enough or better than what we have, so in turn didn't play them (and fair play to him for standing by his own views on who should be playing, same goes to Riga). Ok i'm just showing another context on the interview purely because i have had time to calm down as i was orignally angered by what AD has told us about the way things have been.
I'm certainly not saying at ALL that AD is lying because why would he, he gains nothing from doing it, but as i work for an international company with many different language barriers, maybe (just maybe) it was a language barrier issue and when asking "why are they not playing" he was merely pointing to the fact we are still losing and you are not playing the new players to try and change things around". Again just a point of view based on nothing but trying to see things from possible angles (admittedly could well be from angles that don't exist).
I do believe there is truth of RD wanting to use players within his network rather than maybe making big purchases, but i don't think its his ultimate goal to only ship rubbish players between them.
The one element i can't really defend is the players turning up and automatically expecting to play. But i wouldn't want that from any player coming in, they would have to earn their place. When players get loaned to us from clubs in the UK they come to us with an expectation that they will be playing otherwise we wouldn't have asked them to join us. Maybe (again just maybe) its players with the same view of "i've come to you, i was told to come because i would get a game because you need me". A player wouldn't come to us if they were told, "yeah you can go to Charlton but you won't be playing".
RD is a dictator with an idea - this is fine if you think he knows what he is doing. Of course if you don't it is very worrying. Riga was appointed because he was desperate - Riga was a top manager who knew what he had to do - that brought success and I'm sure RD is grateful for that, but the fact that Riga wasn't appointed despite indicating he would would like to be can only suggest to me that RD thinks he could have got the same result playing his network players. I have seen enough to know his scouts are crap - he clearly doesn't get it - It is hard to buy a club to prove a great idea - which I think RD has. He won't admit it is boll**cks so soon, but I think it is. I have a season ticket as I support Charlton, and I'll witness with sadness this loon's experiment with the club I love. It is very hard and makes me sad to type this.
Dyer was a gonna as soon as powell was sacked. He was forced to sit next to the dugout on a chair. I knew he wouldn't last. Unfortunately RD want the old out and in with the new. Harsh man
Speculation it may be, but together with @Mundell Fleming and @Davo55 in the KM thread, this is the most plausible, common sense reading of the "network" element I have read. Thank you.
Comments
"we brought in some other players and maybe they are not so good but in football this is always a problem".
http://www.southlondon-today.co.uk/sport.cfm?id=6042&headline=Charlton owner Roland Duchâtelet confirms Powell talks
So what was going on in RD’s mind during this period? None of us know for sure, but we try to put ourselves into his head. Here’s my attempt to do that, using Thuram as the case study.
It seemed odd to virtually all supporters that Thuram was shipped over when we were already well covered with goalkeepers: two competent and experienced keepers, another very promising one not that far away from first-team standard and even yet another promising one in the pipeline.
But, perhaps RD was seeing a number of potential benefits:
1 Perhaps (he thought) Thuram was better than all those already here and so would strengthen Charlton, even though the position wasn’t the most urgent one to tackle.
2 The player could benefit from game time and from playing in a league that was very different from what he was used to. We certainly saw that he was uncomfortable with the physicality in the box - having to deal with that would improve him.
3 The network would benefit financially - more on this below.
So Thuram came over. It must have been a puzzle for RD that not only did he not get above Hamer in the pecking order, but he also didn’t get above Alnwick. He must have wondered how this could be right. After all Thuram had cost him around £1.5m, whereas Alnwick had come in just a few months earlier for nothing (I think). It would be natural for RD to wonder whether CP was trying to make a point, one that would be signalling that he was not buying into network principles. It would be inevitable then that RD would apply some pressure to test out what CP was up to.
So what might have happened next? Perhaps RD eventually got some advice from someone he could trust that said that CP was just picking his best players and that Hamer and Alnwick were indeed at present more suited to the Championship than Thuram. Perhaps he accepted this. If so, he had then let go of benefits (1) and (2) above. However, there was no reason for him to abandon benefit (3). Perhaps he then said to CP: “OK, I understand why you’re not playing Thuram, but you certainly don’t need three experienced keepers, so we’ll use the network in one of the ways I want to use it: to achieve cost savings. In other words we’ll off-load one of the other two keepers. You’re still well covered for goal keepers and the network has reduced its wage costs by one person.” (I’m assuming here that there was no way he could have sold Thuram at that point for anything remotely close to what he paid for him.)
Of course, CP won’t like this. He’ll think that he and his staff have done a fantastic job over the last three years getting Hamer, Alnwick and Pope on board for very little. And what does he get from the network in return - a lot of disruption and hassle, and ominous signs that the days are over when he can use his skills to assemble a squad and work with a high degree of autonomy. If he stays, he is no longer going to be a manager, but a head coach, and one without a good, close working relationship with a director of football that would allow him to have strong influence over player recruitment.
I think we could paint a similar picture of the Stephens transfer. The network is used to bring over a player (AA) not being used at SL (not quite like-for-like, but a reasonable replacement with no agent’s fee or loan fee) allowing Stephens to go and so a few hundred thousand to come into the bank before Stephens’ contract comes to an end. Net benefit to the network: the transfer fee plus reduction of one player’s wages.
I’m not yet convinced that these sorts of network benefits will ultimately prove to be sufficiently substantial to make it all worthwhile, but I think it’s plausible that RD would see them as part of what he is trying to achieve through having all these clubs. The fact that we’ve just let eleven players go does point to the fact that football clubs do carry a lot of players who are of marginal value to them; it would seem that there must be some scope to reduce the number of these if you have a network and can move players around quickly.
I don’t doubt that Alex Dyer has conveyed honestly his perception of what was going on, but it will inevitably have been influenced by what he and CP would have seen as unwelcome and unhelpful interference by the owner in what had previously been their sphere. I think it very likely that RD’s approach to dealing with people made things worse and it is easy to see how all this led to a breakdown in relationships. This is concerning as it suggests we have an owner who will find it hard to bring stability … but none of this means he has been picking the team - he clearly hasn’t.
This is all speculation and could be way off the mark, but it’s hard to make sense of it all.
I'm certainly not saying at ALL that AD is lying because why would he, he gains nothing from doing it, but as i work for an international company with many different language barriers, maybe (just maybe) it was a language barrier issue and when asking "why are they not playing" he was merely pointing to the fact we are still losing and you are not playing the new players to try and change things around". Again just a point of view based on nothing but trying to see things from possible angles (admittedly could well be from angles that don't exist).
I do believe there is truth of RD wanting to use players within his network rather than maybe making big purchases, but i don't think its his ultimate goal to only ship rubbish players between them.
The one element i can't really defend is the players turning up and automatically expecting to play. But i wouldn't want that from any player coming in, they would have to earn their place. When players get loaned to us from clubs in the UK they come to us with an expectation that they will be playing otherwise we wouldn't have asked them to join us. Maybe (again just maybe) its players with the same view of "i've come to you, i was told to come because i would get a game because you need me". A player wouldn't come to us if they were told, "yeah you can go to Charlton but you won't be playing".
Again just a point of view.
Speculation it may be, but together with @Mundell Fleming and @Davo55 in the KM thread, this is the most plausible, common sense reading of the "network" element I have read. Thank you.
Excellent post and a very plausible explanation. We may be wrong, of course, but this has been my own interpretation for some time.