Riga was only ever going to be 4 months role he Knew that because We could not appoint Peeters in Jan like we wanted to and had to wait till summer
And then he was going to take over the academy when Hart went to Man City.
Must be true as you kept telling us it was.
I do love the constant re-writing of history by some.
Mostly, it seems, by those who are staunchly pro Roland. We keep getting told, yes I know this didn't go well, and that didn't go well, but wait a couple of months and this will be better. When it isn't better a couple of months later we are fed some weak excuse and told it will all be better in another couple of months. From where I'm sitting the signs are not great that it is getting any better at all.
I hope through my postings on here I come across as the objective thinking, patient person I believe myself to be but even I am running out of patience now.
Contrary to some fans I am not fundamentally opposed to the network concept. I can see how, with the right approach and structure, it can be of benefit to all of the parties within the network and could particularly help smaller clubs punch above their weight through the sharing of resources, scouting knowledge and even facilities (for example Ujpest's players need injury rehabilitation and Standard Liege has much better medical facilities - it would be great for Ujpest and the player to be able to spend some time Belgium completing and faster and better quality rehabilitation program).
It is early days for the network, to be fair, and in time we may feel better about its worth but for me there are some fundamental flaws with the way Roland is trying to make it work, at least there are when viewed from the perspective of Charlton.
1) You need to accept that the demands of each league and the way football works in different countries will differ and each club must have people with the specialist local knowledge and skills required for its home country. This needs to run right through the club from boardroom to players and unfortunately it seems Roland is determined to send mostly inexperienced outsiders to Charlton, be they young Belgian CEOs or young Israeli Head Coaches.
2) You won't make it work on the cheap. Yes there are a few undiscovered gems out there languishing in some eastern European second division, or wherever, and if you have great scouts who understand what it takes to succeed in the various leagues in which your network operates, and cast your net wide you may well find a few of them and pick them up cheap but lots of clubs are doing exactly the same thing and the chances are if they are still playing in the Romanian equivalent of the Championship, its because that's their level. Some of your signings have to be established names and if you are going to buy up clubs on the cheap in generally poor states of repair, as Charlton were last year, you have to accept that will need to be a significant investment to get them back to a competitive level.
3) For the network to work your clubs cannot all play to the same standard. You need to have stronger clubs to feed the most talented players to and you need weaker clubs to use as proving grounds and development centres for youngsters or older pros who are struggling for form etc. Shuffling players around the network will help to an extent if it is done right, but when you allow a good player to leave the network for the right price you have to replace with them with quality. If that quality isn't in the network, then you have to buy in from outside. If you can't buy in a player of similar quality for less money than you sold the old player for - don't make the sale in the first place. Again, this is what we have generally seen with Kermorgant being sold and Reza and then Tucudean being sent as a replacements. Likewise it seems Standard sold a lot of good players and bought a lot of mediocre ones in the summer.
The worrying signs for me are Roland does not appear to be adjusting his approach very much at all despite the obvious short fallings of a number of the decisions made to date. I am also pretty pissed off by the string of disingenuous half truths and flat out lies we have been fed in the form of official statements over the last few days. I don't really care who wrote them, I don't like being taken for an idiot.
I'm still giving this grand plan a bit more time, but unless we sign a couple of players this window who are a) from outside the network and b) have some decent English Championship experience behind them, then my support for the club in its current form will be hanging by a thread.
Comments
I hope through my postings on here I come across as the objective thinking, patient person I believe myself to be but even I am running out of patience now.
Contrary to some fans I am not fundamentally opposed to the network concept. I can see how, with the right approach and structure, it can be of benefit to all of the parties within the network and could particularly help smaller clubs punch above their weight through the sharing of resources, scouting knowledge and even facilities (for example Ujpest's players need injury rehabilitation and Standard Liege has much better medical facilities - it would be great for Ujpest and the player to be able to spend some time Belgium completing and faster and better quality rehabilitation program).
It is early days for the network, to be fair, and in time we may feel better about its worth but for me there are some fundamental flaws with the way Roland is trying to make it work, at least there are when viewed from the perspective of Charlton.
1) You need to accept that the demands of each league and the way football works in different countries will differ and each club must have people with the specialist local knowledge and skills required for its home country. This needs to run right through the club from boardroom to players and unfortunately it seems Roland is determined to send mostly inexperienced outsiders to Charlton, be they young Belgian CEOs or young Israeli Head Coaches.
2) You won't make it work on the cheap. Yes there are a few undiscovered gems out there languishing in some eastern European second division, or wherever, and if you have great scouts who understand what it takes to succeed in the various leagues in which your network operates, and cast your net wide you may well find a few of them and pick them up cheap but lots of clubs are doing exactly the same thing and the chances are if they are still playing in the Romanian equivalent of the Championship, its because that's their level. Some of your signings have to be established names and if you are going to buy up clubs on the cheap in generally poor states of repair, as Charlton were last year, you have to accept that will need to be a significant investment to get them back to a competitive level.
3) For the network to work your clubs cannot all play to the same standard. You need to have stronger clubs to feed the most talented players to and you need weaker clubs to use as proving grounds and development centres for youngsters or older pros who are struggling for form etc. Shuffling players around the network will help to an extent if it is done right, but when you allow a good player to leave the network for the right price you have to replace with them with quality. If that quality isn't in the network, then you have to buy in from outside. If you can't buy in a player of similar quality for less money than you sold the old player for - don't make the sale in the first place. Again, this is what we have generally seen with Kermorgant being sold and Reza and then Tucudean being sent as a replacements. Likewise it seems Standard sold a lot of good players and bought a lot of mediocre ones in the summer.
The worrying signs for me are Roland does not appear to be adjusting his approach very much at all despite the obvious short fallings of a number of the decisions made to date. I am also pretty pissed off by the string of disingenuous half truths and flat out lies we have been fed in the form of official statements over the last few days. I don't really care who wrote them, I don't like being taken for an idiot.
I'm still giving this grand plan a bit more time, but unless we sign a couple of players this window who are a) from outside the network and b) have some decent English Championship experience behind them, then my support for the club in its current form will be hanging by a thread.
Mangina