If you care about our club then I would suggest that maybe we should be despondent. And then work out what you can do about it. Some would say not much right now except wait for the wheels to fall off!
I don't need to wait ten games nor until August as the writing is on the wall.
1) We are playing the return half of the season and we've been completely found out. No number 9. Gudmundsson doesn't get to cut in and shoot or pass anymore because he is our only attacking threat and is marked / closed down every time. Nothing down the left. And Lepoint - why?!
2) It is clear now that there is no one in charge with the requisite football knowledge. Duchatelet either thinks he knows enough and/or is scared to get someone with influence and knowledge to direct things here and at Liege.
3) Nothing against players coming and going from the network but someone should have identified what we needed to start winning games and then go out and sign them FFS.
Sorry to break the news but every one of our opponents is going to think we are a soft touch from now on in. I'm not saying we have a divine right to beat Rotherham but that was poor and, as plenty have stated, devoid of any inspiration. We've now failed to beat them, Blackpool and Millwall at home. There was nothing today that we haven't seen throughout the last few months. Nothing there!
It's starting to look like Jiminez and Slater knew more about how to run the football side of the club than Duchatelet. These random signings and complete failure to improve the attacking threat after a year in charge makes Duchatelet's decision to buy the club look more weird every week.
Why sink in £20m+ to end up with this outcome one year down the road? We are 18th again which is where Riga left us in May.
But I would maintain we are in a much worse place because of the direction of travel. And last season we were able to beat clubs at the bottom. This season we are a known entity with a board who are "trying to do something a little different". That appears to ignore the fundamentals in that you need attacking threat to make chances, chances to make goals and goals win games.
And to build that takes cash, an experienced talented coach plus leadership at the club. What some have known for a while but was cruelly exposed by the Luzon appointment and the "interview on the train" is that we have no leadership at the club. Just an administrative puppet who executes the actions requested by someone playing championship manager with us in another country.
Sure this is a shift change for my commentary. But until November 2014 I could see rational decisions and progress. Now I just see an owner out of his depth who is either too arrogant and/or lacks insight to appoint a director of football / head coach who has the technical ability, gravitas and experience to make something happen.
Riga delivered and was shown the door - says it all!
I don't really see why RD is different from any other owner who isn't a club supporter. They almost always make changes that fans don't like, some worse than others. Is it a European thing? Is it his claimed socialism (laughable for a multimillionaire businessman to claim to be socialist IMO, but there you go, he didn't ask me)? I really don't think we are in a unique position.
But really, the boring boring determination to be so f****ng mediocre which has been going on for as long as I can remember, owners come and go, managers come and go, "star players" come and go, but Charlton seem to have the ability to remain f****ng dull underachievers apart from the very very occasional high point. And I don't want any more dull underachievement in my life than I have to have. If I'm lucky I've maybe got another 30 years. That is the most precious thing, and it will be over soon enough. Unless you go with Catvch 22's Dunbar who believes that his life last longer the more boring it is and so avoids excitement. Sorry if this is a whinge, but I'm actually starting to think that I'm out.
Roland is different because he wants to choose who plays. That's why he has to have a puppet as head coach, and if they don't take his orders he will move them on.
AB I guess you have a far better understanding of how clubs function than I ever will. You have been close to the inside and have been instrumental in a lot of what has gone on at Charlton, if I understand right. You know there is a but coming, right? BUT...a lot of owners buy clubs and make decisions that are usually those made by a manger, That is why we have a coach, I believe. It isn't unusual. We are not in some kind of twilight zone where everything is different and strange. It;s boringly familiar. There are so many examples. When they work it all gets forgotten. When it doesn't you call yourself Cardiff.
The biggest surprise for me under the new regime has been the team selection. It's as though nothing has changed at all with the same players still playing in the same, often wrong, positions. Harriott up front, Cousins on the left etc. A change in the side's balance was the least I expected to see. Has Luzon just looked at the old team sheets? Is Damian Mathew advising him to do this? Is Roland telling him or does this just look to be the best option based on what goes on on the training ground? This team is not going to win games; it probably won't survive in The Championship. Changes are needed.
Sounds like a win wasn't deserved but can any other team in the country have conceded so many injury time goals this season?
Fine margins and all that.. I'd we had held on you'd all be saying it was a ground out win?!
Nobody who watched that shower of rancid semen would acknowledge we deserved anything today. We somehow managed to look worse than a pretty poor Rotherham team.
No margins in it, I wouldn't be suprised if we don't get a single point until March. We have steadily gone from decent to utterly atrocious since October.
The fine margins were that we were as bad as each other never said we deserved to win.
For those complaining about players playing out of position... Prior to Charlton, Gudmundsson actually spent his whole career on the left. Therefore we've not been close to getting the best out of him either.
The two main problems we have (and have had for some time) are the lack of a creative midfielder and someone up front the ball is going to stick to. Get these two things sorted and it will be amazing how much better we look.
I liked the Spurs lad but Buyens didn't complement him. We needed Buyens to be pushing on trying to find pockets of space to link the play but his naturally languid style didn't allow him to do this. He only seems comfortable when he has bags of room to play with and Rotherham were not going to allow that. Pending an alternative we'd be better off playing Jackson in that role.
Vetokele is a good player lacking a bit of sharpness and, more importantly, confidence. He needs a rest. I'm really hoping that we get a quality Chris Martin type tomorrow to play alongside Watt. Trouble is it's hope more than anticipation.
Lay off Lepoint. It was a clearly anxious 15 mins and it will only make him more anxious getting way too early judgement on here.
Is there some confusion about booing Vetokele. In my mind the North Stand were booing for not taking Harriott off and were chanting Igor's name and "don't know what you're doing" which he acknowledged.
Sadly, after overnight consideration, i have decided to bung as much money as possible for us to get relegated. Might as well make a bit of dosh to temper my misery! - and to think we were top of the league for 10 mins earlier in the season.!
Went round the golf club for lunch before going yesterday. Spent ten minutes by the 18th green practising throwing my season ticket in case the need arises. I'm getting quite good. Reckon I could almost get it into the directors box from where I sit. If this garbage keeps up it won't be long till I'm doing it for real.
Bumped into my old next door neighbour yesterday who I've not seen for a while and who has the dubious honour of inviting me to the valley for the first time all those years ago and igniting my flame. He says this is the most depressed and detached he has felt in 30 years as a ST holder. Expresses it better than anything I can say.
Fanny. Dear Fanny. We all love you and admire your devotion. But seriously, if you can be positive at the moment you might need to check whether the medication is a little too strong? PS. Send some round te corner as I could do with a cheer up! :-)
I don't post here much, I can rarely be bovved, or have anything worth saying... however: Luzon says we defended too deep after scoring....... Who made the substitution after we scored, removing the headless chicken from up front and adding confusion to the back line! Complete incompetence/ bad management I suggest?
Rotherham were limited but organised, we were like 11 strangers. Luzon appears to have had no impact at all, there was none of the urgency you normally see when a new boss is in, we were second to the ball all day. His master strategy appears to be playing two holding midfielders, going to really force the issue with that. The only positive I could see was that the new keeper gave the defence a little more confidence which is a step forward at least.
Lepoints debut was the stuff of legend, up there with the El-Khalej's and Hovi's. TBH he can't be that bad surely, but if he is injured what the hell is doing on the pitch? Conspiracy theorists would say Luzon was told to give him some game time, I couldn't possibly comment.........
Difficult to see what Roly has in mind for CAFC, at the moment he's running it into the ground. Seems a strange way to treat an investment although as was pointed out in the week he still will have the real estate to sell. Just hope we're not lining up against Woking or Runcorn at Zampa Road when he does.
Are you really sure of that? It is not what seemed to happen at the end of last season and under Peeters would he really have told him to play Solly in midfield.
Yes. Chris Powell could have done us a great service last year by disclosing the full details of what had gone with Duchatelet. For his own reasons he didn't and that at least allowed Jose Riga to steady the ship until more information eventually came into the public domain from Alex Dyer in the summer. I believe nearly every Charlton fan would have been alarmed by Duchatelet's behaviour last January-March if presented with it from an unimpeachable source - regardless of their views on Powell.
Riga was in a strong position to resist Duchatelet, given the situation, but appears to have paid the price. Peeters' published comments suggest that little has changed - I understand there was more that could not be printed for legal reasons.
I am not saying that Duchatelet sends the coach a team sheet or is responsible for every positional change, but his involvement has gone beyond asking questions in the way any reasonable owner might. It cannot work.
Someone behaving as he did towards Powell was not, in my view, going to behave appropriately and sensibly in the future. That was the basis of our concern last year - not that Powell had been sacked or Kermorgant sold, because unpopular decisions get made all the time, but that the owner was a risk to the future of the club. Now that has become transparent to more people, we have to decide what, if anything, we can do about it.
After reading everyone's thoughts on the game, am more depressed than ever. Even those who thought we played well in games when I thought we hadn't are now totally fed up, so that says it all. RD has taken our club from us, and there's seemingly no way we will ever get it back. Unless, he doesn't see any long term financial gain in being in league 1 and sells us on. That is my only hope, and can't believe its come to this, I am actually thinking relegation might be the best outcome for the club. Never in 45 years have I ever felt this way before. Not even Fanny, ever optimistic and hopeful, and 100% loyal, can convince me there was anything to give any hope for us for the future in that game. Also could not understand a word mumbled by Luzon in his interview on FLS, is it just me? Put volume on at full blast, but still couldn't make out a word! God knows, how players from just about everywhere can understand what he/RD wants!
Veljkovic; does anyone else think that he was playing for himself and not the team? Every pass was completed to the nearest team mate. 'Got 100% pass completion, me' !
I think the reason for the weird mood at the final whistle was simply the numbness felt by so many that in a shortish period of time we've found ourselves sliding slowly back into trouble, spelt out very clearly and brutally by the fact that conceding late yet again has made the difference between 18th and 12th.
Last season brought the never-ending takeover unrest accompanying poor performances, culminating in the horror show at high noon in Sheffield. JR then organised a brilliant jail-break, but under BP it now turns out we were only out on parole, and after enjoying the early-season freedom we're back behind bars. And no wonder there is a deep feeling of despair - basically we've done it to ourselves. The utterly needless release of JR, like the catastrophic termination of Curbs in 2006, are two almighty self-inflicted wounds.
No wonder than so many folk are just dumbfounded, totally bewildered by this bizarre and entirely avoidable turn of events. It's almost a certainty that if called upon there are five good men and true who would rally to the call, guys who are proven Charlton successes on and off the pitch. If the owner could show a little humility and a lot of common-sense, Messrs Riga, Curbishley, Peacock, Varney and Everitt would transform this club - not in months but in hours, and from top to bottom.
Anyone watched the 30 second interview with Luzon on the Charlton Facebook page? It's so ridiculous that someone within the club is obviously trying to make a point what a shambles the club has become.
Veljkovic; does anyone else think that he was playing for himself and not the team? Every pass was completed to the nearest team mate. 'Got 100% pass completion, me' !
Same could be said of Poyet last season but it didn't seem to do the team any harm. Perhaps if his teammates (especially Buyens) had made better runs Veljkovic would have had some more challenging passes to make.
Rotherham were dreadful, I have not seen a team slice clearances and pass directly to our players so often for a long time, I am amazed they are not in the bottom 3 and puzzled how they ever scored 4 past Bolton midweek.
Sad to say then, we did not deserve to win, that is how bad the game was, lacking in any Championship quality.
The spine, soul and guts have been ripped out of our team with the constant stream of Eurotrash sent to us who just get worse each time. Who on earth is advising RD? Simon Jordan?
If LePoint is the new low they are going to struggle to beat him, that was the most embarrassing debut I have seen in 30 years as a fan. I laughed out loud at one point it was so dreadful.
Wiggins was very poor, lack of fitness/lack of confidence, I don't know but the key to our survival is getting him fit and keeping Solly fit and getting them bombing up the wings, they are our most creative outlet.
Buyens is supposed to be box to box, and to be fair to him, had a number of assists at the start of the season, so why play him so deep when we have a defensive midfielder next to him...it was like having 6 at the back much of the time, which when Rotherham were so poor was madness. YB just has not looked interested for weeks, I would rather anyone in CM than him at the moment, gives the ball away cheaply, no tackles and zero movement.
Unlike others, I thought Harriot was awful, I don't blame him though...he tries hard but he is a WINGER, not a striker, he was regularly the other side of the pitch from IV so when flick ons were won he was no-where near them, he should have been the one subbed....that said, when we are 0-0 at home to the fourth bottom team there is no excuse for IV throwing a grump and walking slowly from the pitch, it was a game that was too important to win for him to waste valuable time (even if we would have wasted it anyway), he is a PROfESSIONAL on good money he needs to act like one.
Whatever the pros and cons of Luzon, he is a new manager, in a new country he knows little about and it will take time that we don't have to learn and turn this around. RD is I am afraid, an idiot with bad advisors and Meire's inexperience and incompetence is not what is needed.
He needs to get an English advisor and fast, someone who knows the English leagues and at the least can advise the manager on tactics and the merits of our players.
Last thing...who on earth is the coach responsible for our set pieces this season, our defending of them is exceedingly poor as we all know (within first 2 mins Rotherham had a free kick and we put a 2 man wall that was probably 8-10 yards out of position, I have never seen anything like it even at Sunday League level). Sadly our taking is just as bad, corners rarely clear the first man and free kicks when we could pop the ball in the box are often knocked 2 yards sideways before the ball is lost. Schoolboy stuff.
Edit. Finish on a positive. Keeper surprised me, made one great save and commanded the box, a massive step up from The playboy Etheridge and the inexperienced Pope, hopefully we keep a tighter defence with him around. Solly was his usual greatness and nice to see 'one of our own' in JC score...it looked to have given him massive confidence with his slalom run shortly afterwards.
If you care about our club then I would suggest that maybe we should be despondent. And then work out what you can do about it. Some would say not much right now except wait for the wheels to fall off!
I don't need to wait ten games nor until August as the writing is on the wall.
1) We are playing the return half of the season and we've been completely found out. No number 9. Gudmundsson doesn't get to cut in and shoot or pass anymore because he is our only attacking threat and is marked / closed down every time. Nothing down the left. And Lepoint - why?!
2) It is clear now that there is no one in charge with the requisite football knowledge. Duchatelet either thinks he knows enough and/or is scared to get someone with influence and knowledge to direct things here and at Liege.
3) Nothing against players coming and going from the network but someone should have identified what we needed to start winning games and then go out and sign them FFS.
Sorry to break the news but every one of our opponents is going to think we are a soft touch from now on in. I'm not saying we have a divine right to beat Rotherham but that was poor and, as plenty have stated, devoid of any inspiration. We've now failed to beat them, Blackpool and Millwall at home. There was nothing today that we haven't seen throughout the last few months. Nothing there!
It's starting to look like Jiminez and Slater knew more about how to run the football side of the club than Duchatelet. These random signings and complete failure to improve the attacking threat after a year in charge makes Duchatelet's decision to buy the club look more weird every week.
Why sink in £20m+ to end up with this outcome one year down the road? We are 18th again which is where Riga left us in May.
But I would maintain we are in a much worse place because of the direction of travel. And last season we were able to beat clubs at the bottom. This season we are a known entity with a board who are "trying to do something a little different". That appears to ignore the fundamentals in that you need attacking threat to make chances, chances to make goals and goals win games.
And to build that takes cash, an experienced talented coach plus leadership at the club. What some have known for a while but was cruelly exposed by the Luzon appointment and the "interview on the train" is that we have no leadership at the club. Just an administrative puppet who executes the actions requested by someone playing championship manager with us in another country.
Sure this is a shift change for my commentary. But until November 2014 I could see rational decisions and progress. Now I just see an owner out of his depth who is either too arrogant and/or lacks insight to appoint a director of football / head coach who has the technical ability, gravitas and experience to make something happen.
Riga delivered and was shown the door - says it all!
I agree with pretty much all you have said, a shame that it seems to have taken a time for you to see that perhaps Duchatelet is not the answer.
Main impressions from yesterday: 1. The football wasn't too bad, I've seen much worse at the Valley in the last few years 2. The general atmosphere was one of apathy. Even Shouty Man in front of me couldn't be bothered to abuse the players and the ref. 3. I felt strangely neutral about the match. Not that happy when our goal went in and not that bothered when we conceded. You see this isn't really my team now. And it's not the same Valley my nan took me and my brother to forty plus years ago 4. The manager/ coach looked clueless. No connection with the fans or the players, gesticulating and shouting things that the players largely ignored. Puppet. Was it him deciding to bring on Watt or Lepoint or is he doing it to keep the owner happy? Don't hate Luzon, just feel nothing.
Apart from Hudds and saying good-bye to Powell properly not sure I'll be using my season ticket again this season. Football is supposed to be an enjoyable distraction from life. At the moment it's the other way round. Perhaps I'll start watching Welling next season until Roland has gone.
And he will go of course. It's just a question of how far we'll sink by then. L1. L2, lower? Perhaps we'll ground share with Welling. I do worry that Roland will try to repeat the Network experiment in L1 but with fewer staff, even more shit loans etc.
Still Roland will go at some point and hopefully something of my nan's Charlton and the old spirit will still be left. And God willing I'll be there...
I think valleyMick sums it up for a lot of us.Say goodbye properly to SCP on 28th feb and wait until the rat departs and hope there is something left when I come back.
Every time I see anything of Luzon it feels so surreal and I can't believe I'm not dreaming it all. Loads on here will snort and go on about giving the guy a chance, but is it only me that looks at him, sees what is out there on the internet, listens to him, and had yesterday's experience, and thinks it is such a 'wrong' experience? It is seriously weird. Its like having your cornflakes with salad cream and pilchards and sprouts and a spoonful of icing sugar, it won't kill you but stick to that diet and you'll eventually throw up.
The inevitability of the last minute cock up, be it a glaring miss or a goal conceded has become farcical. Looking at the stats once again we are on the back foot in a home game. And what's the point in making new signings and leaving them on the bench?
The defeat at Watford was before he got international clearance to be our head coach, so although according to Damian Matthews, he followed Luzon's instructions, GL was not officially in place
Every time I see anything of Luzon it feels so surreal and I can't believe I'm not dreaming it all. Loads on here will snort and go on about giving the guy a chance, but is it only me that looks at him, sees what is out there on the internet, listens to him, and had yesterday's experience, and thinks it is such a 'wrong' experience? It is seriously weird. Its like having your cornflakes with salad cream and pilchards and sprouts and a spoonful of icing sugar, it won't kill you but strick to that diet and you'll eventually throw up.
You can't be attributing the Watford loss to Luzon surely?
Comments
Sounds like a win wasn't deserved but can any other team in the country have conceded so many injury time goals this season?
I liked the Spurs lad but Buyens didn't complement him. We needed Buyens to be pushing on trying to find pockets of space to link the play but his naturally languid style didn't allow him to do this. He only seems comfortable when he has bags of room to play with and Rotherham were not going to allow that. Pending an alternative we'd be better off playing Jackson in that role.
Vetokele is a good player lacking a bit of sharpness and, more importantly, confidence. He needs a rest. I'm really hoping that we get a quality Chris Martin type tomorrow to play alongside Watt. Trouble is it's hope more than anticipation.
Lay off Lepoint. It was a clearly anxious 15 mins and it will only make him more anxious getting way too early judgement on here.
Bumped into my old next door neighbour yesterday who I've not seen for a while and who has the dubious honour of inviting me to the valley for the first time all those years ago and igniting my flame. He says this is the most depressed and detached he has felt in 30 years as a ST holder. Expresses it better than anything I can say.
Fanny. Dear Fanny. We all love you and admire your devotion. But seriously, if you can be positive at the moment you might need to check whether the medication is a little too strong? PS. Send some round te corner as I could do with a cheer up! :-)
Lepoints debut was the stuff of legend, up there with the El-Khalej's and Hovi's. TBH he can't be that bad surely, but if he is injured what the hell is doing on the pitch? Conspiracy theorists would say Luzon was told to give him some game time, I couldn't possibly comment.........
Difficult to see what Roly has in mind for CAFC, at the moment he's running it into the ground. Seems a strange way to treat an investment although as was pointed out in the week he still will have the real estate to sell. Just hope we're not lining up against Woking or Runcorn at Zampa Road when he does.
Riga was in a strong position to resist Duchatelet, given the situation, but appears to have paid the price. Peeters' published comments suggest that little has changed - I understand there was more that could not be printed for legal reasons.
I am not saying that Duchatelet sends the coach a team sheet or is responsible for every positional change, but his involvement has gone beyond asking questions in the way any reasonable owner might. It cannot work.
Someone behaving as he did towards Powell was not, in my view, going to behave appropriately and sensibly in the future. That was the basis of our concern last year - not that Powell had been sacked or Kermorgant sold, because unpopular decisions get made all the time, but that the owner was a risk to the future of the club. Now that has become transparent to more people, we have to decide what, if anything, we can do about it.
Last season brought the never-ending takeover unrest accompanying poor performances, culminating in the horror show at high noon in Sheffield. JR then organised a brilliant jail-break, but under BP it now turns out we were only out on parole, and after enjoying the early-season freedom we're back behind bars. And no wonder there is a deep feeling of despair - basically we've done it to ourselves. The utterly needless release of JR, like the catastrophic termination of Curbs in 2006, are two almighty self-inflicted wounds.
No wonder than so many folk are just dumbfounded, totally bewildered by this bizarre and entirely avoidable turn of events. It's almost a certainty that if called upon there are five good men and true who would rally to the call, guys who are proven Charlton successes on and off the pitch. If the owner could show a little humility and a lot of common-sense, Messrs Riga, Curbishley, Peacock, Varney and Everitt would transform this club - not in months but in hours, and from top to bottom.
Their thoughts are probably not taken seriously.
1. The football wasn't too bad, I've seen much worse at the Valley in the last few years
2. The general atmosphere was one of apathy. Even Shouty Man in front of me couldn't be bothered to abuse the players and the ref.
3. I felt strangely neutral about the match. Not that happy when our goal went in and not that bothered when we conceded. You see this isn't really my team now. And it's not the same Valley my nan took me and my brother to forty plus years ago
4. The manager/ coach looked clueless. No connection with the fans or the players, gesticulating and shouting things that the players largely ignored. Puppet. Was it him deciding to bring on Watt or Lepoint or is he doing it to keep the owner happy? Don't hate Luzon, just feel nothing.
Apart from Hudds and saying good-bye to Powell properly not sure I'll be using my season ticket again this season. Football is supposed to be an enjoyable distraction from life. At the moment it's the other way round. Perhaps I'll start watching Welling next season until Roland has gone.
And he will go of course. It's just a question of how far we'll sink by then. L1. L2, lower? Perhaps we'll ground share with Welling. I do worry that Roland will try to repeat the Network experiment in L1 but with fewer staff, even more shit loans etc.
Still Roland will go at some point and hopefully something of my nan's Charlton and the old spirit will still be left. And God willing I'll be there...
Every time I see anything of Luzon it feels so surreal and I can't believe I'm not dreaming it all.
Loads on here will snort and go on about giving the guy a chance, but is it only me that looks at him, sees what is out there on the internet, listens to him, and had yesterday's experience, and thinks it is such a 'wrong' experience?
It is seriously weird. Its like having your cornflakes with salad cream and pilchards and sprouts and a spoonful of icing sugar, it won't kill you but stick to that diet and you'll eventually throw up.