Well that was a jolly "talking shop" with lots of first-name use, bonhomie ("tell us about the goal Jacko") and not a lot of substance. The presentation was there to be picked at, for instance "please outline the key objectives over the next five years that will help us meet the strategic targets you have outlined", but all we seemed to get was a glut of questions focusing on operational stuff and things that had obviously been done to death on previous fans' forums. Later there were opportunities to ask about whether £9m on transfers, compared to £1.1m, was reflected on the team's performance and also getting Murray's view on Duchalet's judge of character bearing in mind that his comment about the key relationship in a football club being between the owner and the manager, the former needing to have implicit trust in the latter. Duchalet has sacked three guys he has picked in the last 18 months. Also, If you are going to a meeting with prepared questions, always have a follow-up. The panel was let off the hook on a number of occasions, for instance the initial question about access to the QPR game was allowed to die a death.
In my view the guy that opened from the fans' side of the table set the wrong tone by outlining how the meeting would be run and then asking Katrien what she felt were the fans' main issues. Just tell her. Finally, there were clearly people there with individual agendas, namely; " the Crossbars fiasco has turned my footballing life upside down". Ok, but not for this forum. And then we had "VIPs feel disenfranchised and the club should do something for them". Bollocks, I was a VIP once, felt it was a good deal, was happy to sign-up to it and didn't expect anything once it had concluded.
The upshot was that the panel was never ruffled, one guy said absolutely nothing, Katrien had an easy ride and kept a smile on her face and Murray just sat there playing with his phone. I wasn't there on the night or involved in the process so can't comment on how the fans' side of things was organised and prepared but feel that this was a massive opportunity that was wasted.
The opening question was specifically designed to tell us if the club was able to articulate what the problem was. KM repeated her opening thought that it was all about not knowing the strategy, and RM twice avoided the question entirely.
You may disagree, but I think that's hugely significant. If you cannot define a problem, it makes it pretty tricky to solve it and pretty tricky to be sure it's still solved later on. To me what it betrayed is that they genuinely didn't know the answer, and that speaks of a team trying desperately to be understood but giving nowhere near enough energy to seeking to understand. No wonder supporters feel disenfranchised.
Leaving the soft stuff to one side, if you're running a business and don't know your market you are likely to fail.
We'll have to agree to disagree here. It's a weak question to ask because a smart person wouldn't have answered it. Why risk bringing issues to the table that others may not of thought of? We should have had a focused meeting targeting the key issues and demanding answers but it never happened.
Watched the meeting on the ipad last night even my Mrs who has no interest or clue about football/charlton commented that KM is crap and never actually really answers the question.
The number one issue, and only important one at the moment, has been lost amidst the mass hysteria that has enveloped the more vociferous and activist element of the Charlton fan base. Also, I think this element has been afflicted with a kind of collective false memory syndrome when it comes to previous owners and how open they were with the Charlton fans. The Gliksten brothers would have been turning in their graves whilst that meeting was taking place on Tuesday night.
From the beginning it has been clear that RD is not the kind of owner who is going spend his fortune on players in order to achieve success. It was always going to be a slow progressive building process with a focus on infrastructure. And we have seen evidence of this with significant money spent on the stadium, pitch and training ground.
But we have also seen things that are clearly not working such as the network idea and a host of other admin and gimmicky initiatives.
None of this would matter if the results and performances on the pitch had not deteriorated so badly over the last few weeks. But the general disgruntlement and anger about these performances have been hijacked (not deliberately – it has just happened) by the voices of the people and groups with more widespread agendas (and I am not criticising those agendas or groups) about the new owner.
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch if that CEO is not allowed to immediately over rule RD's manager recruitment policy.
On Tuesday KM talked about how they go about player recruitment and how they use various scouts and data analysis (I would love to know more about this; what tools do they use and who decides the metrics and the required scores on those metrics and how they are different for different positions). In my opinion this is working as we have seen a significant upgrade in the quality of the players we saw recruited this summer at good value.
The problem is that nobody has persuaded RD that the same approach should be used to recruit managers and coaching staff. You don’t have the same data analysis tools you have for players but every experienced manager/coach has data that allows you to assess the risk of appointing them. The craziest statement on Tuesday was from RM (I think) who said the most important relationship in a club is that between the owner and manager. This was used to justify RD only appointing managers that he knew.
We had a good result and performance on Saturday and listening to JJ it seems the new guy is implementing new ideas and tactics. He may go on to be a great success. But if he does it will be a lucky appointment by RD since there is nothing in his data/track record that suggests he will be a good manager. You can risk making one speculative managerial appointment every so often hoping he turns into a Mourinho but not 4 or 5 in succession. The next manager has to be someone with at least 10 to 15 years experience. From my viewpoint, that of a non vociferous activist type fan, it is the only important issue at the moment.
Well that was a jolly "talking shop" with lots of first-name use, bonhomie ("tell us about the goal Jacko") and not a lot of substance. The presentation was there to be picked at, for instance "please outline the key objectives over the next five years that will help us meet the strategic targets you have outlined", but all we seemed to get was a glut of questions focusing on operational stuff and things that had obviously been done to death on previous fans' forums. Later there were opportunities to ask about whether £9m on transfers, compared to £1.1m, was reflected on the team's performance and also getting Murray's view on Duchalet's judge of character bearing in mind that his comment about the key relationship in a football club being between the owner and the manager, the former needing to have implicit trust in the latter. Duchalet has sacked three guys he has picked in the last 18 months. Also, If you are going to a meeting with prepared questions, always have a follow-up. The panel was let off the hook on a number of occasions, for instance the initial question about access to the QPR game was allowed to die a death.
In my view the guy that opened from the fans' side of the table set the wrong tone by outlining how the meeting would be run and then asking Katrien what she felt were the fans' main issues. Just tell her. Finally, there were clearly people there with individual agendas, namely; " the Crossbars fiasco has turned my footballing life upside down". Ok, but not for this forum. And then we had "VIPs feel disenfranchised and the club should do something for them". Bollocks, I was a VIP once, felt it was a good deal, was happy to sign-up to it and didn't expect anything once it had concluded.
The upshot was that the panel was never ruffled, one guy said absolutely nothing, Katrien had an easy ride and kept a smile on her face and Murray just sat there playing with his phone. I wasn't there on the night or involved in the process so can't comment on how the fans' side of things was organised and prepared but feel that this was a massive opportunity that was wasted.
The opening question was specifically designed to tell us if the club was able to articulate what the problem was. KM repeated her opening thought that it was all about not knowing the strategy, and RM twice avoided the question entirely.
You may disagree, but I think that's hugely significant. If you cannot define a problem, it makes it pretty tricky to solve it and pretty tricky to be sure it's still solved later on. To me what it betrayed is that they genuinely didn't know the answer, and that speaks of a team trying desperately to be understood but giving nowhere near enough energy to seeking to understand. No wonder supporters feel disenfranchised.
Leaving the soft stuff to one side, if you're running a business and don't know your market you are likely to fail.
We, as fans, are the ones telling them that there are major problems. Not the other way around.
From the off that question set the tone that it was going to be too nicey nicey without anyone willing to properly ruffle any feathers. Sorry.
No way to run a business - I appreciate your view, we'll agree to disagree.
We're not running a business, we are questioning those who are supposedly running one and are meant to be letting them know how we feel and getting their explanations for it.
Again, this whole 'communication' obsession has just led us to into trying too hard to win them over - it is not going to happen.
I'll say it one more time. The question was aimed at understanding whether the issue was one of the club not understanding the problem. It was informative in that we learned they didn't really understand it. We took opportunity to help them understand the issue as a result of discovering that.
But more to the point, it explains why their 'solutions' haven't worked for people - it's because they're applying an aspirin to a cut.
The one good thing to come out out this is we have learned that we have an abundance of wannabe Paxmans and QCs waiting in the wings for when the next meeting occurs.
Hope someone is jotting down all the names of those whose only real comments on what is going wrong at Charlton is that some fans in a difficult situation didn't deliver enough hammer blows that they would have done.
I also think that we are also seeing a gap between the general feeling on here and other fans who do not come on here. My dad occasionally reads this site but would never post, and he tends to read the game related threads and stuff do with the team, ie transfers etc. I don't think he was aware of the general feeling of discontent and obviously the regular posters on here are talking about it everyday, reading one another's comments etc.
So generally speaking we (regular CL posters) might have more of a stronger opinion on what needs to be said to KM given (I would say generally negative) feeling on here, but one of the invited fans who doesn't come on here, wouldn't have perhaps sensed or even agreed with the general opinion of those upset.
It's what makes this whole situation and process actually an incredibly difficult thing to manage and probably why KM got the easier ride than she might've been expecting. Someone earlier referenced what they thought were inane questions about Valley Express, but to others this was the opportunity to talk about that.
I am just interested to see what happens if we win at Brum and how that will affect the Ipswich game.
The one good thing to come out out this is we have learned that we have an abundance of wannabe Paxmans and QCs waiting in the wings for when the next meeting occurs.
Watched the meeting on the ipad last night even my Mrs who has no interest or clue about football/charlton commented that KM is crap and never actually really answers the question.
My Mrs said exactly the same thing.
Mine mumbled 'can you turn that off already?' 5mins into it. (5 minutes into listening to Katrien Meire lie & chill)
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch.
If this were true, then why pay anybody to do the job at all?
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch.
If this were true, then why pay anybody to do the job at all?
A modern football club is about a lot more than coaching and selecting football players.
I have updated that sentence now.
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch if that CEO is not allowed immediately to over rule RD's manager recruitment policy.
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch.
If this were true, then why pay anybody to do the job at all?
A modern football club is about a lot more than coaching and selecting football players.
Yes it would. As CEO's can essentially control everything, including recruiting our playing staff; which in effect will totally change performances on the pitch. Plus this 'battle' against the owners is about everything off the pitch as much as it is against it on the pitch, it's just that it's already showing on the pitch, and it will keep doing so with their plan to run our Football Club.
A better CEO would help little things, it wouldn't change the bigger picture though. But every little step....
Hearing Katrien referencing charlton fans as "customers".
Yes going charlton is like going asdas your not there to enjoy yourself.
She ain't got a clue about football.
Just boring repetitive gimmicks that stink of desperation.
20k...that is laughable and will never happen.
She lost renewals but obviously got new fans....er, congratulations.
I wonder how many new fans said to her, you know I would come again but there's something missing a sofa in the corner and cheerleaders and rubbish managers.
Found the body language of RM interesting throughout. His facial expressions when KM was putting her foot in it was particularly revealing. I am not sure he is as "on board" with the whole RD concept as he may proclaim.
Of course he's not, but he's defending them, in the absence of a better alternative.
In my view the reason the questioning wasnt as strong as it could have been was due the deliberate divide and rule strategy of structuring the meeting the way it was, watering down with randoms, adding the fans forum which is 99% concerned with operational issues like VE, potholes, tickets etc to divert from the bigger strategic questions. Altho i think they still did a reasonable job despite that.
think you are doing the FF members a big dis-service there, do they not have other concerns as well?
have you ever been to an FF meeting? and its not about the people who attend the FF its about the intention of the club which appears to have been dilution, and distraction away from strategic question, plus if you read what I actually wrote I said they did a reasonable job despite that..
Alarmingly concerned that it appears that the strategy for break-even is effectively based upon two things coming together: - an approx 50% increase in home crowds - increased / higher value player sales
How the hell those two come together I really do not know
Me neither.
I'm not being critical of those who organized the questions and who were there last night but you make an important point, how do we get there? The answers to this I think are more important to understand than some of the "fans forum" questions and I wish (with the benefit of hindsight of course so it's easy for me) that the questions could have been distilled to a smaller list and that those present could have felt comfortable deviating from the script to pursue areas like this one you have raised.
It felt a bit like the questions "needed" to include all areas of interest for those attending and give everyone a chance of asking something rather than concentrating on the tactics the club has for achieving it's strategy, which is the over-arching issue.
'So lets buy some half decent players, hopefully as a team they improve then their value goes up, then we sell them' - that for me is the most telling reference to whether they care about us as fans, because there is nothing worse as a fan than a club having some good players, ergo a good team, and for them to be sold, see Scott Parker for how it doesn't work.
Also regarding the protest:-
So she got called a few names etc, tough fucking shit, football is about passion, its tribal, KM with her 'little girl lost' face trying to garner sympathy was pathetic, if she was a 60 year old bloke the same things would have been said, so she clearly does not have a bloody clue what she has done and does not understand football and our club. Pathetic.
If men call men abusive names then I can understand it, if it was just female supporters being so personal with her I could understand it, Right now I can't
If she was English would she be called an English bitch no she wouldn't
If she was black and people started calling her a black bitch would it be accepted as fine
The minute the abuse moves in that direction then the points valid or not are lost,
I don't buy into the whole pc brigade bullshit but this is so blatent racism and sexism I am surprised it's been allowed on here Tbf
If men call men abusive names then I can understand it, if it was just female supporters being so personal with her I could understand it, Right now I can't
If she was English would she be called an English bitch no she wouldn't
If she was black and people started calling her a black bitch would it be accepted as fine
The minute the abuse moves in that direction then the points valid or not are lost,
I don't buy into the whole pc brigade bullshit but this is so blatent racism and sexism I am surprised it's been allowed on here Tbf
But there was no racism at all no one mentioned that she was white????
If men call men abusive names then I can understand it, if it was just female supporters being so personal with her I could understand it, Right now I can't
If she was English would she be called an English bitch no she wouldn't
If she was black and people started calling her a black bitch would it be accepted as fine
The minute the abuse moves in that direction then the points valid or not are lost,
I don't buy into the whole pc brigade bullshit but this is so blatent racism and sexism I am surprised it's been allowed on here Tbf
Calling someone a Belgian Bitch is both racism and sexism? Or am I missing something? Think you're blowing it way out of proportion because she's a woman. As far as I know nothing said or done was out of line at the protest, and also if you treat people like animals (laughing at them from a safe distance with protection is very much like that) then don't be surprised when they try to bite back at you.
But the need to bring her country of origin in to the chanting, it may not be in a legal way racist but if she is being called Belgian this and Belgian that it's the same thing
But the need to bring her country of origin in to the chanting, it may not be in a legal way racist but if she is being called Belgian this and Belgian that it's the same thing
If men call men abusive names then I can understand it, if it was just female supporters being so personal with her I could understand it, Right now I can't
If she was English would she be called an English bitch no she wouldn't
If she was black and people started calling her a black bitch would it be accepted as fine
The minute the abuse moves in that direction then the points valid or not are lost,
I don't buy into the whole pc brigade bullshit but this is so blatent racism and sexism I am surprised it's been allowed on here Tbf
I have to agree with you. Whilst I think she's completely clueless and have made that clear in many posts, I've never been comfortable with the abusive name calling that some choose to use. Whether it's allowed on the forum is not really my concern, but I do think that if there are to be more protests, if we can avoid the abuse, she will find it very difficult to speak out against it.
She looked very uncomfortable when it was mentioned to her at the meeting, that we have a right to protest in this country. The protest clearly rattled her, and I'm not sure it was solely because of the alleged abuse. Protests make the club look bad, she knows that so she is trying to shut it down. I would like to see more personally but we don't need to give her any more opportunities to take the moral high ground.
If men call men abusive names then I can understand it, if it was just female supporters being so personal with her I could understand it, Right now I can't
If she was English would she be called an English bitch no she wouldn't
If she was black and people started calling her a black bitch would it be accepted as fine
The minute the abuse moves in that direction then the points valid or not are lost,
I don't buy into the whole pc brigade bullshit but this is so blatent racism and sexism I am surprised it's been allowed on here Tbf
I have to agree with you. Whilst I think she's completely clueless and have made that clear in many posts, I've never been comfortable with the abusive name calling that some choose to use. Whether it's allowed on the forum is not really my concern, but I do think that if there are to be more protests, if we can avoid the abuse, she will find it very difficult to speak out against it.
She looked very uncomfortable when it was mentioned to her at the meeting, that we have a right to protest in this country. The protest clearly rattled her, and I'm not sure it was solely because of the alleged abuse. Protests make the club look bad, she knows that so she is trying to shut it down. I would like to see more personally but we don't need to give her any more opportunities to take the moral high ground.
Too right. She is crapping herself she is going to lose her job - a cushy little number that gives her a free entry pass to the CEO job club. Protests are a very visible indication that the fans (whatever percentage of the total!) are not impressed with how she is doing her job.
Roland has binned 4 coaches in her short time here, and she has had to deliver the chop. She knows how capricious Roland is when it comes to axing folk, and now she looks like she's going to be on the receiving end. Roland has all these coaches laying around the place, why not CEOs too?
She needs to grip the situation fast or she is out the door and back to being a ten-a-penny lawyer drone again.
Protest as loud and aggressively within the confides of law, and then no one can complain, in fact Imo it's a healthy situation to have fans prepared to sacrifice time and effort to be heard
Comments
From the beginning it has been clear that RD is not the kind of owner who is going spend his fortune on players in order to achieve success. It was always going to be a slow progressive building process with a focus on infrastructure. And we have seen evidence of this with significant money spent on the stadium, pitch and training ground.
But we have also seen things that are clearly not working such as the network idea and a host of other admin and gimmicky initiatives.
None of this would matter if the results and performances on the pitch had not deteriorated so badly over the last few weeks. But the general disgruntlement and anger about these performances have been hijacked (not deliberately – it has just happened) by the voices of the people and groups with more widespread agendas (and I am not criticising those agendas or groups) about the new owner.
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch if that CEO is not allowed to immediately over rule RD's manager recruitment policy.
On Tuesday KM talked about how they go about player recruitment and how they use various scouts and data analysis (I would love to know more about this; what tools do they use and who decides the metrics and the required scores on those metrics and how they are different for different positions). In my opinion this is working as we have seen a significant upgrade in the quality of the players we saw recruited this summer at good value.
The problem is that nobody has persuaded RD that the same approach should be used to recruit managers and coaching staff. You don’t have the same data analysis tools you have for players but every experienced manager/coach has data that allows you to assess the risk of appointing them. The craziest statement on Tuesday was from RM (I think) who said the most important relationship in a club is that between the owner and manager. This was used to justify RD only appointing managers that he knew.
We had a good result and performance on Saturday and listening to JJ it seems the new guy is implementing new ideas and tactics. He may go on to be a great success. But if he does it will be a lucky appointment by RD since there is nothing in his data/track record that suggests he will be a good manager. You can risk making one speculative managerial appointment every so often hoping he turns into a Mourinho but not 4 or 5 in succession. The next manager has to be someone with at least 10 to 15 years experience. From my viewpoint, that of a non vociferous activist type fan, it is the only important issue at the moment.
But more to the point, it explains why their 'solutions' haven't worked for people - it's because they're applying an aspirin to a cut.
So generally speaking we (regular CL posters) might have more of a stronger opinion on what needs to be said to KM given (I would say generally negative) feeling on here, but one of the invited fans who doesn't come on here, wouldn't have perhaps sensed or even agreed with the general opinion of those upset.
It's what makes this whole situation and process actually an incredibly difficult thing to manage and probably why KM got the easier ride than she might've been expecting. Someone earlier referenced what they thought were inane questions about Valley Express, but to others this was the opportunity to talk about that.
I am just interested to see what happens if we win at Brum and how that will affect the Ipswich game.
I have updated that sentence now.
KM is not the problem. If tomorrow we install the universally acknowledged best football CEO in the country it will not make the slightest difference to performances on the pitch if that CEO is not allowed immediately to over rule RD's manager recruitment policy.
A better CEO would help little things, it wouldn't change the bigger picture though. But every little step....
Yes going charlton is like going asdas your not there to enjoy yourself.
She ain't got a clue about football.
Just boring repetitive gimmicks that stink of desperation.
20k...that is laughable and will never happen.
She lost renewals but obviously got new fans....er, congratulations.
I wonder how many new fans said to her, you know I would come again but there's something missing a sofa in the corner and cheerleaders and rubbish managers.
Just like gamers are sony or microsoft or whatever customers.
They are also fans of their product.
Customers also go for a cheeky massage sometimes... that's enjoyable too....
Finally why is 20k 'laughable' exactly?
We had 20k still coming when we were relegated (the first time)
I'm not being critical of those who organized the questions and who were there last night but you make an important point, how do we get there? The answers to this I think are more important to understand than some of the "fans forum" questions and I wish (with the benefit of hindsight of course so it's easy for me) that the questions could have been distilled to a smaller list and that those present could have felt comfortable deviating from the script to pursue areas like this one you have raised.
It felt a bit like the questions "needed" to include all areas of interest for those attending and give everyone a chance of asking something rather than concentrating on the tactics the club has for achieving it's strategy, which is the over-arching issue.
Also regarding the protest:-
So she got called a few names etc, tough fucking shit, football is about passion, its tribal, KM with her 'little girl lost' face trying to garner sympathy was pathetic, if she was a 60 year old bloke the same things would have been said, so she clearly does not have a bloody clue what she has done and does not understand football and our club.
Pathetic.
If she was English would she be called an English bitch no she wouldn't
If she was black and people started calling her a black bitch would it be accepted as fine
The minute the abuse moves in that direction then the points valid or not are lost,
I don't buy into the whole pc brigade bullshit but this is so blatent racism and sexism I am surprised it's been allowed on here Tbf
If you focus on the 1% then you belittle the remainder, which is exactly what shes done.
Its not because shes a woman. Or Belgian. It's because she's shit at her job that people are protesting.
She looked very uncomfortable when it was mentioned to her at the meeting, that we have a right to protest in this country. The protest clearly rattled her, and I'm not sure it was solely because of the alleged abuse. Protests make the club look bad, she knows that so she is trying to shut it down. I would like to see more personally but we don't need to give her any more opportunities to take the moral high ground.
I think it also highlights the frustration of the fans that some went to those depths. The anger.
Too right. She is crapping herself she is going to lose her job - a cushy little number that gives her a free entry pass to the CEO job club. Protests are a very visible indication that the fans (whatever percentage of the total!) are not impressed with how she is doing her job.
Roland has binned 4 coaches in her short time here, and she has had to deliver the chop. She knows how capricious Roland is when it comes to axing folk, and now she looks like she's going to be on the receiving end. Roland has all these coaches laying around the place, why not CEOs too?
She needs to grip the situation fast or she is out the door and back to being a ten-a-penny lawyer drone again.