Strictly for those old enough to remember........how do we rate our chances and team now compared to 1971/72, 1979/80 and 2008/2009?
My view, for what its worth:
1971-72 - Decent team, good players, in mid table until the final third when our form collapsed completely, especially given most of our fixtures were ok at that point. Verdict: self inflicted relegation
1979-80 - Weak team, small number of good players by many now forgotten or not up to scratch. Never looked like staying up all season. Final third was a disaster. Verdict: an accident waiting to happen, particularly as we'd diced with relegation two previous years. (And - we mucked about with two different managers that year)
2008-09 - Still had the nucleus of a good team right down to the end (Holland, Ambrose, Todorov, Zheng-Zhi, Shelvey, Burton, Fortune, Weaver, Elliott) though blighted with injuries. Form in final third was actually quite good, even against leading sides....had it been replicated over all 46 games we could have stayed up. Verdict: self inflicted relegation.
So where do we stand in 2015-16?
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This season is so much worse, purely because the situation we are in now was totally avoidable and thousands saw it coming. Thousands except the 3 people making the decisions of course.
In 08-09 I don't remember us getting many spankings. Not compared with this seasons thrashings.
The current team is unbalanced and the positional weaknesses ignored. The ill judged Duchatelet strategy is worse to see because it is so poorly executed and unnecessary.
The rubbish and appallingly executed strategy is likely to be repeated in league one with similar results. Charlton will be lucky not to tumble further. Duchatelet is a real thick headed malignancy in the club. Charlton supporters have got to get Duchatelet to understand that this experiment has failed and he needs to sell up and move on.
The difference this time, even compared with the latter example, is all the stuff being promulgated about everything - and it is pretty much everything - happening (or not happening) away from the pitch.
In that regard, we are so much better and more quickly informed thanks to the interweb and the links it provides to blogs, journalists articles, rumours, etc. What was going on back in the 1970s remains a mystery in many respects.
We are not down yet but I must admit everything about our current situation is dire right throughout the club from the top down and I fear the worst. I certainly can't remember two previous back to back pastings that I have witnessed in the last week. Too many youngsters thrown in at the deep end, a lot of imports not up to the demands of the Championship, loan players who don't have the love for the badge and no team spirit. This, all with memories of that successful record breaking L1 promotion and the fantastic team spirit in that squad. still fresh in the memory makes it all the more hard to take what is going on. So this feels the worst of the lot right now for me.
The squad was never strong enough from the start of the season and we have just wasted 11? weeks since Luzon was sacked so I'm afraid miracles are now needed. The bookies had us as relegation favourites and I've never seen too many of them with holes in their shoes!
Relegation always hurts, but by August I'd normally be looking forward again rather than dwelling on the past.
This time will be different. There will be no sense of anticipation, no spring in my step walking down Floyd Road. The Charlton we know has been 75% killed off already, by then it will be on life-support.
Of course they're going to take the opportunity when its given to them, might not go in every time but you give them enough chances (like what we've been doing), they'll eventually take them.
Actually have to give credit to Hull on Saturday... After Real Madrid broke the gentlemans agreement and beat someone 9-2 I thought we could go down the same route, watch their player celebrate when it went 6-0 on Saturday, he's almost apologetic to Charlton for scoring!!
We were never this bad.
My granson told me yesterday not to renew his season as he lis not comming to the valley again he cant stand the p*** taking anymore and is going to watch bromley with his mates
72/3 - We were awful in the last third of the season. Many of the decent players were gone or going. No good youngsters coming through. It took three years to recover.
79/80 - Off field troubles compromised the team a lot; Nelson and Bailey were at loggerheads. Nelson lost the dressing room. We did have a couple of decent youngsters (Walsh and Smith) and some old heads (Hales, Powell, Aizlewood, etc), but were tailed off most of the season and always going down. We bounced back with similar players the next season.
08/9 - We had a good set of players but no direction. Once Pardew lost interest (as there was no money left) and we couldn't afford another manager it took too long to turn things around. Even the following year, with Shelvey and Bailey, we should have gone back up.
This year, with investment, our squad should be good enough to stay up, provided they have the spirit and fight required. Do they have that though?