I do agree with those posters that point out that Charlton Life is not representative of our fanbase. We're a minority (anorak ultras) that attach a disproportionate importance to a football club* to which we probably have a slightly irrational attachment to.
Not taking you to task personally on this @ValleyMick, but this notion crops up from time to time and I don't think it's helpful.
I don't want to overstate my point, and I realise the danger in that, but we often do hear that this site is one of two things:
1. a small number of obsessives 2. Not representative or particularly significant of the wider fanbase
Perhaps the first is at least partially true! But most often, we hear this when someone feels the need to be dismissive: "That's just a message board thing!"—Richard Murray helping to birth the 2% movement.
Well, in the past thirty days, we have had more than 68,000 unique visitors and well over 4 million page views. Though this is somewhat affected by the current situation and external interest, of the visitors from 150 different countries (shoutout to Belgium, who moved into the top 10 list this month), over 40,000 or 90%+ are UK based (60%+ of that, directly from the club's catchment area: guess what, that's about the same as the capacity of The Valley!). And these numbers actually aren't unusual. In fact, we're down on the comparative period last year in terms of new users and up only a little on number of pages consumed per visit. And we're down 16% from the same period in 2014.
We don't do anything to actively encourage this (in fact, you could argue that we've willfully neglected growing the site, and I'll hold my hand up to that... sorry!), beyond providing, in the best way we currently can, a space for productive Charlton-related discussion, organisation and action (witness, just in recent times, CAST, Spell it Out, CARD, supporting the Upbeats, Member-causes etc., etc.).
We can argue about the meaning of this data all day long, but the fact is, this little message board plays its role and plays its role well. We have a very active number of regular contributors. If you confuse the number of active contributors with the power of this site's reach... well, you've made a mistake. Our active members may or may not be representative of the total fanbase, but you'd be wrong in saying that we as a collective (and including other Charlton-related message boards and blogs, or any kind of websites) aren't influential. We can't be dismissed easily.
Those are very impressive numbers. I have to confess that until I saw that, my thinking was probably more toward @ValleyMick 's. I've done web development and all kinds of data and analytics for almost a decade now, and determining "active users" is a pain for everyone, but even if you were to assume that you could illuminate half as being inactive and/or that those with the strong opinions are the loudest and are heard the most, that is still a very large user base.
@LoOkOuT you're absolutely correct when you say the Nasty Charlton Anorak Ultras (I'm just going to use it until it catches on) aren't to be considered numerically irrelevant, in fact quite the opposite.
As far as the numbers remaining roughly static, that's something I would more or less expect. Keep in mind that your prospective user base is finite, and given the 1 support=~1 account, over time you would expect your growth rate to be tied closer and closer to the growth of the CAFC fanbase, which I doubt is something that is growing drastically. I find all of this very interesting, but I doubt anyone else does.
Well done to the Mods on here, and for those of you who protest. Keep in mind that you have brought RD to the table. What he is saying is obviously not ideal, rather it's incredibly stupid, but you have forced him to start speaking to his decisions and attempting to outline how he runs the club. The problem remains, how on earth does he run this club?
Amidst all that interminable shite there's something in there that really reveals Roland not to be a football man. I know people have highlighted this quote for other reasons but it's this:
'let’s say you have a squad of 35 players which happens in the Championship - there are only 11 starting players. That means only one in three players are happy at the beginning of the game.'
Firstly, we're bottom, and we've spent the last two years flirting with the relegation spots. That means in general there's been around 20 other teams having a far more pleasant time of it than us. The conclusion you could draw from that is that if other teams have squads of 35 players and they've been doing better than us for the past two years then maybe it works Roland. Bournemouth had a squad of around 30 and won the league. Watford had around 40 players and Norwich had 35. These are all now Premier League teams. The problem is Roland applies business strategies to football problems.
He talks about how there are only 11 starting players, meaning 2 thirds of the squad are an under-utilised workforce and so are unhappy. As if he gives a shit about their happiness or knows anything about how to manage a football dressing room. What he really means is that he doesn't want to pay two thirds of the staff to not do anything on a Saturday, even though any manager worth his salt will rotate his team, keep his players motivated, bring players in to cover injury and use squad competition to increase performance. He just has completely zero understanding of what it is to challenge in a league of this nature. We can now see where Karel got his 'you only need 11 players' spiel from, which is interesting in itself as that's obviously the party line, but it means we're doomed to forever have squads made up of unready youth players and no depth or competition.
He's permanently going to tell us that they know what they're doing but it's knowledge coming from a microchips magnate and a competition lawyer whose only experience working in football is a series of colossal omnishambles and increasingly ridiculous PR gaffes. They're a bunch of wankers is what I'm getting at.
excellent post - really pulled apart and highlighted his incompetence re: squad stance
Do you have a random fact to brighten up the day Cables? :-)
good point - i have neglected my duties today. You're lucky to be getting a response at all dropping my 2nd B. Anyway
Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.
I prefer trios......
Join me again tomorrow
They'd have to be bloody good swimmers then.
I'm no geographer, but I reckon there's a fair old distance from the Arctic to Antarctica....
On the internet so must be true - never question the fact master.
Actually, I'm going to publish a retraction and an apology to NornIrish. Upon closer inspection, and to my detriment I felt pressured to publish a fact that I panicked and didn't think it through. I have a good general knowledge, I know penguins only exist on the antarctic, not the arctic.
Someone must have given a polar bear a bunch of penguins and watched how many he ate, then put it on the internet.
It was a shit fact, I will return tomorrow with a much better one
Sorry to throw this at you, but there are penguins living very near the Equator, as well as in quite warm places which happen to have cold sea currents like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Peru.
But still, nowhere near enough to be eaten by a polar bear.
RD admits mistakes and says he needs to stop us being relegated, so goes out and signs a 29 year old right back who has not played this season, still trying to work out his reasoning
The reasoning is how RD sees football and his ownership of football clubs. A number of people have said that he has no interest in football, but this is wrong. I know that he is very interested in football but in a way that is different to the rest of us. We see football as trying to build a team that can compete, trying to get a balanced side, looking for some entertainment during the game. We want to see our academy producing players for the first team, but in the context of a side which also has experienced pros who can mentor them through the toughness of competing in the championship.
In the world of RD, everything is reduced down to numbers. How much is this player worth when he comes in? how can we add value? What is the target value for them when the player is sold? Then in terms of play, how many accurate passes, assists, goals, tackles, and so on does the player make. He is the ultimate statto. The good player is the one with the best stats and can give the best financial return. Which league and level the player is at does not seem relevant,
I think that RD is measuring Riga's success on stats as well. How many games left, how many points needed, how many points per game required. So in RD's mind, is the team returning enough points per the games whilst Riga is charge for the rest of the season? At the moment we are below the determined line, but a win tomorrow and we are back on track, so would be considered a success. I think this is how he has measured all of the coaches. I suspect that RD's thinks Fraeye was a good coach but his statistical return was not good enough so had to go. RD treats coaches as junior business managers with targets to meet. I also think that RD has done the same sort of statistical analysis on potential coaches as he has on players. There little chance on having a UK coach as they are, in his mind, not good enough on a value for money basis (using his model). The are just too expensive against what they might return. This seems to go for the support coaching staff as well.
RD still believes that the club can break even and be competitive in the Championship. He was counting of FFP coming into place, so the changes to it has been a set back. However, as far as I can tell, he thinks that there is a model out there which will allow break even. His arguments seems to be that as he can achieve nearly break even in other parts of Europe, so why not in the UK. I believe he has been told that the Championship, with its financial madness (too much money coming down from the PL but not enough shared around all sides to make it truly competitive in both footballing and financial terms), is different to virtually every other league in Europe. The cost of players here is inflated and there is little that can be done to stop this as an individual club. I'm not sure he accepts this line and is determined to press ahead with his experiment.
He does seem to have acknowledged that there has not been enough depth in the squad to be competitive but I'm not sure he understands how to add the necessary depth. This is partly because players are measured by him as a set of statistics, so if the stats show the player is, say, a good RB, then he must be. How can the stats be wrong? This ignores all of the human elements, such as would this player be a good fit, how well do they know the Championship, and so on.
Every transfer window we have Colin saying we are chasing after this player or that and is often accused of making this stuff up. I think this is unfair because as far as I can tell, we have gone after many of the players he has talked about. But this is only half the story. For the most part, we will never sign them. Because RD is holding to this idea of treating players as assets which he can get a (financial) return on, his budgeting for each player seems to be very strict, both in terms of price and running cost. He is looking at what return he can get. There have been players where negotiations were a long way down the road, but the running costs were then evaluated and considered just too much to get a return. So we end up constantly getting cheap players, but with good playing stats, from other leagues.
We can see the major flaws in all of this, that reducing everything to the bottom line and a series of stats, ignores the real value of building a balanced side of players who can play in this league, and having a competitive team which might get you into the PL. (although I understand that RD still stating an ambition to get to the PL). It is where we are though, and there is little evidence that RD wants to abandon his project.
For what its worth, I think RD is concerned about the current state of the club the protests, and so on, and is looking for solutions. I suspect that he has been told a great deal this week. Whether he has properly heard the reality of the situation and where solutions can be found is an entirely different matter.
Hey, the really important thing is that he wants us to be the nicest club in London (you know, the sort of club where no-one complains, or points out awkward stuff like the cretinous manner in which the regime is running the club....
What he means by being the nicest is that we let other teams visit us and we give them 3 points.
Well done to the Mods on here, and for those of you who protest. Keep in mind that you have brought RD to the table. What he is saying is obviously not ideal, rather it's incredibly stupid, but you have forced him to start speaking to his decisions and attempting to outline how he runs the club. The problem remains, how on earth does he run this club?
This is something I have been thinking about over the last few days. It seems RD is determined to be with us for the a while yet. He also seems to be worried about things and has shown some signs of wanting to communicate. Against that, the protest aims are for him to leave which, at the moment, seems unlikely.
Assuming that RD does want to listen and do things in a better way (I know this might not be the case) what, if anything, would people be willing to accept so that we go from being a club at war with itself to one where we have people working collaboratively for the benefit for the club and for all?
The fight and the stand off can continue and that potentially leads to the club withering and dying. But if we can get RD properly to a negotiating table and we decide to work together, what does that look like in practice?
I know this might never happen and that there will be a wide range of views on this. For some it is all or nothing, for others it is purely about results on the playing field. But I think it is worth discussing what a plan B might be if there is an opportunity to change the club's direction.
Very well put. This just feels like a never ending nightmare at the moment. Everyone can see how inept Pinnochio is, except he who can do something about it. I really do despair. I think the only thing that will be effective now is some kind of organised total boycott or walk out. Im sure many people feel like me.
I just cannot see anyway back for this regime and that in turn makes me really fear for the future of the club.
The bit where he says a big squad will leave 2/3rds of the players unhappy.
Unhappy individuals (that could also still be loaned out and managed better) is more important then charlton itself. Can he give an example of a big squad f*cking things up?
The bit where he says a big squad will leave 2/3rds of the players unhappy.
Unhappy individuals (that could also still be loaned out and managed better) is more important then charlton itself. Can he give an example of a big squad f*cking things up?
The clubs failings makes the fans unhappy.
Players forced to continue playing until either...
- short term injuries become long term (Vetokele, Diarra, Bauer and possibly others?), - they faint during half time (Cousins), - they end up playing so far out of their depth it's unfair (Piotr for 3 minutes, Naby for many more) - they're young and without support, meaning they lose confidence and get abuse (Fox), - they're no longer fit enough for a full 90 but continue out of necessity (Jackson), - (...I could go on...)
... must be so much better for their happiness.
Thank God Roland's looking out for their morale, I'd hate to see what he'd be doing if he didn't give a shit.
I think PITL has it right. If the protests die, the significant number of protesters will stay away. Unfortunately some for good. L1 will lose fans anyway. Was in Spain for last protest but there Saturday but not at match. Going to Bees and Fulham but in away ends. Will have no contact with the club financially until they are gone. My nephew ditto. Harder for him in away ends as he has a tattoo of the badge.
RD admits mistakes and says he needs to stop us being relegated, so goes out and signs a 29 year old right back who has not played this season, still trying to work out his reasoning
The reasoning is how RD sees football and his ownership of football clubs. A number of people have said that he has no interest in football, but this is wrong. I know that he is very interested in football but in a way that is different to the rest of us. We see football as trying to build a team that can compete, trying to get a balanced side, looking for some entertainment during the game. We want to see our academy producing players for the first team, but in the context of a side which also has experienced pros who can mentor them through the toughness of competing in the championship.
In the world of RD, everything is reduced down to numbers. How much is this player worth when he comes in? how can we add value? What is the target value for them when the player is sold? Then in terms of play, how many accurate passes, assists, goals, tackles, and so on does the player make. He is the ultimate statto. The good player is the one with the best stats and can give the best financial return. Which league and level the player is at does not seem relevant,
I think that RD is measuring Riga's success on stats as well. How many games left, how many points needed, how many points per game required. So in RD's mind, is the team returning enough points per the games whilst Riga is charge for the rest of the season? At the moment we are below the determined line, but a win tomorrow and we are back on track, so would be considered a success. I think this is how he has measured all of the coaches. I suspect that RD's thinks Fraeye was a good coach but his statistical return was not good enough so had to go. RD treats coaches as junior business managers with targets to meet. I also think that RD has done the same sort of statistical analysis on potential coaches as he has on players. There little chance on having a UK coach as they are, in his mind, not good enough on a value for money basis (using his model). The are just too expensive against what they might return. This seems to go for the support coaching staff as well.
RD still believes that the club can break even and be competitive in the Championship. He was counting of FFP coming into place, so the changes to it has been a set back. However, as far as I can tell, he thinks that there is a model out there which will allow break even. His arguments seems to be that as he can achieve nearly break even in other parts of Europe, so why not in the UK. I believe he has been told that the Championship, with its financial madness (too much money coming down from the PL but not enough shared around all sides to make it truly competitive in both footballing and financial terms), is different to virtually every other league in Europe. The cost of players here is inflated and there is little that can be done to stop this as an individual club. I'm not sure he accepts this line and is determined to press ahead with his experiment.
He does seem to have acknowledged that there has not been enough depth in the squad to be competitive but I'm not sure he understands how to add the necessary depth. This is partly because players are measured by him as a set of statistics, so if the stats show the player is, say, a good RB, then he must be. How can the stats be wrong? This ignores all of the human elements, such as would this player be a good fit, how well do they know the Championship, and so on.
Every transfer window we have Colin saying we are chasing after this player or that and is often accused of making this stuff up. I think this is unfair because as far as I can tell, we have gone after many of the players he has talked about. But this is only half the story. For the most part, we will never sign them. Because RD is holding to this idea of treating players as assets which he can get a (financial) return on, his budgeting for each player seems to be very strict, both in terms of price and running cost. He is looking at what return he can get. There have been players where negotiations were a long way down the road, but the running costs were then evaluated and considered just too much to get a return. So we end up constantly getting cheap players, but with good playing stats, from other leagues.
We can see the major flaws in all of this, that reducing everything to the bottom line and a series of stats, ignores the real value of building a balanced side of players who can play in this league, and having a competitive team which might get you into the PL. (although I understand that RD still stating an ambition to get to the PL). It is where we are though, and there is little evidence that RD wants to abandon his project.
For what its worth, I think RD is concerned about the current state of the club the protests, and so on, and is looking for solutions. I suspect that he has been told a great deal this week. Whether he has properly heard the reality of the situation and where solutions can be found is an entirely different matter.
Stunning post. Very insightful.
As you say there are so many pitfalls with relying on stats like this. A player's stats will be influenced not just by their ability but the quality and form of their team and their opposition, their current fitness levels, etc. And how can you accurately model the differences between the Championship and, say, the Juliper league?
So Polish Pete, Loic Nego etc. all look great on paper, but the stats lie because they lack contextual insight.
As for whether he's properly heard the reality of the situation - well, who has he been listening to? Because those articles and videos betray to me that he's listened only to his staff who have their heads firmly planted in the sand. "It's just results, it will all be ok when we start winning again" etc. He needs to properly listen to the fans, because his staff don't have a scooby.
RD admits mistakes and says he needs to stop us being relegated, so goes out and signs a 29 year old right back who has not played this season, still trying to work out his reasoning
The reasoning is how RD sees football and his ownership of football clubs. A number of people have said that he has no interest in football, but this is wrong. I know that he is very interested in football but in a way that is different to the rest of us. We see football as trying to build a team that can compete, trying to get a balanced side, looking for some entertainment during the game. We want to see our academy producing players for the first team, but in the context of a side which also has experienced pros who can mentor them through the toughness of competing in the championship.
In the world of RD, everything is reduced down to numbers. How much is this player worth when he comes in? how can we add value? What is the target value for them when the player is sold? Then in terms of play, how many accurate passes, assists, goals, tackles, and so on does the player make. He is the ultimate statto. The good player is the one with the best stats and can give the best financial return. Which league and level the player is at does not seem relevant,
I think that RD is measuring Riga's success on stats as well. How many games left, how many points needed, how many points per game required. So in RD's mind, is the team returning enough points per the games whilst Riga is charge for the rest of the season? At the moment we are below the determined line, but a win tomorrow and we are back on track, so would be considered a success. I think this is how he has measured all of the coaches. I suspect that RD's thinks Fraeye was a good coach but his statistical return was not good enough so had to go. RD treats coaches as junior business managers with targets to meet. I also think that RD has done the same sort of statistical analysis on potential coaches as he has on players. There little chance on having a UK coach as they are, in his mind, not good enough on a value for money basis (using his model). The are just too expensive against what they might return. This seems to go for the support coaching staff as well.
RD still believes that the club can break even and be competitive in the Championship. He was counting of FFP coming into place, so the changes to it has been a set back. However, as far as I can tell, he thinks that there is a model out there which will allow break even. His arguments seems to be that as he can achieve nearly break even in other parts of Europe, so why not in the UK. I believe he has been told that the Championship, with its financial madness (too much money coming down from the PL but not enough shared around all sides to make it truly competitive in both footballing and financial terms), is different to virtually every other league in Europe. The cost of players here is inflated and there is little that can be done to stop this as an individual club. I'm not sure he accepts this line and is determined to press ahead with his experiment.
He does seem to have acknowledged that there has not been enough depth in the squad to be competitive but I'm not sure he understands how to add the necessary depth. This is partly because players are measured by him as a set of statistics, so if the stats show the player is, say, a good RB, then he must be. How can the stats be wrong? This ignores all of the human elements, such as would this player be a good fit, how well do they know the Championship, and so on.
Every transfer window we have Colin saying we are chasing after this player or that and is often accused of making this stuff up. I think this is unfair because as far as I can tell, we have gone after many of the players he has talked about. But this is only half the story. For the most part, we will never sign them. Because RD is holding to this idea of treating players as assets which he can get a (financial) return on, his budgeting for each player seems to be very strict, both in terms of price and running cost. He is looking at what return he can get. There have been players where negotiations were a long way down the road, but the running costs were then evaluated and considered just too much to get a return. So we end up constantly getting cheap players, but with good playing stats, from other leagues.
We can see the major flaws in all of this, that reducing everything to the bottom line and a series of stats, ignores the real value of building a balanced side of players who can play in this league, and having a competitive team which might get you into the PL. (although I understand that RD still stating an ambition to get to the PL). It is where we are though, and there is little evidence that RD wants to abandon his project.
For what its worth, I think RD is concerned about the current state of the club the protests, and so on, and is looking for solutions. I suspect that he has been told a great deal this week. Whether he has properly heard the reality of the situation and where solutions can be found is an entirely different matter.
Think you've nailed it what you say makes sense and clicks.
Looking at a human being...a footballer and just seeing numbers floating about is quite creepy and just wrong... completely stupid and naive.
Running a football club like F*ckin FIFA ultimate team.
I have always felt that there is some merit to aspects of Duchatelet's approach, but where he has got it wrong is in the execution. He isn't good at listening to the advice of others, including fans - only those inside his trusted circle. I have never wanted him to throw money at the problem, but you have to legislate for a few things. Injuries and loss of form are big ones. This is in two ways - how can I cover the injury of my central midfielder or right back for example. Then, can I create competition to get the best out of players, and allow me to drop players when they lose form. Most of us concede that there is a nucleous of around 12-13 players who if they were to stay fit, would make us very competitive. The problem is, their ability to withstand a division that is very physical, reffed differently to the rest of Europe, and is full of knowledgable pros and some very talented players doesn't seem to be a factor in their recruitment. The manager doesn't seem to be a big enough factor in the recruitment of players and when money is tight, this becomes even more important. Curbishley used to put as much importance on other factors, not just ability when he brought a player in. Chrissy Powell learned this from him - you need to find a Charlton player. The research that was done on a player went beyond how well they kick a ball. They didn't get it right every time, but the success rate was good. It seems that Duchatelet goes simply on stats which is crazy.
I say that when actually I have a theory that stats aren't used enough in football. The problem stems from Charles Hughes. He is derided in football as the inventor of the long ball game. I think he was a visionary, but he made one mistake. It was visionary to compile stats and work out how most goals were scored. His error was to compile them from stats/data of limited, British players. He was right that it is better to make as few passes as you can before having an attempt on goal. But that was only because the standard of passing in a country that did not value technique was poor. The trick with stats is understanding their limitations and this is clearly a shortfall of our owner. This is where a good manager comes in - when recruiting a player, you ideally want somebody who can sniff them out. By all means look at the stats but if you have the right man in there, their gut is just as important. Some managers have this more than others - Curbs had it- Harry Redknapp didn't which made him a very expensive manager to employ. (I mention him in the example as an article in the standard saying Daniel Sturridge was world class and England's best player made me sigh).
In the Championship, if you are not going to throw money at the problem, you need to find that manager. My assessment of Chrissy Powell was that his in game management was often poor but his ability to sniff out a player was excellent. With a bit of backing he has the ability to assemble a good team/squad. It fills me with great sadness that he wasn't supported after the season we finished 9th, he was getting us there. He was an ideal manager for Duchatelet in many ways. But he wasn't part of the network, and Duchatelet's agenda was about implementing his ideas rather than learning. Had he given Powell a bit of money and gave him the autonomy to fix the squad with no interference, I suspect we would be in different position now and would have spent less money to boot. But managers have come and gone and usually rue the size of their squad when the they do depart. New managers have different ideas and it unsettles players and they rate different qualities, so a centre half like Morrison is given away whilst still under contract. You can't build a team on the cheap doing this. At this level you won't get Alex Ferguson, but Powell was a good fit for this club, and the owner should have stood back and let him manage with a bit of support. Riga may be a good fit - he needs to be left alone to manage and bring his players in. We need a decent manager to be given space and time, and support.
The phrase that you have to pay for you mistakes is very true. Duchatelet has made so many that he does have to throw some money at the problem to fix it. We have needed a central midfielder to help Cousins out for some time, but we have got two right backs recently. One yes - cover is important, but we also have one of the best right backs in the division in the first team. This lack of a strategy in recruitment is crazy. And when the squad is stretched, there have been opportunities to address the crisis in windows that have not been taken. There have been winnable games- both this season and last, where we have thrown away any chance of winning the points by the weakness and inexperience of the side we put out. We are in the middle now of some key games where the squad needed strengthening and players brought in haven't covered the right areas and they haven't been fit enough to play in the important games - We won't play Bristol City again this season, this was a team that we needed to beat, but the loans didn't help us do that!
Unfortunately, if 90% of your plan makes sense, the other 10% can sink you. Especially if you have no concept how to, or are too rigid in your strategy to identify and fix it. This is why I am protesting. Not because of money, but by the ineptitude of how the club is being run. It falls into mistakes, the same ones, with alarming regularity. It doesn't learn from them as it keeps making them. Fraeye was a mistake that shouldn't have happened. It was crazier than crazy. That is why Duchatelet is killing our club, and why I was genuinely hoping for some evidence that he has learned and will fix it. His interviews proved the opposite. I hate the position we are now in, and wasn't looking to pick holes in the interview/s. I was looking for hope in them. Sadly, all I found was poorly delivered bullshit.
Listening to him, I can understand why we got Peeters, Luzon and Fraeye because of his philosophy regarding younger players and the academy, but he made the same mistake 3 times because they were all under prepared for the rigours of the Championship. Now maybe making the same mistake twice with Bob and Guy was just about acceptable possibly, doing it again with dear Karel was unforgivable. As was getting shot of some of our best players and recruiting crap. The guy just can't see beyond the bubble that is Belgium or his chums.
Would've been 4 times if the Ujpest guy had taken the job.
Brilliant insight by henrythecat. Thank you. Helps me understand why he does what he does. I assume he doesn't tell us himself because he thinks that he doesn't want other clubs to copy him. I don't think there is much of a risk there myself.
Was talking to my next door neighbours best mate last night,he works as a scout,primarily for Fulham. As if we didnt know already,he said Charlton is a basket case of a club,no one in football wants to deal with them and theres LOTS of off field problems. Happy Saturday everyone
Was talking to my next door neighbours best mate last night,he works as a scout,primarily for Fulham. As if we didnt know already,he said Charlton is a basket case of a club,no one in football wants to deal with them and theres LOTS of off field problems. Happy Saturday everyone
I'd "like" this, meaning you speak the truth, but like isn't quite the right word. Did he elaborate on the problems, as he understands them?
Was talking to my next door neighbours best mate last night,he works as a scout,primarily for Fulham. As if we didnt know already,he said Charlton is a basket case of a club,no one in football wants to deal with them and theres LOTS of off field problems. Happy Saturday everyone
I'd "like" this, meaning you speak the truth, but like isn't quite the right word. Did he elaborate on the problems, as he understands them?
No,he wouldnt elaborate but just said in the football world,no one is surprised at whats happening at Charlton. Whether it was because he didnt know or wasnt prepared to divulge im not sure. Had no reason to disbelieve him,will try to find out more.It was only a brief chat but he wished us supporters good luck for the future.
Was talking to my next door neighbours best mate last night,he works as a scout,primarily for Fulham. As if we didnt know already,he said Charlton is a basket case of a club,no one in football wants to deal with them and theres LOTS of off field problems. Happy Saturday everyone
I'd "like" this, meaning you speak the truth, but like isn't quite the right word. Did he elaborate on the problems, as he understands them?
No,he wouldnt elaborate but just said in the football world,no one is surprised at whats happening at Charlton. Whether it was because he didnt know or wasnt prepared to divulge im not sure. Had no reason to disbelieve him,will try to find out more.It was only a brief chat but he wished us supporters good luck for the future.
Excellent posts henrythecat - but I just want to highlight a couple of lines that I think it's important to get across to the media (and some of our fans):
“In the world of RD, everything is reduced down to numbers. How much is this player worth when he comes in? how can we add value? What is the target value for them when the player is sold?”
In other words 'player farming'.
But, as summarised by Grapevine49 on the 'Transfer Deadline Day - Charlton related' thread, even in this respect Duchatelet is an incompetent and failed 'farmer':
“5 head coaching appointments (plus supporting staff) in 2yrs
44 senior signings in 5 transfer windows of which probably just 13 will be contractually committed to the club at the end of the season and 2 of those have almost permanently been out on long term loan - effectively 25% staff retention
31 departures of which just one (acquired cheaply via co ownership of Standard Liege) will have generated net revenue for the club”
but even as a 'Crewe of the south' and 'nicest club in London' offering the chance to see 'future premier league players' on the cheap, Duchetelet's strategy is a disastrous failure.
Comments
@LoOkOuT you're absolutely correct when you say the Nasty Charlton Anorak Ultras (I'm just going to use it until it catches on) aren't to be considered numerically irrelevant, in fact quite the opposite.
As far as the numbers remaining roughly static, that's something I would more or less expect. Keep in mind that your prospective user base is finite, and given the 1 support=~1 account, over time you would expect your growth rate to be tied closer and closer to the growth of the CAFC fanbase, which I doubt is something that is growing drastically. I find all of this very interesting, but I doubt anyone else does.
Well done to the Mods on here, and for those of you who protest. Keep in mind that you have brought RD to the table. What he is saying is obviously not ideal, rather it's incredibly stupid, but you have forced him to start speaking to his decisions and attempting to outline how he runs the club. The problem remains, how on earth does he run this club?
But still, nowhere near enough to be eaten by a polar bear.
In the world of RD, everything is reduced down to numbers. How much is this player worth when he comes in? how can we add value? What is the target value for them when the player is sold? Then in terms of play, how many accurate passes, assists, goals, tackles, and so on does the player make. He is the ultimate statto. The good player is the one with the best stats and can give the best financial return. Which league and level the player is at does not seem relevant,
I think that RD is measuring Riga's success on stats as well. How many games left, how many points needed, how many points per game required. So in RD's mind, is the team returning enough points per the games whilst Riga is charge for the rest of the season? At the moment we are below the determined line, but a win tomorrow and we are back on track, so would be considered a success. I think this is how he has measured all of the coaches. I suspect that RD's thinks Fraeye was a good coach but his statistical return was not good enough so had to go. RD treats coaches as junior business managers with targets to meet. I also think that RD has done the same sort of statistical analysis on potential coaches as he has on players. There little chance on having a UK coach as they are, in his mind, not good enough on a value for money basis (using his model). The are just too expensive against what they might return. This seems to go for the support coaching staff as well.
RD still believes that the club can break even and be competitive in the Championship. He was counting of FFP coming into place, so the changes to it has been a set back. However, as far as I can tell, he thinks that there is a model out there which will allow break even. His arguments seems to be that as he can achieve nearly break even in other parts of Europe, so why not in the UK. I believe he has been told that the Championship, with its financial madness (too much money coming down from the PL but not enough shared around all sides to make it truly competitive in both footballing and financial terms), is different to virtually every other league in Europe. The cost of players here is inflated and there is little that can be done to stop this as an individual club. I'm not sure he accepts this line and is determined to press ahead with his experiment.
He does seem to have acknowledged that there has not been enough depth in the squad to be competitive but I'm not sure he understands how to add the necessary depth. This is partly because players are measured by him as a set of statistics, so if the stats show the player is, say, a good RB, then he must be. How can the stats be wrong? This ignores all of the human elements, such as would this player be a good fit, how well do they know the Championship, and so on.
Every transfer window we have Colin saying we are chasing after this player or that and is often accused of making this stuff up. I think this is unfair because as far as I can tell, we have gone after many of the players he has talked about. But this is only half the story. For the most part, we will never sign them. Because RD is holding to this idea of treating players as assets which he can get a (financial) return on, his budgeting for each player seems to be very strict, both in terms of price and running cost. He is looking at what return he can get. There have been players where negotiations were a long way down the road, but the running costs were then evaluated and considered just too much to get a return. So we end up constantly getting cheap players, but with good playing stats, from other leagues.
We can see the major flaws in all of this, that reducing everything to the bottom line and a series of stats, ignores the real value of building a balanced side of players who can play in this league, and having a competitive team which might get you into the PL. (although I understand that RD still stating an ambition to get to the PL). It is where we are though, and there is little evidence that RD wants to abandon his project.
For what its worth, I think RD is concerned about the current state of the club the protests, and so on, and is looking for solutions. I suspect that he has been told a great deal this week. Whether he has properly heard the reality of the situation and where solutions can be found is an entirely different matter.
Assuming that RD does want to listen and do things in a better way (I know this might not be the case) what, if anything, would people be willing to accept so that we go from being a club at war with itself to one where we have people working collaboratively for the benefit for the club and for all?
The fight and the stand off can continue and that potentially leads to the club withering and dying. But if we can get RD properly to a negotiating table and we decide to work together, what does that look like in practice?
I know this might never happen and that there will be a wide range of views on this. For some it is all or nothing, for others it is purely about results on the playing field. But I think it is worth discussing what a plan B might be if there is an opportunity to change the club's direction.
I just cannot see anyway back for this regime and that in turn makes me really fear for the future of the club.
Unhappy individuals (that could also still be loaned out and managed better) is more important then charlton itself. Can he give an example of a big squad f*cking things up?
The clubs failings makes the fans unhappy.
- short term injuries become long term (Vetokele, Diarra, Bauer and possibly others?),
- they faint during half time (Cousins),
- they end up playing so far out of their depth it's unfair (Piotr for 3 minutes, Naby for many more)
- they're young and without support, meaning they lose confidence and get abuse (Fox),
- they're no longer fit enough for a full 90 but continue out of necessity (Jackson),
- (...I could go on...)
... must be so much better for their happiness.
Thank God Roland's looking out for their morale, I'd hate to see what he'd be doing if he didn't give a shit.
As you say there are so many pitfalls with relying on stats like this. A player's stats will be influenced not just by their ability but the quality and form of their team and their opposition, their current fitness levels, etc. And how can you accurately model the differences between the Championship and, say, the Juliper league?
So Polish Pete, Loic Nego etc. all look great on paper, but the stats lie because they lack contextual insight.
As for whether he's properly heard the reality of the situation - well, who has he been listening to? Because those articles and videos betray to me that he's listened only to his staff who have their heads firmly planted in the sand. "It's just results, it will all be ok when we start winning again" etc. He needs to properly listen to the fans, because his staff don't have a scooby.
Looking at a human being...a footballer and just seeing numbers floating about is quite creepy and just wrong... completely stupid and naive.
Running a football club like F*ckin FIFA ultimate team.
I say that when actually I have a theory that stats aren't used enough in football. The problem stems from Charles Hughes. He is derided in football as the inventor of the long ball game. I think he was a visionary, but he made one mistake. It was visionary to compile stats and work out how most goals were scored. His error was to compile them from stats/data of limited, British players. He was right that it is better to make as few passes as you can before having an attempt on goal. But that was only because the standard of passing in a country that did not value technique was poor. The trick with stats is understanding their limitations and this is clearly a shortfall of our owner. This is where a good manager comes in - when recruiting a player, you ideally want somebody who can sniff them out. By all means look at the stats but if you have the right man in there, their gut is just as important. Some managers have this more than others - Curbs had it- Harry Redknapp didn't which made him a very expensive manager to employ. (I mention him in the example as an article in the standard saying Daniel Sturridge was world class and England's best player made me sigh).
In the Championship, if you are not going to throw money at the problem, you need to find that manager. My assessment of Chrissy Powell was that his in game management was often poor but his ability to sniff out a player was excellent. With a bit of backing he has the ability to assemble a good team/squad. It fills me with great sadness that he wasn't supported after the season we finished 9th, he was getting us there. He was an ideal manager for Duchatelet in many ways. But he wasn't part of the network, and Duchatelet's agenda was about implementing his ideas rather than learning. Had he given Powell a bit of money and gave him the autonomy to fix the squad with no interference, I suspect we would be in different position now and would have spent less money to boot. But managers have come and gone and usually rue the size of their squad when the they do depart. New managers have different ideas and it unsettles players and they rate different qualities, so a centre half like Morrison is given away whilst still under contract. You can't build a team on the cheap doing this. At this level you won't get Alex Ferguson, but Powell was a good fit for this club, and the owner should have stood back and let him manage with a bit of support. Riga may be a good fit - he needs to be left alone to manage and bring his players in. We need a decent manager to be given space and time, and support.
The phrase that you have to pay for you mistakes is very true. Duchatelet has made so many that he does have to throw some money at the problem to fix it. We have needed a central midfielder to help Cousins out for some time, but we have got two right backs recently. One yes - cover is important, but we also have one of the best right backs in the division in the first team. This lack of a strategy in recruitment is crazy. And when the squad is stretched, there have been opportunities to address the crisis in windows that have not been taken. There have been winnable games- both this season and last, where we have thrown away any chance of winning the points by the weakness and inexperience of the side we put out. We are in the middle now of some key games where the squad needed strengthening and players brought in haven't covered the right areas and they haven't been fit enough to play in the important games - We won't play Bristol City again this season, this was a team that we needed to beat, but the loans didn't help us do that!
Unfortunately, if 90% of your plan makes sense, the other 10% can sink you. Especially if you have no concept how to, or are too rigid in your strategy to identify and fix it. This is why I am protesting. Not because of money, but by the ineptitude of how the club is being run. It falls into mistakes, the same ones, with alarming regularity. It doesn't learn from them as it keeps making them. Fraeye was a mistake that shouldn't have happened. It was crazier than crazy. That is why Duchatelet is killing our club, and why I was genuinely hoping for some evidence that he has learned and will fix it. His interviews proved the opposite. I hate the position we are now in, and wasn't looking to pick holes in the interview/s. I was looking for hope in them. Sadly, all I found was poorly delivered bullshit.
Would've been 4 times if the Ujpest guy had taken the job.
I assume he doesn't tell us himself because he thinks that he doesn't want other clubs to copy him. I don't think there is much of a risk there myself.
The only upside I can detect is that the photos clearly indicate he has been dead for some weeks..
“In the world of RD, everything is reduced down to numbers. How much is this player worth when he comes in? how can we add value? What is the target value for them when the player is sold?”
In other words 'player farming'.
But, as summarised by Grapevine49 on the 'Transfer Deadline Day - Charlton related' thread, even in this respect Duchatelet is an incompetent and failed 'farmer':
“5 head coaching appointments (plus supporting staff) in 2yrs
44 senior signings in 5 transfer windows of which probably just 13 will be contractually committed to the club at the end of the season and 2 of those have almost permanently been out on long term loan - effectively 25% staff retention
31 departures of which just one (acquired cheaply via co ownership of Standard Liege) will have generated net revenue for the club”
https://charltonlife.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/2393773#Comment_2393773
So it's not just that his approach is incompatible with the repeatedly peddled claim (most recently by Murray) that the 'strategy' is to be a club:
“who can be competitive in the Championship, but has Premier League ambitions”
http://www.cafc.co.uk/news/article/charlton-athletic-richard-murray-interview-2887963.aspx#bkWRRGYmiKRyZC7V.99
but even as a 'Crewe of the south' and 'nicest club in London' offering the chance to see 'future premier league players' on the cheap, Duchetelet's strategy is a disastrous failure.
(Sorry)