Where does this idea come from that we have one of the best teams in the league?
We lack any depth across the entire pitch. Perhaps our only position with two good options is at RB.
Second, we lack any real quality in Midfield. We don't have a single player who can control and dictate the pace of a game from the centre of the park, deep-lying or as a #10. We don't even have a midfield that can pass the ball forward without either an ambitious long ball or pass out to the full backs.
Apart from Aneke, we don't have any quality upfront. Simple as.
This current squad is probably in and around the right position in the league IMO.
As was mentioned in the post match thread. We have a squad with 13 players who've played top-flight football in the UK or abroad and who have 178 full international caps between them, as well as players who have been promoted from this league before or won player of the season at the club they have previously played for.
You can't honestly tell me, apart from a decent 45 minutes here and there, we should be churning out performances like we have week in week out?
While I see what you're getting at here, I think those stats mentioned are a bit misleading.
For example - I'm not too sure about the 178 Full International Caps (I'm assuming by full you mean senior?), but from the top of my head 153 of those would come from 3 players alone - Gunter 99, Williams 25 & Washington 29).
Unfortunately, the quality within this squad isn't there. Mostly players capable of support roles.
I honestly do think these players are churning out what they can. If you could re-build this team, how many players would you keep?
Yeah, I'm not sure as it was taking from another poster. For me personally, if you look at what some of our players have achieved previously - I find it difficult to believe that we only ever really look workmanlike - you often see brief flashes of the quality we have, but it never seems to be a sustained thing. Even in the games we won at the front end of the season, you can never really claim we were dominant in them.
For me. That's a coaching thing - I think Bowyer is scarred from what happened in that season in the championship and he seems afraid to make bold decisions and play attacking football. We just seem very rigid, trying to set up defensively, and the opposition are finding it so easy to break inbetween our lines.
Of course our defenders have been making mistakes. But we are inviting them to happen to much.
Of course it's my opinion and I could be completely wrong - but at the moment I'm 100% certain another manager would be getting better performances from this group of players.
Yeah - Definitely the case that while we've seen flashes on quality here and there, we've never dominated a game and looked comfortable.
I agree that Bowyer has gone overly defensive this season and made some horrendous tactical decisions but I do believe part of that is the quality available to him. I think he doesn't rate/trust a lot of the players in the team unfortunately, apart from a few old boys who have experience but tired legs - He appears to be quite brutal and stubborn in that regard.
He also doesn't appear to be improving players anymore unfortunately.. so his gambles that he could reform players, like Maddison for example, appear to be settled at a loss.
I agree that another manager could be getting more wins and points on the board with this group, but I don't believe another manager would get drastically better performances from this limited group in my opinion.
In my opinion, we have an average group of players for this league and are in and around where we should be considering all things. However I 100% agree that, apart from brief moments, the football has been horrendous this season - 3 points or not.
With the players we have, to pick out one manager, I think Karl Robinson would probably get more out of them. You can easily imagine Williams and Maddison as key players in a Robinson team.
After all Fosu did well for us under Robinson, struggled under Bowyer, then went on to be successful under Robinson at Oxford.
It's worrying. A year or so ago, before we suffered the worst injury crisis I could ever remember, fresh from a Wembley triumph and a very decent start to the Championship, I thought of Lee Bowyer as our 'new' Curbs.
I was particularly impressed with how he'd told us that he'd learned something from each famous manager he'd worked under.
Bobby Robson, for example, directly after the match apparently never tore into players in the dressing room ..... he'd wait until the next training session, after emotion and tension had subsided, before speaking with a calm and clear mind having had time to reflect.
Just my opinion of course, but I feel it's time that Bowyer remembers what he'd told us he'd learned under Robson.
His most alarming comments this evening were about Pratley and Watson. The can do no wrong in his eyes, despite playing a huge part in our recent downturn in form
Where does this idea come from that we have one of the best teams in the league?
We lack any depth across the entire pitch. Perhaps our only position with two good options is at RB.
Second, we lack any real quality in Midfield. We don't have a single player who can control and dictate the pace of a game from the centre of the park, deep-lying or as a #10. We don't even have a midfield that can pass the ball forward without either an ambitious long ball or pass out to the full backs.
Apart from Aneke, we don't have any quality upfront. Simple as.
This current squad is probably in and around the right position in the league IMO.
As was mentioned in the post match thread. We have a squad with 13 players who've played top-flight football in the UK or abroad and who have 178 full international caps between them, as well as players who have been promoted from this league before or won player of the season at the club they have previously played for.
You can't honestly tell me, apart from a decent 45 minutes here and there, we should be churning out performances like we have week in week out?
While I see what you're getting at here, I think those stats mentioned are a bit misleading.
For example - I'm not too sure about the 178 Full International Caps (I'm assuming by full you mean senior?), but from the top of my head 153 of those would come from 3 players alone - Gunter 99, Williams 25 & Washington 29).
Unfortunately, the quality within this squad isn't there. Mostly players capable of support roles.
I honestly do think these players are churning out what they can. If you could re-build this team, how many players would you keep?
Yeah, I'm not sure as it was taking from another poster. For me personally, if you look at what some of our players have achieved previously - I find it difficult to believe that we only ever really look workmanlike - you often see brief flashes of the quality we have, but it never seems to be a sustained thing. Even in the games we won at the front end of the season, you can never really claim we were dominant in them.
For me. That's a coaching thing - I think Bowyer is scarred from what happened in that season in the championship and he seems afraid to make bold decisions and play attacking football. We just seem very rigid, trying to set up defensively, and the opposition are finding it so easy to break inbetween our lines.
Of course our defenders have been making mistakes. But we are inviting them to happen to much.
Of course it's my opinion and I could be completely wrong - but at the moment I'm 100% certain another manager would be getting better performances from this group of players.
Yeah - Definitely the case that while we've seen flashes on quality here and there, we've never dominated a game and looked comfortable.
I agree that Bowyer has gone overly defensive this season and made some horrendous tactical decisions but I do believe part of that is the quality available to him. I think he doesn't rate/trust a lot of the players in the team unfortunately, apart from a few old boys who have experience but tired legs - He appears to be quite brutal and stubborn in that regard.
He also doesn't appear to be improving players anymore unfortunately.. so his gambles that he could reform players, like Maddison for example, appear to be settled at a loss.
I agree that another manager could be getting more wins and points on the board with this group, but I don't believe another manager would get drastically better performances from this limited group in my opinion.
In my opinion, we have an average group of players for this league and are in and around where we should be considering all things. However I 100% agree that, apart from brief moments, the football has been horrendous this season - 3 points or not.
With the players we have, to pick our one manager, I think Karl Robinson would probably get more out of them. You can easily imagine Williams and Maddison as key players in a Robinson team.
After all Fosu did well for us under Robinson, struggled under Bowyer, then went on to be successful under Robinson at Oxford.
I was thinking this earlier. Wouldn’t want Robinson back but as least with his excuses I can’t remember him slagging off players.
Yeah he was stuck with his way of playing but he brought positivity to the club at a dark time and thought he was under/rated for that at least.
Liked and respected him more than I thought I would.
Things are not good to say the least and some of Bowyers recent comments about players (Williams and Maddison in particular) have left me feeling quite uncomfortable. However, just looking at Bowyer and his post match demeanour, it seems obvious to me that he is hurting deeply and his comments come from someone who is passionate about the results and the club.
If I was TS I would pick up the phone tomorrow and talk to Lee, not to sack him but to offer to pay for him to employ a mentor of his choosing (George Graham is someone Bowyer often refers to) in order that he had someone he could use to reflect on how things are going and talk to in private and get advice from that he is free to use or not.
TS does not owe Bowyer much in loyalty, but we the fans do, along with others working at the club such as Tracey and Olly who all played their part in ensuring we still have a team to support. Things are really not good on the pitch right now, but ironically have not looked better off the pitch for a long time. Bowyer may or may not be the man to take us forward from this point, but I would like to see him given a little more support in his role and time to try to do this. We are not in a relegation dog fight, where there are a rota of long in the tooth ugly managers guaranteed to keep us up, if we decide to change now success is not a given. Don’t get me wrong I am not happy and watching Charlton is testing my dry January resolve, but perhaps things can still be put back on track without changing personnel.
The next logical thing to look at is if the players are not interested/following instructions.
- Do the players believe in the current management and leadership style? - Has the recruitment targeted the correct players to get our of L1? Or players that are comfy in L1. - Have we got a motivated squad of players or a mish mash of all sorts? - Why do rotate the team so often? Is it necessary or out of choice. - Is the entire Management team too inexperienced? They are great Charlton boys but struggling with Sparrows Lane to Game day transition.
I was thinking this earlier, people have mentioned having an experienced "mentor" working alongside LB someone like Curbs but it possibly goes deeper than that. Both LB & JJ are inexperienced no matter how many good managers they have played under & learnt from & I'm sure the Belgians tight purse strings are as much to blame as anything but maybe they would have both benefitted from an experienced 1st team coach to come in to guide LB from whom JJ could have learned from as well. Possibly too late now & it's easy in hindsight but something has gone wrong in a short space of time.
Who would we get in though ? karel Freye? Jose Riga? Guy Luzon? Russel Slade? Bob Peters? Karl the Bin Dipper?
Who is out there that would come to a third division club and could do a better job with the current wage caps etc?
I say give Bow this transfer window and see where we are at seasons end.
The thing is who would come here & do a worse job than LB is doing at the moment ? It's one thing picking the wrong team & tactics but when you alienate the staff there's only one road that you're heading down.
Whatever happens he has to stop speaking to the press straight after matches (especially if we’ve played badly) - he’s far too emotional.
This has become the problem over the last few months. Every manager has periods when the results don’t go so well and, given what Bows has done for us in the last few years, the majority of fans would still be onside but his post match interviews are just killing him - players can be a precious bunch and you can’t say the things that he’s been saying and expect harmony. I don’t want him to see him go but equally can’t see this group turning it around whilst he’s in charge.
It’s mad how things have turned from everything being so rosy a couple of weeks ago but this is Charlton we’re talking about....
The title of the thread is ‘Has Bowyer lost it?’ I’m not clear what that means exactly. Has he lost the support of the players? Has he lost interest? Is he mentally unstable? You decide.
My thoughts on it are twofold.
1) The early run of results was based on not conceding any goals. Since the two guys at the back, Famewo and Inniss, were injured, we have conceded too many. The arrival of Sandgaard and those clean sheets raised expectation to a level of play-offs comfortably and, in some cases, winning the league by a mile.
2) The reality is this side was cobbled together under a transfer embargo amid chaos. I doubt that the team we’ve ended up with is anything like what Bowyer would have wanted.
’Do your transfer business’ early is a commonly heard maxim. We couldn’t. Has Bowyer lost it? He has lost another season where there has been a) chaos at the club b) key injuries c) a cobbled together team. Added to this, there is a salary cap that means we can’t throw a bit of weight around.
Yes, the current form is disappointing and we should expect more from the group but badly run businesses do not recover overnight. I’m just glad we still exist even though I find it hard to take a loss to a team like Accrington Stanley who were a sort of a joke in the past.
Dunno about losing the plot but he definitely seems to have lost his mojo.
Take a breather, have a think and decide on how we're going to play out the rest of season. Ultimately, not playing a settled side and formation had been costing us with disjointed and poor performances.
Bowyer isn't the brightest bloke in the world and his limited vocabulary hinders him when talking to the press. This is exaggerated when he can not express himself as he would would like in times such as yesterday when he is frustrated. He sounded like a moody 14 year old (on a bad day). We are setting him up for a fall if asking him to talk to Valley Pass after every game.
For what it's worth. Maddison is a wrongun. His negative influence on the team (particular those on the periphery of the first 11) and challenge to Bowyer's authority on a daily basis has weakened Bowyer's position. It was an error to bring him to the club.
Maddison is rotten to the core and how Bowyer untangles the situation and gets him out of the club or at least away from effecting the first team will be crucial to Bowyer getting the team cohesion somewhere near good enough to win games again.
Bowyer isn't the brightest bloke in the world and his limited vocabulary hinders him when talking to the press. This is exaggerated when he can not express himself as he would would like in times such as yesterday when he is frustrated. He sounded like a moody 14 year old (on a bad day). We are setting him up for a fall if asking him to talk to Valley Pass after every game.
For what it's worth. Maddison is a wrongun. His negative influence on the team (particular those on the periphery of the first 11) and challenge to Bowyer's authority on a daily basis has weakened Bowyer's position. It was an error to bring him to the club.
Maddison is rotten to the core and how Bowyer untangles the situation and gets him out of the club or at least away from effecting the first team will be crucial to Bowyer getting the team cohesion somewhere near good enough to win games again.
Maddison is a wrung in and rotten to the care!!!!! Have you ever met the guy?
The title of the thread is ‘Has Bowyer lost it?’ I’m not clear what that means exactly. Has he lost the support of the players? Has he lost interest? Is he mentally unstable? You decide.
My thoughts on it are twofold.
1) The early run of results was based on not conceding any goals. Since the two guys at the back, Famewo and Inniss, were injured, we have conceded too many. The arrival of Sandgaard and those clean sheets raised expectation to a level of play-offs comfortably and, in some cases, winning the league by a mile.
2) The reality is this side was cobbled together under a transfer embargo amid chaos. I doubt that the team we’ve ended up with is anything like what Bowyer would have wanted.
’Do your transfer business’ early is a commonly heard maxim. We couldn’t. Has Bowyer lost it? He has lost another season where there has been a) chaos at the club b) key injuries c) a cobbled together team. Added to this, there is a salary cap that means we can’t throw a bit of weight around.
Yes, the current form is disappointing and we should expect more from the group but badly run businesses do not recover overnight. I’m just glad we still exist even though I find it hard to take a loss to a team like Accrington Stanley who were a sort of a joke in the past.
Got to disagree here.
There's a lot of players in our squad, Amos, Gunter, Matthews, Famewo, Inniss, Maatsen, Watson, Gilbey (MK Dons POTY), Shinnie, Maddison, Williams, Aneke who i think pretty much any team in this division would like to have in their squad. Yes we've rarely had them all available at the same time but i don't think we can say Bowyer has a poor squad at his disposal.
You can't tell me that the likes of MK Dons, Burton, Plymouth, Swindon, Gillingham, Shrewsbury or any other 'lesser' side we've failed to beat wouldn't want most of those players in their squad.
No, he hasn’t “lost it”, whatever that means. He’s under pressure to get results for the first time and can’t get the team clicking. EVERY manager goes through rough patches but I’m not surprised this is happening now after squeezing the life out of the transfer market to get a squad together last minute. The grass is greener brigade will seriously regret it if they panic him out by expecting success - not every club can win the league or get promoted. Patience is something our fan base have generally lost.
I think Bowyer quite enjoyed being the under dog boss with shit owners because he had nothing to lose. Now we have got TS it’s the 1st time he has been under pressure to perform and he doesn’t like it.
This is nonsense. We are falling down the table because we have no decent centre backs available. That's the problem.
Snd the mid field is a harmonious well oiled machine?
Good point. Similar situation with the midfield. Get our first choice pairing of Watson & Shinnie back in the centre & we'll be better.
The question is can Bowyer turn things around. Personally I don't think he can. Saying we will be ok when Watson and Pratley return doesn't fill me with confidence. Neither does slagging of our better players in public. I will be amazed or Bowyer is still here next season if we finish mid table this season. Sadly that's where we are heading.
Bowyer isn't the brightest bloke in the world and his limited vocabulary hinders him when talking to the press. This is exaggerated when he can not express himself as he would would like in times such as yesterday when he is frustrated. He sounded like a moody 14 year old (on a bad day). We are setting him up for a fall if asking him to talk to Valley Pass after every game.
For what it's worth. Maddison is a wrongun. His negative influence on the team (particular those on the periphery of the first 11) and challenge to Bowyer's authority on a daily basis has weakened Bowyer's position. It was an error to bring him to the club.
Maddison is rotten to the core and how Bowyer untangles the situation and gets him out of the club or at least away from effecting the first team will be crucial to Bowyer getting the team cohesion somewhere near good enough to win games again.
That’s a pretty harsh appraisal of Maddison. What evidence do you have to back up those claims? There was, as far as I know, no stories of him being disruptive at Peterborough so why at Charlton?
I’ve had enough of him. He has slowly begun to grate on me since the end of last season. Up until yesterday I thought he was still in credit. I’m firmly in the Bowyer out camp.
If we carry on like this we’re heading for bottom 8. That would be totally unacceptable and whilst some players are not as good as we initially though, this squad is way too good for that.
I’m all for giving managers time because constantly sacking your manager does not bring stability. Loads of us on here have criticised the likes of Watford and West Brom recently, it’s not a good look.
For me it simply comes down to morale. Some blame Bowyer, some blame the players, the truth is a bit of both, neither have been good recently. Are the players better than they are showing? Yes. Is Bowyer better than he is showing? Yes. So something doesn’t seem right, but I don’t think any of us really know for certain as we’re not in the dressing room or at the training ground. If he’s lost the support of the players which it’s looking increasingly like he has, then he has to go. We can do some business in January but if we have 7,8, 9 players no longer supporting him it falls on him. He’s easier to replace than a whole squad, particularly under the salary cap.
It is really sad if it ends soon, most of us thought he was going to stay here a long time and he’s stuck by us through a lot of shite. But that loyalty go only last so long when it threatens to not just ruin the season, but negatively disrupt all the players too.
Had time to sleep on it but bowyers comments were bang out of order and unprofessional IMO. To single out Maddison like that and say he doesn’t care about his injury is outrageous. I hope he’s already picked up the phone to him and apologised. I doubt TS will be impressed either with the display or Bowyers comments. There were many villains last nite with Bowyer being the most culpable.
Yes. The comment "I don't care" will come back to haunt him. The question was " is the injury serious". Probably the worst response he could have provided. My have already lost the dressing room.
The question is do we wait till the end of the season with Bowyer and fail to go up and then get in a new manager or do we do do something now ?
I don’t think TS will do the latter but you never know ?
If morale is low and Bows has lost the support of the players then I think TS will have no choice. I’d be very surprised if someone like Roddy isn’t reporting back. Based purely on results, I think TS would give Bowyer time, as he should. But if the problems are much deeper than that I see no positives in keeping him.
I go back to my comment after the Shrewsbury game. I heard a starting player last night say “Bowyer has fucking lost it”. He also said we never work tactics.
All of which is evident, tactically we’re so poor, no cohesion in that team and midfield run ragged every week.
Have had issue with Bowyers selections and player positions last month or so, but yesterday’s team was much better and the loss for this one was on the players.
HOWEVER, you cannot come out and say you don't care if one of your players is seriously injured.
You expect your players to go out and play for you and you then say that ? wouldn’t be surprised if we hear of reports of the team expressing their unease as such comments
Comments
After all Fosu did well for us under Robinson, struggled under Bowyer, then went on to be successful under Robinson at Oxford.
I was particularly impressed with how he'd told us that he'd learned something from each famous manager he'd worked under.
Bobby Robson, for example, directly after the match apparently never tore into players in the dressing room ..... he'd wait until the next training session, after emotion and tension had subsided, before speaking with a calm and clear mind having had time to reflect.
Just my opinion of course, but I feel it's time that Bowyer remembers what he'd told us he'd learned under Robson.
Yeah he was stuck with his way of playing but he brought positivity to the club at a dark time and thought he was under/rated for that at least.
Liked and respected him more than I thought I would.
If I was TS I would pick up the phone tomorrow and talk to Lee, not to sack him but to offer to pay for him to employ a mentor of his choosing (George Graham is someone Bowyer often refers to) in order that he had someone he could use to reflect on how things are going and talk to in private and get advice from that he is free to use or not.
My thoughts on it are twofold.
1) The early run of results was based on not conceding any goals. Since the two guys at the back, Famewo and Inniss, were injured, we have conceded too many. The arrival of Sandgaard and those clean sheets raised expectation to a level of play-offs comfortably and, in some cases, winning the league by a mile.
2) The reality is this side was cobbled together under a transfer embargo amid chaos. I doubt that the team we’ve ended up with is anything like what Bowyer would have wanted.
’Do your transfer business’ early is a commonly heard maxim. We couldn’t. Has Bowyer lost it? He has lost another season where there has been a) chaos at the club b) key injuries c) a cobbled together team. Added to this, there is a salary cap that means we can’t throw a bit of weight around.
Yes, the current form is disappointing and we should expect more from the group but badly run businesses do not recover overnight. I’m just glad we still exist even though I find it hard to take a loss to a team like Accrington Stanley who were a sort of a joke in the past.
Take a breather, have a think and decide on how we're going to play out the rest of season. Ultimately, not playing a settled side and formation had been costing us with disjointed and poor performances.
For what it's worth. Maddison is a wrongun. His negative influence on the team (particular those on the periphery of the first 11) and challenge to Bowyer's authority on a daily basis has weakened Bowyer's position. It was an error to bring him to the club.
Maddison is rotten to the core and how Bowyer untangles the situation and gets him out of the club or at least away from effecting the first team will be crucial to Bowyer getting the team cohesion somewhere near good enough to win games again.
There's a lot of players in our squad, Amos, Gunter, Matthews, Famewo, Inniss, Maatsen, Watson, Gilbey (MK Dons POTY), Shinnie, Maddison, Williams, Aneke who i think pretty much any team in this division would like to have in their squad. Yes we've rarely had them all available at the same time but i don't think we can say Bowyer has a poor squad at his disposal.
You can't tell me that the likes of MK Dons, Burton, Plymouth, Swindon, Gillingham, Shrewsbury or any other 'lesser' side we've failed to beat wouldn't want most of those players in their squad.
Personally I don't think he can.
Saying we will be ok when Watson and Pratley return doesn't fill me with confidence.
Neither does slagging of our better players in public.
I will be amazed or Bowyer is still here next season if we finish mid table this season.
Sadly that's where we are heading.
That’s a pretty harsh appraisal of Maddison. What evidence do you have to back up those claims? There was, as far as I know, no stories of him being disruptive at Peterborough so why at Charlton?
All of which is evident, tactically we’re so poor, no cohesion in that team and midfield run ragged every week.
wouldn’t be surprised if we hear of reports of the team expressing their unease as such comments