That opening 45 mins against Aberdeen in the friendly was probably the worst defensive showing I have ever seen watching Charlton. Need to stop giving away these stupid cheap goals.
The promoted sides keep clean sheets in around 40-50% of their games. Our record is 25% last season and 11% for this season.
I asked at the beginning of this season where the improvement needed was to come from. We only signed Lloyd Jones, was he supposed to do it by himself? We tried to make up for it in January but even REG and Gillesphey haven't been picked at times.
So once again we need another massive improvement and it surely has to come from several new additions. This is not a 'minor tweak' situation.
Holden was the wrong man for the job. He was just for cheering up the players when he came in but didn't set high enough standards in training and we ended up with unfit players who didn't know what they were doing. He was also screwed over in not getting the players he needed in the right areas; having to start with May and Campbell up front because we'd only really planned for May and Leaburn to play was pretty terrible. Jack Payne played at the start, that's how short we were going into the opening day. Holden couldn't do it and then we compounded the errors by bringing in Appleton. To avoid it again we need to spend and we've sort of started to do that. Proper manager, some decent signings in REG, Coventry, Ramsay and Small and from there we need to do it again in all the areas the manager needs to get his team playing the way he wants. Skimping out with our injury record will just lead to more failure.
I tried to think about how we've had success in recent times and what has been different recently. I think we are 75% there.
How do I get the 75% figure I hear you ask?
Well. I've very simply broken matches down into 4 game sections.
Away game -1st half.
Away game- 2nd half
Home game - 1st half
Home game - 2nd half
I think steady points away from home are fine, and we finally seem to have that licked. For me, Out of the four there is one section that is flashing bright red in terms of where we are well well short.
The Home game - 2nd half.
Now I've been going for a long time. And second halves at the Valley with us attacking the covered end were a thing of beauty. It used to make the hair stand up on the backs of our necks. It was both a fortress and a cauldron!
Constant pressure. Attacking down both wings.Think Robbo.Newton,Williams Constantly on the front foot. Johannson,Mendonca, Di Canio,Wright philips...Taylor (Runs for cover!) It really got the crowd rocking. Teams, even in the Prem couldn't live with us on those sacred second halves at the Valley.
And that my friends has been sadly lacking in recent times. The bunch we currently have are as timid as I think I've ever seen down there.
So. If you are listening Nathan. Bring in the players and a system to get the place rocking again. Win the majority of games at home and finally get us out if this Sh*t Pit league.
Holden was the wrong man for the job. He was just for cheering up the players when he came in but didn't set high enough standards in training and we ended up with unfit players who didn't know what they were doing. He was also screwed over in not getting the players he needed in the right areas; having to start with May and Campbell up front because we'd only really planned for May and Leaburn to play was pretty terrible. Jack Payne played at the start, that's how short we were going into the opening day. Holden couldn't do it and then we compounded the errors by bringing in Appleton. To avoid it again we need to spend and we've sort of started to do that. Proper manager, some decent signings in REG, Coventry, Ramsay and Small and from there we need to do it again in all the areas the manager needs to get his team playing the way he wants. Skimping out with our injury record will just lead to more failure.
Hard to say Holden was the wrong man for the job when he didn't have the tools. He had nowhere near the quality of players available to him he needed and was sacked before players were brought in /recovered from injury.
Appleton was always the wrong appointment though, and he would have taken us down, which I don't think Holden would.
We have a manager capable of getting us competitive, but bottom line how many of these players would get into our last promotion team? Relatively few, frankly. That's the bottom line.
Sacking a manager 5 league games in when in my opinion that was not down to results but for other reasons
Bringing a replacement in who is one of the worst Charlton managers I have witnessed in my lifetime and would have got us relegated if he stayed any longer
A recruitment that was poor bar Alfie May during the summer and a lot of heavy work required in January cause of the incompetence done back in the summer.
Next season will show if those individuals brought in January will be good enough
Started with poor summer window, where we once again didn't have enough depth and the players we did bring in bat May haven't been good enough. I liked Holden and felt maybe it could have been different if he had been backed properly, but I concede he was limited as a manager.
Although we have been poor all season I think it started to go really bad from the Cray Valley mess up. We weren't great before that but we're winning enough home games and May was scoring goals which kept us in mid table and not looking over shoulder too much at relegation. After that we seemed to be completely implode under Appleton.
Some of the Jan signings have been ok, but again we bought in a lot of duds that haven't been good enough.
The arrogance that the owners could do it on the cheap again. (Until the correction in late January)
I don’t think there’s any evidence the owners thought they could do it on the cheap. They look like they are happy to splash some cash if it makes sense - back room staff, new pitch, safe standing etc.
But they’re not football people, and I think they believed the tale that Charlie’s gang could do it on the cheap just by jettisoning the deadwood and filling the positions with loans and youth. If bringing in Jones was down to them, I think they are now well aware that isn’t true
Holden was the wrong man for the job. He was just for cheering up the players when he came in but didn't set high enough standards in training and we ended up with unfit players who didn't know what they were doing. He was also screwed over in not getting the players he needed in the right areas; having to start with May and Campbell up front because we'd only really planned for May and Leaburn to play was pretty terrible. Jack Payne played at the start, that's how short we were going into the opening day. Holden couldn't do it and then we compounded the errors by bringing in Appleton. To avoid it again we need to spend and we've sort of started to do that. Proper manager, some decent signings in REG, Coventry, Ramsay and Small and from there we need to do it again in all the areas the manager needs to get his team playing the way he wants. Skimping out with our injury record will just lead to more failure.
Hard to say Holden was the wrong man for the job when he didn't have the tools. He had nowhere near the quality of players available to him he needed and was sacked before players were brought in /recovered from injury.
Appleton was always the wrong appointment though, and he would have taken us down, which I don't think Holden would.
We have a manager capable of getting us competitive, but bottom line how many of these players would get into our last promotion team? Relatively few, frankly. That's the bottom line.
It's true he didn't have the players but that doesn't change the fact that he was lacking as a manager outside of games. The owners made a big thing of an 'on the grass' manager and that was because Holden was too laid back, too matey and had completely lost the ability to motivate the squad to do better as well as not pushing their fitness in pre-season. We had an uptick under Appleton at the start when he added a bit more structure and made the players a bit fitter. Of course we died on our arse after that because he was Michael Appleton but we're still seeing the effects under Jones even of a team that weren't prepared properly for a L1 season.
Holden absolutely would have taken us down. We beat Orient on the first day playing terribly and then lost our next 4 league games with a whimper as well as getting bodied by Newport in the League Cup. He panicked, tried multiple different formations across those games and had lost his mind by the Oxford game. That was the team selection of a broken man and it was only August. With more or less the same tools (Tennai, Louis Watson, Tedic and Abankwah weren't exactly the cavalry) Pearce and Appleton managed to get 4 wins from the next 7 games and didn't lose until 24th October just by not being Holden. Holden wasn't given much to work with but he still managed to do incredibly badly with what he had. Sure, he was given a rusty hammer to build with but he didn't need to repeatedly smash himself in the balls with it
Over the last year we have recruited the worst set of players Charlton have ever had for 100 years. That’s where we went wrong.
Watch Nathan Jones’ post match interview. At the end he says…
‘Trust me, this is a bigger summer than even I anticipated’
The above is basically him saying ‘this squad is even shitter than what I thought when I joined’.
We’ve just finished 16th in a very weak league one & failed to achieve more points than two clubs (Wigan & Reading) that had points deductions. To call this year a massive failure would be an understatement.
The promoted sides keep clean sheets in around 40-50% of their games. Our record is 25% last season and 11% for this season.
I asked at the beginning of this season where the improvement needed was to come from. We only signed Lloyd Jones, was he supposed to do it by himself? We tried to make up for it in January but even REG and Gillesphey haven't been picked at times.
So once again we need another massive improvement and it surely has to come from several new additions. This is not a 'minor tweak' situation.
Nail on head.
We need to be improving the defence and the keeper. We shouldn't be looking to keep Hector and Thomas because they might be able to do a bit of a job, we need to improve drastically in that area with at least two quality additions.
Whoever is left can be the backup, REG, Jones etc.
It was always going to be a struggle to hit where we wanted with the squad we had but I believe it has to be recruitment, we got a couple players we all thought were going to play big parts who were either injury prone (Camara) or not interested.
I think we jumped the gun when we sacked Holden as he was dealing with an incredibly injury hit team that said you pay for results however when we did sack him we should of done better than Appleton.
As I type this I expected to list a few reasons but it now dawns on me the singular biggest reasons was purely recruitment in both players and managers. As for holden perhaps he would of turnt it around, perhaps not but I would say I dont believe we were going up with him and if getting rid of him wa spart of fates plan to get Jones here I am happy to endure the Appleton months.
I think that puts things into a bit more perspective.
It does, and when these stats are used to evaluate managers, they should be presented complete over their managerial careers, not cherry picked to show how bad managers were at clubs where they failed, especially when those spells amount to a relatively small part of their careers.
That was done on here, listing Appleton's stats at clubs where he failed miserably, including with us now, but ignoring Oxford and Lincoln where he managed for the larger part of his career. I haven't checked, but if you were to take Luton's stats out of Jones's, his record at clubs where he's failed wouldn't look quite as impressive.
As you say, you need the full picture to make comparisons.
I haven't seen enough under Jones to believe we'd have been challenging for the play offs using the current squad at his disposal this season, but I'm confident he knows what needs changing to make us competitive next.
Sacking Holden so early leaving us going into the summer deadline with Andy Scott signing players for a manager he hadn't even got around to appointing
the players he signed not being good enough
the manager he appointed being an awful appointment, both on paper and in reality
signing players in January requested by said awful manager only to sack him within weeks or even days of the signings
inability to use the loan market properly, every single loan this season was ineffective at best,
Fiorini - more minutes for the U21 than first team Chem Campbell - dumped out in January, no real impact Tedic - bundled a couple of goals in but otherwise awful Ladapo - one moment of quality but otherwise hugely underwhelming, the best thing about his loan is that it's only a loan and he's not ours to keep Bakinson - best of a bad bunch but didn't do much Camara - couldn't stay fit Abankwah - will be excellent for a guess who quiz somewhere down the line of our ex players Watson - good start but couldn't get a run of games under a few different managers
back the manager in the market and pay the money to get his players in early rather than drag things out and be prepared to take hits to get the unwanted players off the books this year and we will be better off before a ball is even kicked
Comments
The (old) manager.
The arrogance that the owners could do it on the cheap again. (Until the correction in late January)
We finally corrected the latter, now need to work harder on getting the right players in.
I asked at the beginning of this season where the improvement needed was to come from. We only signed Lloyd Jones, was he supposed to do it by himself? We tried to make up for it in January but even REG and Gillesphey haven't been picked at times.
So once again we need another massive improvement and it surely has to come from several new additions. This is not a 'minor tweak' situation.
- Holden 20% (1/5)
- Appleton 22.7% (5/22)
- Jones 25% (4/16)
Appleton was always the wrong appointment though, and he would have taken us down, which I don't think Holden would.
We have a manager capable of getting us competitive, but bottom line how many of these players would get into our last promotion team? Relatively few, frankly. That's the bottom line.
my opinion that was not down to results but for other reasons
Bringing a replacement in who is one of the worst Charlton managers I have witnessed in my lifetime and would have got us relegated if he stayed any longer
A recruitment that was poor bar Alfie May during the summer and a lot of heavy work required in January cause of the incompetence done back in the summer.
Although we have been poor all season I think it started to go really bad from the Cray Valley mess up. We weren't great before that but we're winning enough home games and May was scoring goals which kept us in mid table and not looking over shoulder too much at relegation. After that we seemed to be completely implode under Appleton.
Some of the Jan signings have been ok, but again we bought in a lot of duds that haven't been good enough.
But they’re not football people, and I think they believed the tale that Charlie’s gang could do it on the cheap just by jettisoning the deadwood and filling the positions with loans and youth. If bringing in Jones was down to them, I think they are now well aware that isn’t true
Watch Nathan Jones’ post match interview. At the end he says…
‘Trust me, this is a bigger summer than even I anticipated’
The above is basically him saying ‘this squad is even shitter than what I thought when I joined’.
We’ve just finished 16th in a very weak league one & failed to achieve more points than two clubs (Wigan & Reading) that had points deductions. To call this year a massive failure would be an understatement.
- Appleton 36.3% (8/22)
- Jones 12.5% (2/16)
Draws
- Holden 0% (0/5)
- Appleton 40.9% (9/22)
- Jones 62.5% (10/16)
I think that puts things into a bit more perspective.
We need to be improving the defence and the keeper. We shouldn't be looking to keep Hector and Thomas because they might be able to do a bit of a job, we need to improve drastically in that area with at least two quality additions.
Whoever is left can be the backup, REG, Jones etc.
I think we jumped the gun when we sacked Holden as he was dealing with an incredibly injury hit team that said you pay for results however when we did sack him we should of done better than Appleton.
As I type this I expected to list a few reasons but it now dawns on me the singular biggest reasons was purely recruitment in both players and managers. As for holden perhaps he would of turnt it around, perhaps not but I would say I dont believe we were going up with him and if getting rid of him wa spart of fates plan to get Jones here I am happy to endure the Appleton months.
That was done on here, listing Appleton's stats at clubs where he failed miserably, including with us now, but ignoring Oxford and Lincoln where he managed for the larger part of his career. I haven't checked, but if you were to take Luton's stats out of Jones's, his record at clubs where he's failed wouldn't look quite as impressive.
As you say, you need the full picture to make comparisons.
I haven't seen enough under Jones to believe we'd have been challenging for the play offs using the current squad at his disposal this season, but I'm confident he knows what needs changing to make us competitive next.
the players he signed not being good enough
the manager he appointed being an awful appointment, both on paper and in reality
signing players in January requested by said awful manager only to sack him within weeks or even days of the signings
inability to use the loan market properly, every single loan this season was ineffective at best,
Fiorini - more minutes for the U21 than first team
Chem Campbell - dumped out in January, no real impact
Tedic - bundled a couple of goals in but otherwise awful
Ladapo - one moment of quality but otherwise hugely underwhelming, the best thing about his loan is that it's only a loan and he's not ours to keep
Bakinson - best of a bad bunch but didn't do much
Camara - couldn't stay fit
Abankwah - will be excellent for a guess who quiz somewhere down the line of our ex players
Watson - good start but couldn't get a run of games under a few different managers
back the manager in the market and pay the money to get his players in early rather than drag things out and be prepared to take hits to get the unwanted players off the books this year and we will be better off before a ball is even kicked