Sacking Holden not giving him enough games, not sacking Appleton giving him too many games. Don’t believe the BS about Jones being their first choice when they sacked Holden.
Woeful recruitment. The first two managers were sub par but ultimately our squad is genuinely bad.
They are a truly bottom half of L1 group of players, something like 5 clean sheets in a dreadfully poor quality L1 this season is a terrible statistic.
Our recruitment has been poor for years and I don't know how that turns around quickly but can only hope it will.
For all the off pitch improvements this ownership has made, going and nicking the entire recruitment team from a Peterborough or similar would have been the best investment we could likely make. I hate to think what money Andy Scott is making from us.
Early recruitment planned is certainly a step in the right direction.
It went wrong this season for several reasons but businesses don’t turn round after years of neglect. The dip often continues after starting to resolve problems. We’ll have to wait a season or two to judge the latest regime to be in charge.
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
Well we'll never know re Holden - personally I disagree that he would have taken us down, although I doubt we'd have gone up either, but Appleton's brief bounce coincided with the return of injuries and late window incoming transfers. It's beyond doubt we'd have gone down under him, and ultimately that appointment cost us the season, and nearly our place in the dizzy heights of L1.
As we all know our club was rotten to the core after years of bad management behind the scenes. TS for all his faults I think had the best of intentions but just didn’t understand football is basically full of sharks and without doubt he had his pants pulled down in the transfer market, he paid decent money to try and bring decent players in but got mugged off and the blame for that sits with the people in the club at that time who should have advised him better. This new lot I believe are more switched on and the owners seem willing to invest. It won’t be fixed overnight but there are good signs that things will turn the corner. I dread to think what the bill is going to be to get shot of all the deadwood and replace them, just think of all the players we have put on loan that are shite ! Unfortunately we currently have a massive squad basicallly made up of mostly players who fall short of league one standard let alone promotion. I can honestly see 8-10 players coming in this summer how we reduce the current players in order to make room for the new signings is a tough job as I doubt there will be many clubs banging on our door to sign them
Injuries to Leaburn and Aneke. Appleton's good spell was when he had one or both. We also lost Fraser v Orient (stupidly not taken off by Holden) after he'd done well pre-season and he was never the same player again.
The injuries exposed the lack of attacking depth in the squad and meant we rarely had a consistant line up.
Terrible use of the loan market. Loans should be icing on an already well baked caked. We used it to try and plug the many holes in the squad. 8 loans and not one made an impact, some (Abankwah, Fiorini) hardly kicked a ball in anger.
Neither goalkeeper was good enough or commanding enough.
Not enough leadership on the pitch. Love Dobson but he's not a captain and the other senior players, apart from May, didn't step up. Hector is a prime example of someone playing for themself, not the team.
The Dobson fiasco hit, IMHO, team morale which was already low.
Over reliance on CBT. "Get the ball to Corey" became our only tactic in many games so it was easy to stop us. And we never replaced his goals or assists after he went.
The UK directors being more focused on getting money for CBT and Dobson than building a squad to challege for the play-offs.
Over playing the kids. Assimwe, Anderson and Campbell started well but played too many games and then had their confidence destroyed by Appleton.
Appointing Micheal Appleton and then keeping him too long. Cray Valley should have been it, Gillingham had to be it but then messing about even longer.
Letting Andy Scott do the recruitment. May was signed before the takeover, Small after Jones came. Inbetween was an unbalanced shit show. And his bizarre quest for a deep sitting "quarter-back" (Kilkenny, Taylor, now Coventry).
General lack of basic coaching & tactics. It's league one, you have to deal with big lump sides who defend deep and score from set pieces, we could rarely cope with it and our own set pieces were poor.
Just rank bad defending. We scored in most games and had (wasted) the golden boot winner but week after week one or two defenders/keepers would make a huge rick and we'd concede. We knew it was coming, the players knew it was coming, the opposition knew it was coming, none of the managers have been able to stop it.
Nearly all the players we sign never measure up to their glowing CVs and then you throw poor managers into the mix. We're badly run and should do better with the resources we have....
The owners. For allowing the SMT to pick a non descript and inexperienced manager( Holden) and allowing him to be micro managed by their choice of Technical director( Scott).
90% of the players are just pony , they have the odd decent flash and the youngsters may improve but most are just shit , real shit and are part of the shittiest footballing team in our history our only other finish below here was our 5th season in the third tier , we’d never played above that level .
starting the season with no physicality up top is the starting point of the failure and bringing in players in other positions that weren't very good, oh and a manager who couldn't have been a worse choice to replace one who was sacked mainly because he had no forwards to play with May. We then brought in more not very good players but thankfully have a manager who got enough out of them to stay up. We also lost 1 and nearly 2 of our 3 best players in January - plenty of things we can do better then, mainly involving keeping your best players and bringing in good players
As we all know our club was rotten to the core after years of bad management behind the scenes. TS for all his faults I think had the best of intentions but just didn’t understand football is basically full of sharks and without doubt he had his pants pulled down in the transfer market, he paid decent money to try and bring decent players in but got mugged off and the blame for that sits with the people in the club at that time who should have advised him better. This new lot I believe are more switched on and the owners seem willing to invest. It won’t be fixed overnight but there are good signs that things will turn the corner. I dread to think what the bill is going to be to get shot of all the deadwood and replace them, just think of all the players we have put on loan that are shite ! Unfortunately we currently have a massive squad basicallly made up of mostly players who fall short of league one standard let alone promotion. I can honestly see 8-10 players coming in this summer how we reduce the current players in order to make room for the new signings is a tough job as I doubt there will be many clubs banging on our door to sign them
We have gone backwards under this board of directors and management team. They are directly responsible for the mess on the pitch and they are not good enough. If the substantive owners have worked that out we may have a chance. I am happy with Nathan Jones as manager but we are carrying the likes of Scott, Methven, Rodwell and Elliott, who are just bullshitters adding no value IMO.
Without Leaburn and Aneke we went downhill very quickly, AM has had a good season but obviously the height and quality have been missing, also a serious over reliance on loans.. some half injured has crippled us… we need a complete rebuild and time to ditch the loans… NJ is the right man for the job and will hopefully control recruitment as that has been a disaster this season
As we all know our club was rotten to the core after years of bad management behind the scenes. TS for all his faults I think had the best of intentions but just didn’t understand football is basically full of sharks and without doubt he had his pants pulled down in the transfer market, he paid decent money to try and bring decent players in but got mugged off and the blame for that sits with the people in the club at that time who should have advised him better. This new lot I believe are more switched on and the owners seem willing to invest. It won’t be fixed overnight but there are good signs that things will turn the corner. I dread to think what the bill is going to be to get shot of all the deadwood and replace them, just think of all the players we have put on loan that are shite ! Unfortunately we currently have a massive squad basicallly made up of mostly players who fall short of league one standard let alone promotion. I can honestly see 8-10 players coming in this summer how we reduce the current players in order to make room for the new signings is a tough job as I doubt there will be many clubs banging on our door to sign them
We have gone backwards under this board of directors and management team. They are directly responsible for the mess on the pitch and they are not good enough. If the substantive owners have worked that out we may have a chance. I am happy with Nathan Jones as manager but we are carrying the likes of Scott, Methven, Rodwell and Elliott, who are just bullshitters adding no value IMO.
I agree totally when I said this lot I meant the ownership not the people you mention. Im pretty sure they are not as gullible as TS and have a better bullshit detector. Time will tell but if they do manage to clear the decks and get shot of the players on our books who we got stitched up with over the last few years and replace them with actual footballers then the signs are good imo
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.
Our defending in all the preseason games was awful. What I noticed in preseason was the fact our players did not look better than the semi professional players they came up against. That worried me from day1.
Combination of the various things posted already here, but the significant weighting/ordering goes to the following bucketed things for me:
A relegation form defense.
Simply awful for the majority of the season. Even with late recruits, the core defensive unit that played all season were and are not good enough for a club with our aspirations. Leaked way too many goals and contributed very, very few. Not enough leadership, threw games away with errors and showed very little fighting spirit aside from the spell shortly after NJ joined when it became life or death. Two GKs that, on reflection, are both not complete enough and contributed a lack of cohesion for those in front of them. I've already said on here I would get rid of the vast majority, but sadly some of them will be pulling on the shirt again next season.
Lack of quality management (until NJ was appointed) and broadly poor recruitment.
Holden struggled when results began to dip, highlighting inexperience. Appleton was a poor, desperate appointment of a nothing man. Neither of them seemed to really know what they were doing and contributed to several awful results - particularly the period around Xmas where we nosedived down the table. Signings across the season (even in January) have been either poor and underwhelming, aside from a couple of bright sparks - and that was from a large number of players. Scott was, I suspect, responsible for a lot of that, and the business with Dobbo has been highly destabilising as well. Although they are also generally a bit of a gamble, the loans this season have been notably poor.
Terrible goalscoring record from set-pieces.
Underrated statistic, but easy to highlight in comparison to clubs like Pompey and Derby. Heard on the Sky Sports comms for the Derby game yesterday the players were given time off for every set piece goal they score. We've been woeful for this for a while and shows a lack of understanding and/or respect of the level we are at, given the two clubs going up on autos having the records with them that they do. Should be given a lot more time and warrants a better coach to focus on set pieces.
Not enough quality in creative areas (particularly once CB-T was sold).
We were incredibly one dimensional when we had CB-T, and then the change of system and personnel exacerbated this. Fraser was never the answer. Others have mentioned mentioned Leaburn and Aneke being out a lot, although I still feel that this lack of creativity is bigger than not having both of them, particularly when a fully fit, 90min Aneke can never be a thing. NJ landing on picking Anderson and having both Dobbo and Coventry was an essential but highly cautious approach, but the goals of May (and later Kanu) brushed over this. CB-T was, for a long time, felt like our only threat, and we will need a new equivalent or two in whatever system NJ lands on.
Comments
Andy Scott
They are a truly bottom half of L1 group of players, something like 5 clean sheets in a dreadfully poor quality L1 this season is a terrible statistic.
Our recruitment has been poor for years and I don't know how that turns around quickly but can only hope it will.
For all the off pitch improvements this ownership has made, going and nicking the entire recruitment team from a Peterborough or similar would have been the best investment we could likely make. I hate to think what money Andy Scott is making from us.
Early recruitment planned is certainly a step in the right direction.
Very poor loans in....no better/worse than those we loaned out.
Easily the worst/most boring squad I've seen in my 42 years of watching Charlton.
Not saying there isn't hope for the future...there is always hope....just saying how it's been this season. Turd.
The injuries exposed the lack of attacking depth in the squad and meant we rarely had a consistant line up.
Terrible use of the loan market. Loans should be icing on an already well baked caked. We used it to try and plug the many holes in the squad. 8 loans and not one made an impact, some (Abankwah, Fiorini) hardly kicked a ball in anger.
Neither goalkeeper was good enough or commanding enough.
Not enough leadership on the pitch. Love Dobson but he's not a captain and the other senior players, apart from May, didn't step up. Hector is a prime example of someone playing for themself, not the team.
The Dobson fiasco hit, IMHO, team morale which was already low.
Over reliance on CBT. "Get the ball to Corey" became our only tactic in many games so it was easy to stop us. And we never replaced his goals or assists after he went.
The UK directors being more focused on getting money for CBT and Dobson than building a squad to challege for the play-offs.
Over playing the kids. Assimwe, Anderson and Campbell started well but played too many games and then had their confidence destroyed by Appleton.
Appointing Micheal Appleton and then keeping him too long. Cray Valley should have been it, Gillingham had to be it but then messing about even longer.
Letting Andy Scott do the recruitment. May was signed before the takeover, Small after Jones came. Inbetween was an unbalanced shit show. And his bizarre quest for a deep sitting "quarter-back" (Kilkenny, Taylor, now Coventry).
General lack of basic coaching & tactics. It's league one, you have to deal with big lump sides who defend deep and score from set pieces, we could rarely cope with it and our own set pieces were poor.
Just rank bad defending. We scored in most games and had (wasted) the golden boot winner but week after week one or two defenders/keepers would make a huge rick and we'd concede. We knew it was coming, the players knew it was coming, the opposition knew it was coming, none of the managers have been able to stop it.
If Nathan Jones says the players are crap, then they are. No two ways about it.
Do we actually still go and watch other teams players play?
Provided we get our business done before pre season starts I'll be more confident.
- A relegation form defense.
Simply awful for the majority of the season. Even with late recruits, the core defensive unit that played all season were and are not good enough for a club with our aspirations. Leaked way too many goals and contributed very, very few. Not enough leadership, threw games away with errors and showed very little fighting spirit aside from the spell shortly after NJ joined when it became life or death. Two GKs that, on reflection, are both not complete enough and contributed a lack of cohesion for those in front of them. I've already said on here I would get rid of the vast majority, but sadly some of them will be pulling on the shirt again next season.- Lack of quality management (until NJ was appointed) and broadly poor recruitment.
Holden struggled when results began to dip, highlighting inexperience. Appleton was a poor, desperate appointment of a nothing man. Neither of them seemed to really know what they were doing and contributed to several awful results - particularly the period around Xmas where we nosedived down the table. Signings across the season (even in January) have been either poor and underwhelming, aside from a couple of bright sparks - and that was from a large number of players. Scott was, I suspect, responsible for a lot of that, and the business with Dobbo has been highly destabilising as well. Although they are also generally a bit of a gamble, the loans this season have been notably poor.- Terrible goalscoring record from set-pieces.
Underrated statistic, but easy to highlight in comparison to clubs like Pompey and Derby. Heard on the Sky Sports comms for the Derby game yesterday the players were given time off for every set piece goal they score. We've been woeful for this for a while and shows a lack of understanding and/or respect of the level we are at, given the two clubs going up on autos having the records with them that they do. Should be given a lot more time and warrants a better coach to focus on set pieces.- Not enough quality in creative areas (particularly once CB-T was sold).
We were incredibly one dimensional when we had CB-T, and then the change of system and personnel exacerbated this. Fraser was never the answer. Others have mentioned mentioned Leaburn and Aneke being out a lot, although I still feel that this lack of creativity is bigger than not having both of them, particularly when a fully fit, 90min Aneke can never be a thing. NJ landing on picking Anderson and having both Dobbo and Coventry was an essential but highly cautious approach, but the goals of May (and later Kanu) brushed over this. CB-T was, for a long time, felt like our only threat, and we will need a new equivalent or two in whatever system NJ lands on.