We really need to have a good season this year. I don't think this fanbase can take much more.
Let's face it, the only people left are the hardcore. When even they're flagging, it's gotten pretty serious.
I think this is summing it up for many and I totally agree- this season needs to be good because we have shrunk a bit each year and there is no guarantee that it won’t get a lot worse.
Selling and not replacing May is a real kick in the balls and seeing him and Dobson do well for the competition is not nice. The new owners are panning out to be more than a bit shite.
The worry is and I suppose obvious to most is that Methven has repeatedly said that Charlton Athletic and League One really don't work. I assume he means as a commercial vessel. A money generator.
So where do we, and equally importantly the investment group go if it looks like we will be spending another season in this Barren land??
Ultimately, they will need a board that can put together a set-up that works. That isn’t going to be the chums. Too interested in themselves.
Bad run of form at the minute but don’t for a minute believe that this is worse than the nonsense we put up with through December, January and February last season.
You’re beginning to sound like Ronnie. No matter how shit we are, you always think/claim everything is rosy.
Disappointed by the comparison tbh. That and the comment from another poster earlier in the day where someone referred to me being on the sofa.
I would be well within my rights to suggest that people are trying to shut me down for having opposing views…… :-)
Bad run of form at the minute but don’t for a minute believe that this is worse than the nonsense we put up with through December, January and February last season.
Bad run of form at the minute but don’t for a minute believe that this is worse than the nonsense we put up with through December, January and February last season.
That should not be the bar we're looking to clear though.
No but good things usually take time. Especially when there’s a big repair job that needs to happen.
I’m pissed off and frustrated too but we’ve already tried going through manager after manager hoping for a quick fix.
I’m clinging on to the fact that we’re at the early stages of the healing process. Giving up now would be like giving up on a diet because you’ve only lost two pounds in the first month.
This our 5th year consecutive in the 3rd division after the worst finish in our history.
I said at the beginning of the season that a place off place was the very least I’d accept. Recent performances have put that in doubt. However I can’t see much changing with the personnel we have. Maybe if we can hang around the top six and strengthen further in January we might achieve a top ten finish.
It’s unfair to compare us to Birmingham who have spent what, 30m, to get out of League One or even Wrexham or Stockport who have confidence and momentum which counts for a lot in football. Then look at Bolton, they have spent about three seasons assembling their current squad. Nathan Jones has had one window. Rome wasn’t built in a day. He’s sorted us out defensively, maybe it will take a couple more windows to address the other glaring issues. I think it a tad unfair to expect him to work miracles. That’s not to say he’s not got questions to answer and some of the recruitment at the moment looks questionable at best but we need to give him time. Whatever one may think we are not going to attract anyone better.
Will be interesting to revisit this at the end of October after we have beaten Birmingham, Stockport and Wrexham.
Honestly Large, I'd buy into that if I could see some evidence of a plan. I think (or at least I thought) he worked miracles sorting out the basics and making us difficult to beat. The next task was to make us into a potent attacking force. Recruitment looked good on paper and I wasn't that hung-up personally on Dobson and May if we were recruiting to suit a more efficient team unit. It was clear from the outset that something was lacking. Those that (think they) know almost had me convinced that our high press and Ahadme's selfless running was a panacea and that patience was all that was required. It was too early to make judgements, players needed time to settle, Rome wasn't built in a day, people are too negative, take off my pants and admire my xg, etc. Meanwhile my seasoned eye was telling me, if it looks like shit and smells like shit, etc. And who is to say which is the correct point of view. Yes, it is too early to make a conclusive judgement, but I am seeing nothing to frighten the opposition, only a defensive solidity and a lot of directionless energy. My simple mind had assumed that we were going to employ wingbacks that would deliver quality balls into the box and/or an attacking midfielder that could play our forwards in or chip in with goals. What would lift me out of my negative mindset is evidence of a plan. I don't see it and maybe it is just me. I am a simple man. When he sends his team out, how is Nathan in his minds eye envisaging that we will score goals? I mean in practical and simple, literal terms. Can anybody enlighten me? I can't believe for a minute that pressing the fcuk out of the oppo until they make a mistake and present us with an opportunity is the only plan. Also, don't get me started on set pieces.
Edit: I should probably have qualified my shit by saying I didn't get to see todays game
When we were scraping wins, Jones was saying that the football would improve. It hasn't, it's got worse. There's more to football than the "high press", "winning the second ball" or running harder than the opposition. All that will only take you so far.
Every team needs two or three players capable of producing something special, a little magic, to give their team mates and the crowd a lift when things aren't going well. I don't see one player in the current team capable of beating a couple of defenders and smashing it home, or curling in a free kick, or even playing a defence splitting pass. Throughout the years we have been so fortunate to have witnessed the likes of Paul Walsh, Allan Simonson, Paul Mortimer to name but a few magical players. None of this lot come anywhere close.
Bad run of form at the minute but don’t for a minute believe that this is worse than the nonsense we put up with through December, January and February last season.
That should not be the bar we're looking to clear though.
No but good things usually take time. Especially when there’s a big repair job that needs to happen.
I’m pissed off and frustrated too but we’ve already tried going through manager after manager hoping for a quick fix.
I’m clinging on to the fact that we’re at the early stages of the healing process. Giving up now would be like giving up on a diet because you’ve only lost two pounds in the first month.
This our 5th year consecutive in the 3rd division after the worst finish in our history.
Have you read any of my posts today? I’m fucking fed up with it too.
But sometimes, for things to get better, you have to take your medicine. I’d love for it to be an instant turn around but surely a dose of realism would suggest we don’t go to promotion front runners immediately after three properly shit seasons in a row.
(And even the years we got promoted we lost at the likes of Fleetwood, Scunthorpe, Rochdale and Stevenage away from home. The year any team does go up will have a couple of those losses - unless you’re Birmingham and can spend £20 million on a player in the third division. Then you might last a season without at least a couple of annoying losses…)
Hardly missed a home game for over 60 years, this year decided had enough and didn’t renew my season ticket.
i just didn’t believe the Jones hype, been to one game this season, watched the rest on TV.
IMO the replacements for May and Dobson are simply below par,
To buy a load of old Luton has beens says it all.
Really hope I’m wrong because I still love my club, but we are once again going nowhere fast and at the same time playing the most boring football ever.
The worry is and I suppose obvious to most is that Methven has repeatedly said that Charlton Athletic and League One really don't work. I assume he means as a commercial vessel. A money generator.
So where do we, and equally importantly the investment group go if it looks like we will be spending another season in this Barren land??
Depends on the master plan and if they budgeted and planned for promotion this season or have a 1-2 season contingency.
Tbf Lancs, I'm surprised you've only just started to have enough, that's some good going.
The most depressing thing for me is how normal it feels for days like this. On the drive up I had 0 confidence we were going to win or score more than 1 goal. We couldn't even manage that.
It's groundhog day with this club. Same playstyles, transfer windows etc. Severely neglected. It amazes me that I see so many young fans on match day, especially away. Fair play to them.
Bad run of form at the minute but don’t for a minute believe that this is worse than the nonsense we put up with through December, January and February last season.
At least we had a goalscorer then . It’s becoming increasingly clear that letting May go ( I don’t want to hear the being near his family nonsense) is one of the worst decisions we’ve made in many years and that’s from a club who specialises in making bad decisions.
It was so obvious despite the bizarre pr exercise to spin it. Complete lack of ambition, foresight and competence in letting May and Dobson leave without replacements.
Those 2 with our defence this season would be great progress.
I'll be honest, I naively thought that when Dobbo's legally binding contract got torn up, he'd automatically became a Charlton player again, with better terms etc.
Was shocked when it never happened, but went along with the notion we had just as good, if not better in the squad. How wrong we were....
Seems to me that football as a whole is no longer what it was. Too many rule changes and other things that have ruined the spectacle (VAR, fake injuries, too much “he felt the touch so was justified to go down”, too much time wasting.) It’s endemic from the top of the game to the lower leagues.
With this as a backdrop, we happen to be in League 1 while this is going on across football. We think it’s because we are in League 1. But actually it’s more widespread than that.
Seems to me that football as a whole is no longer what it was. Too many rule changes and other things that have ruined the spectacle (VAR, fake injuries, too much “he felt the touch so was justified to go down”, too much time wasting.) It’s endemic from the top of the game to the lower leagues.
With this as a backdrop, we happen to be in League 1 while this is going on across football. We think it’s because we are in League 1. But actually it’s more widespread than that.
It’s not, though, is it? I’m not a huge fan of the Premier League but I can see how good to watch a game like Arsenal-Leicester yesterday will have been, or even Chelsea-Brighton. The atmosphere, the excitement, the talent on show, are all obvious.
It would be stupid to expect similar in L1, but we have offered nothing since being relegated in 2020 (and very little 2013-2018). There is no narrative behind the club or sustainable belief in the team and manager. That has to change.
This stuff about years of failure taking time to address or negativity from the fanbase holding the club back is delusional. It’s L1. There is a massive churn in players year on year. Who Sandgaard bought or employed no longer matters, never mind what went before.
It certainly seems to be the case that you need better than L1 players to get out of L1 and they are likely to be more expensive. Which is where the money comes in.
And the longer the team are in L1, the harder it is to get out of it.
It certainly seems to be the case that you need better than L1 players to get out of L1 and they are likely to be more expensive. Which is where the money comes in.
And the longer the team are in L1, the harder it is to get out of it.
But we spend much more than most other clubs on the playing side every year, yet fail to match the performance of many of them.
It’s going to be hard to match Birmingham and Wrexham, obviously, but we have been consistently underperforming our budget and never more so than 2023/24.
Bad run of form at the minute but don’t for a minute believe that this is worse than the nonsense we put up with through December, January and February last season.
That should not be the bar we're looking to clear though.
No but good things usually take time. Especially when there’s a big repair job that needs to happen.
I’m pissed off and frustrated too but we’ve already tried going through manager after manager hoping for a quick fix.
I’m clinging on to the fact that we’re at the early stages of the healing process. Giving up now would be like giving up on a diet because you’ve only lost two pounds in the first month.
This our 5th year consecutive in the 3rd division after the worst finish in our history.
Have you read any of my posts today? I’m fucking fed up with it too.
But sometimes, for things to get better, you have to take your medicine. I’d love for it to be an instant turn around but surely a dose of realism would suggest we don’t go to promotion front runners immediately after three properly shit seasons in a row.
(And even the years we got promoted we lost at the likes of Fleetwood, Scunthorpe, Rochdale and Stevenage away from home. The year any team does go up will have a couple of those losses - unless you’re Birmingham and can spend £20 million on a player in the third division. Then you might last a season without at least a couple of annoying losses…)
You are right there, @Callumcafc, and actually Methven and Gavin Carter have both said something like that. What's more, a successful manager needs lieutenants on the pitch he can trust, especially if the team he inherited was a bit flaky and spineless. And we cannot blame the Dobbo thing on Jones, it seems clear Jones would have kept him, and we presumably would not then have brought in one of Docherty or Campbell.
But I said several times, deciding that you don't actually want Alfie May is a big, big call. It already looked ominous in spring when Jones started messing with him. To what end? Curbs didn't get it, and that's always a big warning signal for me. If it doesn't make sense to Curbs, it probably is a bad idea. Curbs is no ex-player gobshite on MOTD.
Now I'm pretty weak on the tactical side of the game and I admire your data-driven study of it. But I did say after the early results that I get what NJ is doing at the back, but I could not quite see the Plan for the forward half of the game. Now, virtually everyone on here is saying the same thing.
In management in any sphere, "fundamentalists" worry me. Once you've got to the top of elite football, maybe you can afford to be. But not in L1. I said several times, deciding you don't want the Golden Boot winner because he allegedly refuses to play a certain way, that is a fucking big call. I think at this level a Board says to a new manager (unless they are Birmingham) look, great strikers are rare as hen's teeth and expensive like hell so you'll need to build your attack around Alfie May. But NJ clearly said to our board, my way or the highway.
So here's my question to you Callum: I've asked it several times, including to @Swisdom, so far without reply. What exactly is the way NJ wants to play, and why is May unsuitable for it? Why would May not have been a much more effective choice than Godden in yesterday's line up? What was it that May wouldn't or couldn't do for NJ. See, I hear all this talk about the "high press" but Alfie May did a lot of work up front hassling and pressing defenders and chasing apparently lost balls in the channels. What more is there to this fucking "high press" than that, if the main role of a striker is to be in the right position to convert opportunities?
I think NJ needs time. He has created a side that is boring but that is difficult to break down. That is something to build on as it's often difficult to go the other way i.e. a side that can score but can't defend rarely wins titles. We are all impatient for success but I would be more concerned if we were leaking goals left, right and centre.
That said, there are two managers that I regret not securing. One is Eddie Howe who chose not to come to us and who would blame him for that. He is the best English manager currently in the game. The other is Nigel Clough. People will say "yes but what has he done in the game?". A hell of a lot given the resources he has had available to him for most of his career. You don't manage almost 1,300 games at just four clubs unless you are doing something right, getting the likes of both Burton (to the Championship and keeping them there at that) and Mansfield promoted. I was thinking that he wouldn't join us because he is a family man but then I thought that his kids must be grown up now and that he might be tempted by the "project" and relative financial backing he would receive. Trouble is, he would look at our record for managerial turnover and then the table (Mansfield are a point above us with a game in hand and had to sell their best player in the summer) and think to himself "what's the point?".
So, we need to stick with NJ for now and give him that opportunity to make us more attractive to watch. It's not as if he hasn't done this before - in 2017/18 Luton were promoted from League 2 scoring 94 and conceding 46. The following season they won League 1 scoring 90 and conceding 42. So Luton, in those two seasons, scored exactly two goals a game and conceded just under one per match. Our goals against column is on par with that. It's up to him now to improve our goals for tally.
The football under NJ has been utterly dreadful to watch and I'm tempted to finally ditch my ST. We sign mediocre players sesson after season and there is no flair in the side.
I'll still be there naivley like a grinning idiot lamb to the slaughter on Saturday with the stupid hope and expectation v Brum and kidding myself that Alfie May won't nick a goal before doing a cheeky wink to the Covered end right in front of me.
Supporting this wretched dismal club is exactly what boozing was like for me. Absolutely bang on it every Saturday but swearing off it for a few days after the binge until the horror show existential crisis hangover subsides enough a few days later and the optimism for the next self- detrimental Saturday session starts building mid week.
Have kicked the sauce but will never be able to kick this joyless, self harming, misery inducing obsession that is supporting Charlton Athletic and have even peddled it to my poor kids. And I'm quite at peace with that.
Sadly, I think if Nathan was to resign and go for the Cardiff job nobody would be too upset. WTF is going on ?
Even if a new manager was to come in ( and I don’t think that should happen) he would still only have the same players to work with and as they say - You can’t polish a turd .
You can get them to practice shooting on sight instead of looking for somebody else to pass it to, often behind them, or crossing and taking free kicks for starters, maybe try practicing with the boys up front starting moving into space when the keeper/back line or midfield have the ball and then in turn being given something to chase. It felt like I was like watching an Appleton game all over again at times yesterday.
As a fanbase we are quite rightly fed up to the back teeth of the constant shitness we continue to see and have seen for god knows how many seasons but we cant just keep changing managers. At some point we have to collectively give a manager time to build a team to get us out of this league and not be screaming for his head after a run of bad results. We've had 14+ years of shit owners,bad management,players etc so building a team ripe for promotion is going to take time and probably another 2-3 transfer windows. Patience is in short supply in the stands of SE7 and understandably so but its something we need to dig in and find, as hard as it is.
When we were scraping wins, Jones was saying that the football would improve. It hasn't, it's got worse. There's more to football than the "high press", "winning the second ball" or running harder than the opposition. All that will only take you so far.
Every team needs two or three players capable of producing something special, a little magic, to give their team mates and the crowd a lift when things aren't going well. I don't see one player in the current team capable of beating a couple of defenders and smashing it home, or curling in a free kick, or even playing a defence splitting pass. Throughout the years we have been so fortunate to have witnessed the likes of Paul Walsh, Allan Simonson, Paul Mortimer to name but a few magical players. None of this lot come anywhere close.
I think this is such an important point. Football is (or at least, should be) about hope and entertainment. Without those two things there's very little point in following it. Earlier in the season when we got a few binary wins most people were happy, 'win ugly' was the phrase of the moment. The key word in that phrase though is the adjective, take away the win and all you're left with is ugly. And that's what we've got now. Even Jones' sideline antics which looked amusing when we were winning, just look like the insane twitches of a man not even in control of his own body now that we're losing. Who wants to watch the grisly unattractiveness of hoofball, when there's no hope of scoring and no chance of seeing anyone do something entertaining? At the moment the only slight glimmer of hope that we have is that things may look better when Dixon and Leaburn return, but the reality is that it's probably too much to expect them to instigate a turnaround. As others have stated, the board messed up big time in letting May and Dobson depart.
For the last few seasons, the deciding factor in me retaining my season ticket has been that my son has retained his. Conversely, I suspect that I am the main thing keeping him going. At this rate, I can genuinely see one of us cracking soon and then that will be it for the pair of us. If that pattern is repeated further amongst our support, then we'll end up with ever dwindling crowds and will become even less attractive. It's a really depressing thought. The board really need to act now so that we can have a positive window that gives us some hope in the second half of the season - and that means getting in some genuinely talented footballers, not more of The Mad Hatter's out of work mates.
In my opinion this thread results from repeating the mistake of changing managers every year in the belief that they are the problem. They are not. It seems to me that we have a recruitment team who neither act like good recruiters generally or know anything about football.
First of all, if you recruit someone for any position and they go on to show incompetence, is it the fault of the employee or the recruiter? A good HR manager recruits the right person and puts their faith in him. They have conviction in the recruitment process and know the profile that will fit the team in place.
We’ve been making the same mistake since what is for me still the worst: the sacking of the last Charlton hero, Lee Bowyer.
I’d like to hear a recording of the interview with Nathan Jones because we should have been looking for a manager to come in and propose recruitment of players to play to Dobson and May’s strengths. Surely you take the positives that you have already and build on them. I’m no HR manager but if I’d been there and a candidate proposed ripping it all up and starting again, I’d have suggested to the the others in my team that call in the next candidate, one of whom by the way, I think should have been Johnny Jackson.
Finally, last night I watched a film called ’Twelve Mighty Orphans’. That’s how you take a team, prevent a style of play that exposes their weaknesses, and introduce new ideas to get the best out of players. I think Nathen Jones walked arrogantly into this club as if he had just watched that film and was on a crusade to prove it wrong.
In my opinion this thread results from repeating the mistake of changing managers every year in the belief that they are the problem. They are not. It seems to me that we have a recruitment team who neither act like good recruiters generally or know anything about football.
First of all, if you recruit someone for any position and they go on to show incompetence, is it the fault of the employee or the recruiter? A good HR manager recruits the right person and puts their faith in him. They have conviction in the recruitment process and know the profile that will fit the team in place.
We’ve been making the same mistake since what is for me still the worst: the sacking of the last Charlton hero, Lee Bowyer.
I’d like to hear a recording of the interview with Nathan Jones because we should have been looking for a manager to come in and propose recruitment of players to play to Dobson and May’s strengths. Surely you take the positives that you have already and build on them. I’m no HR manager but if I’d been there and a candidate proposed ripping it all up and starting again, I’d have suggested to the the others in my team that call in the next candidate, one of whom by the way, I think should have been Johnny Jackson.
Finally, last night I watched a film called ’Twelve Mighty Orphans’. That’s how you take a team, prevent a style of play that exposes their weaknesses, and introduce new ideas to get the best out of players. I think Nathen Jones walked arrogantly into this club as if he had just watched that film and was on a crusade to prove it wrong.
I’ve never questionned you before Airman but surely we could have kept him? The Hungary thing broke down so how could Wrexham get him and not us? Was it just that they could offer more money? Either way, it’s bad HR Management.
It certainly seems to be the case that you need better than L1 players to get out of L1 and they are likely to be more expensive. Which is where the money comes in.
And the longer the team are in L1, the harder it is to get out of it.
But we spend much more than most other clubs on the playing side every year, yet fail to match the performance of many of them.
It’s going to be hard to match Birmingham and Wrexham, obviously, but we have been consistently underperforming our budget and never more so than 2023/24.
I'm guessing that if we were to add up the amount of money wasted on the continuous churn of players and managers, over the past 10 years, that we could have "Done a Birmingham" 2 or 3 times over.
I’ve never questionned you before Airman but surely we could have kept him? The Hungary thing broke down so how could Wrexham get him and not us? Was it just that they could offer more money? Either way, it’s bad HR Management.
I think Dobbo himself mentioned in an interview that we made him no offer following the termination of his Hungarian contract.
Comments
I would be well within my rights to suggest that people are trying to shut me down for having opposing views…… :-)
Fed up with negative tactics at shitty teams like today.
This our 5th year consecutive in the 3rd division after the worst finish in our history.
I think (or at least I thought) he worked miracles sorting out the basics and making us difficult to beat.
The next task was to make us into a potent attacking force.
Recruitment looked good on paper and I wasn't that hung-up personally on Dobson and May if we were recruiting to suit a more efficient team unit.
It was clear from the outset that something was lacking.
Those that (think they) know almost had me convinced that our high press and Ahadme's selfless running was a panacea and that patience was all that was required.
It was too early to make judgements, players needed time to settle, Rome wasn't built in a day, people are too negative, take off my pants and admire my xg, etc.
Meanwhile my seasoned eye was telling me, if it looks like shit and smells like shit, etc.
And who is to say which is the correct point of view.
Yes, it is too early to make a conclusive judgement, but I am seeing nothing to frighten the opposition, only a defensive solidity and a lot of directionless energy.
My simple mind had assumed that we were going to employ wingbacks that would deliver quality balls into the box and/or an attacking midfielder that could play our forwards in or chip in with goals.
What would lift me out of my negative mindset is evidence of a plan.
I don't see it and maybe it is just me. I am a simple man.
When he sends his team out, how is Nathan in his minds eye envisaging that we will score goals?
I mean in practical and simple, literal terms.
Can anybody enlighten me?
I can't believe for a minute that pressing the fcuk out of the oppo until they make a mistake and present us with an opportunity is the only plan.
Also, don't get me started on set pieces.
Edit: I should probably have qualified my shit by saying I didn't get to see todays game
But we just can't stop torturing ourselves...
There's more to football than the "high press", "winning the second ball" or running harder than the opposition. All that will only take you so far.
Every team needs two or three players capable of producing something special, a little magic, to give their team mates and the crowd a lift when things aren't going well.
I don't see one player in the current team capable of beating a couple of defenders and smashing it home, or curling in a free kick, or even playing a defence splitting pass.
Throughout the years we have been so fortunate to have witnessed the likes of Paul Walsh, Allan Simonson, Paul Mortimer to name but a few magical players.
None of this lot come anywhere close.
But sometimes, for things to get better, you have to take your medicine. I’d love for it to be an instant turn around but surely a dose of realism would suggest we don’t go to promotion front runners immediately after three properly shit seasons in a row.
(And even the years we got promoted we lost at the likes of Fleetwood, Scunthorpe, Rochdale and Stevenage away from home. The year any team does go up will have a couple of those losses - unless you’re Birmingham and can spend £20 million on a player in the third division. Then you might last a season without at least a couple of annoying losses…)
i just didn’t believe the Jones hype, been to one game this season, watched the rest on TV.
IMO the replacements for May and Dobson are simply below par,
To buy a load of old Luton has beens says it all.
Really hope I’m wrong because I still love my club, but we are once again going nowhere fast and at the same time playing the most boring football ever.
The most depressing thing for me is how normal it feels for days like this. On the drive up I had 0 confidence we were going to win or score more than 1 goal. We couldn't even manage that.
It's groundhog day with this club. Same playstyles, transfer windows etc. Severely neglected. It amazes me that I see so many young fans on match day, especially away. Fair play to them.
Was shocked when it never happened, but went along with the notion we had just as good, if not better in the squad. How wrong we were....
With this as a backdrop, we happen to be in League 1 while this is going on across football. We think it’s because we are in League 1. But actually it’s more widespread than that.
It would be stupid to expect similar in L1, but we have offered nothing since being relegated in 2020 (and very little 2013-2018). There is no narrative behind the club or sustainable belief in the team and manager. That has to change.
But I said several times, deciding that you don't actually want Alfie May is a big, big call. It already looked ominous in spring when Jones started messing with him. To what end? Curbs didn't get it, and that's always a big warning signal for me. If it doesn't make sense to Curbs, it probably is a bad idea. Curbs is no ex-player gobshite on MOTD.
Now I'm pretty weak on the tactical side of the game and I admire your data-driven study of it. But I did say after the early results that I get what NJ is doing at the back, but I could not quite see the Plan for the forward half of the game. Now, virtually everyone on here is saying the same thing.
In management in any sphere, "fundamentalists" worry me. Once you've got to the top of elite football, maybe you can afford to be. But not in L1. I said several times, deciding you don't want the Golden Boot winner because he allegedly refuses to play a certain way, that is a fucking big call. I think at this level a Board says to a new manager (unless they are Birmingham) look, great strikers are rare as hen's teeth and expensive like hell so you'll need to build your attack around Alfie May. But NJ clearly said to our board, my way or the highway.
So here's my question to you Callum: I've asked it several times, including to @Swisdom, so far without reply. What exactly is the way NJ wants to play, and why is May unsuitable for it? Why would May not have been a much more effective choice than Godden in yesterday's line up? What was it that May wouldn't or couldn't do for NJ. See, I hear all this talk about the "high press" but Alfie May did a lot of work up front hassling and pressing defenders and chasing apparently lost balls in the channels. What more is there to this fucking "high press" than that, if the main role of a striker is to be in the right position to convert opportunities?
That said, there are two managers that I regret not securing. One is Eddie Howe who chose not to come to us and who would blame him for that. He is the best English manager currently in the game. The other is Nigel Clough. People will say "yes but what has he done in the game?". A hell of a lot given the resources he has had available to him for most of his career. You don't manage almost 1,300 games at just four clubs unless you are doing something right, getting the likes of both Burton (to the Championship and keeping them there at that) and Mansfield promoted. I was thinking that he wouldn't join us because he is a family man but then I thought that his kids must be grown up now and that he might be tempted by the "project" and relative financial backing he would receive. Trouble is, he would look at our record for managerial turnover and then the table (Mansfield are a point above us with a game in hand and had to sell their best player in the summer) and think to himself "what's the point?".
So, we need to stick with NJ for now and give him that opportunity to make us more attractive to watch. It's not as if he hasn't done this before - in 2017/18 Luton were promoted from League 2 scoring 94 and conceding 46. The following season they won League 1 scoring 90 and conceding 42. So Luton, in those two seasons, scored exactly two goals a game and conceded just under one per match. Our goals against column is on par with that. It's up to him now to improve our goals for tally.
It's a depressing watch.
Supporting this wretched dismal club is exactly what boozing was like for me. Absolutely bang on it every Saturday but swearing off it for a few days after the binge until the horror show existential crisis hangover subsides enough a few days later and the optimism for the next self- detrimental Saturday session starts building mid week.
Have kicked the sauce but will never be able to kick this joyless, self harming, misery inducing obsession that is supporting Charlton Athletic and have even peddled it to my poor kids. And I'm quite at peace with that.
For the last few seasons, the deciding factor in me retaining my season ticket has been that my son has retained his. Conversely, I suspect that I am the main thing keeping him going. At this rate, I can genuinely see one of us cracking soon and then that will be it for the pair of us. If that pattern is repeated further amongst our support, then we'll end up with ever dwindling crowds and will become even less attractive. It's a really depressing thought. The board really need to act now so that we can have a positive window that gives us some hope in the second half of the season - and that means getting in some genuinely talented footballers, not more of The Mad Hatter's out of work mates.
First of all, if you recruit someone for any position and they go on to show incompetence, is it the fault of the employee or the recruiter? A good HR manager recruits the right person and puts their faith in him. They have conviction in the recruitment process and know the profile that will fit the team in place.
We’ve been making the same mistake since what is for me still the worst: the sacking of the last Charlton hero, Lee Bowyer.
I’d like to hear a recording of the interview with Nathan Jones because we should have been looking for a manager to come in and propose recruitment of players to play to Dobson and May’s strengths. Surely you take the positives that you have already and build on them. I’m no HR manager but if I’d been there and a candidate proposed ripping it all up and starting again, I’d have suggested to the the others in my team that call in the next candidate, one of whom by the way, I think should have been Johnny Jackson.
Finally, last night I watched a film called ’Twelve Mighty Orphans’. That’s how you take a team, prevent a style of play that exposes their weaknesses, and introduce new ideas to get the best out of players.
I think Nathen Jones walked arrogantly into this club as if he had just watched that film and was on a crusade to prove it wrong.
Either way, it’s bad HR Management.