The 'injuries' excuse would make more sense were it not for the fact that none of our midfield have been injured, yet there is no combination of them which looks right or effective, and Jones has tried pretty much every combo. Yes we have missed Jones, Ramsay, TC and Leaburn, but I don't see how their return solves the pedestrian, slow, uncreative , lacking in width, midfield problems.
PWR, those who advocate sacking NJ, who do you suggest comes in? There is no outstanding candidate that I can see that's realistic. We keep changing managers on a far to regular basis, and it hasn't worked! .
Not sure where I am on the Jones stay or go point at present other than his results are not good enough and antics on the sideline come across as petulant rather than passionate when the chips are down.
But on this specific point - I've never really thought it is relevant what fans think....most of us aren't in a position to know who is available/ would come in. I am Charlton through and through and follow everything about the club but have a full time job and very little time to follow/ study the ins and outs of the football league.
Point being we have a well paid (I expect) Senior Management Team for which an integral role is succession planning and maintaining an ongoing and up to date shortlist of whom is available/ may be interested and when...or should do given how high managerial turnover is is the modern game.
Keeping a poor manager because us fans don't know who would replace them isnt really a material factor. At the same time it relies on having a management team capable of making such appointments which let's face it is a lottery nowadays whether you look a Charlton or behemoths like man united. I think it is just a dice roll and lotto and today's hot property soon becomes yesterday's man after a failed season or too in football.
Millwall and Palace have recycled and changed managers with one knocking on the door of Championship playoffs having rehired a previous club hero and another spending their umpteenth season in the premier league whilst we languish in our increasingly natural home of league one.
I would never have got rid of Powell or Jackson and think Holden was probably given too little time but am agnostic about all of the other departures other than them in the last 15 years.
Whether we should stick with an underperforming manager who has assembled a mediocre squad that is playing turgid football and not winning week in week alienated the league's top scorer and believes Tyreece Campbell is a striker and a bunch of Luton old boys are the answer is a separate question....but absence of fans' knowledge in who is available/ would be better isn't really a consideration as it is one that should be the sole responsibility of the people running the circus. It is literally their job and responsibility to ensure they are all over this given that the manager is perhaps the most important role at a football club.
Very good points but since some people have asked.
There is a young up and coming manager, played in the top flight but started his managerial career in non-league where he did well enough to get poached by a league 1 club and is currently doing OK with them.
And for those that like a Charlton connection is a former player.
In fact he's a fan.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you Robbie Elliott
He has a 25% win rate in L1, hardly exciting
Did anyone say "exciting"?
Crawley are outside the relagation spots now and just behind us.
Happy for him, but I dont want him to get the Charlton job yet
I’m not calling for Jones to be sacked but wouldn’t be bothered at all if he went.
It’s not necessarily a reason to keep him on, but I just don’t think anything is going to change for the better with a new manager. During this stint in League One we’ve been exactly the same under multiple owners and multiple managers. Under Roland and Sandgaard there was no proper footballing set up because they thought they had a better way of doing things, and it seemed clear that was the reason we were failing on the pitch.
On paper we’ve now got a set up that is consistent with a lot of other clubs, with dedicated roles designed to focus entirely on the football side of the club. I can’t look past the explanation that the people in these roles are completely incompetent and that there’s no chance of our fortunes improving until we get better people in. They’ll keep banging on about needing time, but in one way or another they’ve had some level of involvement in the club for almost two years now and there are zero tangible improvements that I can see. Before we start worrying about changing managers we simply have to change the people at the top, but I’m not sure there are any rumours that this could be close to happening. We can only hope that the Americans realise sooner or later than they’re being lied to and start getting ruthless.
I don't think we should sack him but it's funny how the only reason we can all give is that we need to stop sacking managers.
That was the same thing people said about Appleton last season.
I guess with Appleton is was a ridiculous appointment from the start and everyone could see it was going to fail. Jones at least had some success quite recently, but I do increasingly feel like I’m deluding myself when I think he might be able to recreate that here.
I don't think we should sack him but it's funny how the only reason we can all give is that we need to stop sacking managers.
That was the same thing people said about Appleton last season.
And the fact that he’s better than the last 3 dreadful managers
Sadly it seems that Jones is "the least bad" manager we've had for a while rather than actually being "the best" which seems like semantics but not meant that way.
For me personally based on my own hopes and each manager's previous reputation he's by far the most disappointing we've had for a long time. Appleton was worse, but I always expected him to be crap. Garner and Holden weren't great but I had hope not expectation that they'd prove to be good.
Jones has a fairly good reputation, been given the best hand of the lot, and still blown it.
Charlton only seem to do well with ex players at the helm, sadly Jacko wasn’t give any time. Let Rob Elliot gain some experience at Crawley before we swoop in and he leads us to promotion
Perhaps we should consider the squad he inherited, and the players he brought in to improve it:-
Decent players already here (#1st XI) Leaburn # Jones # TC Ramsay # AMB Kanu May # (sold) Ness (sold) Taylor # (fit but not on bench at Hudds Coventry (# according to NJ) REG Anderson Aneke # (if fit) Z Mitchell
So lets be generous and say he had six stonewall starters in the squad, some decent cover, so he only had to bring in five for starting eleven and a few other to improve depth. Lets see who of the 12 he bought in:-
Ahadme (fee) - L2 at best, financed by May sale Docherty - underwhelming and not a definite starter, as per NJ Berry - goals but a passenger off ball Edwards # (fee) - decent but not as LWB as NJ had elected to play Mannion - jury out Mitchell # - decent but poor sans LJ Godden # (fee) - poor May replacement Dixon (fee) exciting but barely played, not an NJ pick. Hylton seems to be ahead of him A Campbell - scales new heights of uselessness Potts - past it, crocked and too small Small - previous window but NJ pick, # if we can shoe him in somewhere Hylton - nuff said
So he has bought in 12 players, only three sure starters to add to the six, one of which he sold, and two CC/ TT are competing for the same position, to which he added Docherty and Campbell to compete with Anderson for a midfield of cloggers. That adds up to seven/eight decent players (I'm sure a few will dispute my # picks and omissions) and we have to squeeze them all into a coherent unit. The # pick assumes two RCBs, is that wise?
Do we really want to trust Nathan to recruit the missing three/four and strengthen back-up? If we sign another ex-Luton, I will scream. Does he even know his best formation?
I’ve said it before but there is no point sacking Jones as we will not be able to attract a decent replacement, as we saw with the amount of managers that turned us down before Appleton’s appointment. The football community knows we’re a joke with Methven and Scott in charge. We will only be able to attract journeymen (Appleton) and madmen who take on in advisable jobs (as Jones did at Stoke and Southampton). Until Methven and Scott go we will be no higher than mid table and probably a lot worse, like last season. We should have banners printed with Methven and Scott out, if we had competent senior leadership then hopefully some of the American cash can be spent wisely before it runs out.
Adam Hinchliffe might be decent but apart from Zach, Ramsay, Small and Edwards perhaps Taylor, we have nobody in the back two tiers capable of playing his possession style. Cue revolving doors.
There must be some foreign managers out there, Jose Riga was effective.
I think that the likelihood is that, unless we risk falling into the relegation fight yet again, we will stay with NJ until the end of the season. There's some real garbage teams in this league that are (despite what it put in front of us on the regular) a lot worse than us, and I don't think we'll get pulled into it again. The only real chance we bin NJ is if we really get dragged into anything stupid, and there's probably enough in this squad to scrabble enough points together to get us over that uninspiring line.
Given what NJ showed us with a patchwork squad last season, there were a couple of green shoots to give a little belief. A pre-season and a full transfer window of players of his choosing should have been enough, but as this season plods and meanders along for us, I am already feeling the apathy and disbelief that, once again, we lose to the shitters of this league.
We don't look like we can get off on the front foot against any team. Every game feels like a dice throw. There is no composure on the ball. There's an absolute reliance on being gifted goals.
I really want to believe in NJ, but having seen the majority of the games under his management, I just think he's a man that cannot lead a team out of this league. He rubs players up the wrong way and, quite honestly, I think he will be a reason some players will stay away from signing with us. This is probably a big reason as to why we've ended up with a bunch of ex-Luton players that will just ignore his antics and suck up a salary.
I dunno - we keep him, we'll probably end up mid-table again (above last season) and he'll say that's improvement. We sack him, the merry-go-round continues. We get the same excuses from whoever is next - "didn't pick this squad, needs a full rebuild etc". The feeling that he could never lead us to top 6, regardless of players, grows every game. I genuinely want it to come good for him. I just don't think it ever will. The chaos of sacking yet another manager means we go down and down in the regards of actually decent managers that might actually change things.
It's so depressing to see clubs like Ipswich and Sunderland (that were around us in recent memory) go from strength to strength once they could get past the shite that is this league. We consistently get stuck in the mud and can never get out. I just don't truly see NJ fixing that, only continuing to contribute to it. Nobody decent will want this job if we bin him.
I messaged a Luton pal earlier asking him to come down and collect Jones and friends. His reply was quite telling; " I'll take Berry, Campbell and Hylts as a coach. You can keep that twat Jones though."
Anyone have any idea on the player bonus structure at the club? I'm specifically thinking around promotion bonuses. Do they exist? Are they individually offered and differ from player to player? Would each player get the same amount regardless of personal contract? No. I've not gone mad and don't think one minute think we'll get anywhere near it. I'm just trying to reason in my head something someone said on here recently. The players change. The managers change. But nothing really changes. They can't all be bad players, but their attitude on the whole is sloppy and careless. Simple stuff. Poor control. Poor ball retention and distribution to name but a few. This has gone of for many a season now. Something at the core is wrong. Badly wrong. They just don't look hungry and incentivised.
I should think Methven would say he pays them decent wages and if they manage to get us to the championship then any new contracts can be renegotiated when they come up. But to my mind that kind of attitude breeds the 'going through the motions' behaviour we see week after week.
Methven and the other two are probably getting paid vast sums more than any of our players.
PWR, those who advocate sacking NJ, who do you suggest comes in? There is no outstanding candidate that I can see that's realistic. We keep changing managers on a far to regular basis, and it hasn't worked! .
Not sure where I am on the Jones stay or go point at present other than his results are not good enough and antics on the sideline come across as petulant rather than passionate when the chips are down.
But on this specific point - I've never really thought it is relevant what fans think....most of us aren't in a position to know who is available/ would come in. I am Charlton through and through and follow everything about the club but have a full time job and very little time to follow/ study the ins and outs of the football league.
Point being we have a well paid (I expect) Senior Management Team for which an integral role is succession planning and maintaining an ongoing and up to date shortlist of whom is available/ may be interested and when...or should do given how high managerial turnover is is the modern game.
Keeping a poor manager because us fans don't know who would replace them isnt really a material factor. At the same time it relies on having a management team capable of making such appointments which let's face it is a lottery nowadays whether you look a Charlton or behemoths like man united. I think it is just a dice roll and lotto and today's hot property soon becomes yesterday's man after a failed season or too in football.
Millwall and Palace have recycled and changed managers with one knocking on the door of Championship playoffs having rehired a previous club hero and another spending their umpteenth season in the premier league whilst we languish in our increasingly natural home of league one.
I would never have got rid of Powell or Jackson and think Holden was probably given too little time but am agnostic about all of the other departures other than them in the last 15 years.
Whether we should stick with an underperforming manager who has assembled a mediocre squad that is playing turgid football and not winning week in week alienated the league's top scorer and believes Tyreece Campbell is a striker and a bunch of Luton old boys are the answer is a separate question....but absence of fans' knowledge in who is available/ would be better isn't really a consideration as it is one that should be the sole responsibility of the people running the circus. It is literally their job and responsibility to ensure they are all over this given that the manager is perhaps the most important role at a football club.
Very good points but since some people have asked.
There is a young up and coming manager, played in the top flight but started his managerial career in non-league where he did well enough to get poached by a league 1 club and is currently doing OK with them.
And for those that like a Charlton connection is a former player.
Seeing as so many of his former players were happy to rejoin him, I can only conclude NJ can't be that difficult to work with.
Money talks.
I think that's dismissing a logical conclusion supported by evidence in favour of pure conjecture. If there's actual evidence that money was the main factor in them rejoining Jones, I'd be open to believing it.
Seeing as so many of his former players were happy to rejoin him, I can only conclude NJ can't be that difficult to work with.
Money talks.
I think that's dismissing a logical conclusion supported by evidence in favour of pure conjecture. If there's actual evidence that money was the main factor in them rejoining Jones, I'd be open to believing it.
Increase in wages or not having any better offers usually leads to players joining a club. It may not be the case here, but in general this is my view on how it works.
Seeing as so many of his former players were happy to rejoin him, I can only conclude NJ can't be that difficult to work with.
Money talks.
I think that's dismissing a logical conclusion supported by evidence in favour of pure conjecture. If there's actual evidence that money was the main factor in them rejoining Jones, I'd be open to believing it.
Increase in wages or not having any better offers usually leads to players joining a club. It may not be the case here, but in general this is my view on how it works.
That's fair, but without any evidence about wages or offers in this case, we can only go by what we do know: several players have willingly rejoined Jones, which suggests they are happy to work with him.
Seeing as so many of his former players were happy to rejoin him, I can only conclude NJ can't be that difficult to work with.
Money talks.
I think that's dismissing a logical conclusion supported by evidence in favour of pure conjecture. If there's actual evidence that money was the main factor in them rejoining Jones, I'd be open to believing it.
Increase in wages or not having any better offers usually leads to players joining a club. It may not be the case here, but in general this is my view on how it works.
So the money is good enough to tempt players to join us, but not enough to convince fans our owners are spending any. Ok I get it .
Poor recruitment, on & off the pitch. Sadly I think a lot, not all, of our squad, see us as an easy wage and with our fanbase not being known for being overly volatile, their attitude when they get here is cruise control.
Seeing as so many of his former players were happy to rejoin him, I can only conclude NJ can't be that difficult to work with.
Money talks.
If those players signed from higher divisions just for the money, that would suggest he's been backed fairly well, as a minimum, he certainly seemed very happy with t he backing he got at the start of the season, he's failing, with his own team, his own tactics and his own decisions.
Before we got Appleton in, weren’t we rejected by Des Buckingham and Dave Challinor?
Who do people think will take this job on that’s any more likely to be successful than a bloke who already took a team from bottom half of League 2 to top six of the Championship?
Before we got Appleton in, weren’t we rejected by Des Buckingham and Dave Challinor?
Who do people think will take this job on that’s any more likely to be successful than a bloke who already took a team from bottom half of League 2 to top six of the Championship?
And Darren Ferguson. Those were just the names we heard about, I’m sure there were more. Scott and Methven are well known as a joke in the football world. Why would any ambitious manager risk it here, unless they were desperate (like Appleton) or if they had a track record of taking on basket case clubs (like Jones did at Stoke and Southampton). Methven out!
Comments
Yes we have missed Jones, Ramsay, TC and Leaburn, but I don't see how their return solves the pedestrian, slow, uncreative , lacking in width, midfield problems.
no pattern of play
no identity
timid
slow
negative
technicallly poor
stand offish
All of these phrases were all being banded around freely yesterday by supporters
That was the same thing people said about Appleton last season.
For me personally based on my own hopes and each manager's previous reputation he's by far the most disappointing we've had for a long time. Appleton was worse, but I always expected him to be crap. Garner and Holden weren't great but I had hope not expectation that they'd prove to be good.
Jones has a fairly good reputation, been given the best hand of the lot, and still blown it.
Decent players already here (#1st XI)
Leaburn #
Jones #
TC
Ramsay #
AMB
Kanu
May # (sold)
Ness (sold)
Taylor # (fit but not on bench at Hudds
Coventry (# according to NJ)
REG
Anderson
Aneke # (if fit)
Z Mitchell
So lets be generous and say he had six stonewall starters in the squad, some decent cover, so he only had to bring in five for starting eleven and a few other to improve depth. Lets see who of the 12 he bought in:-
Ahadme (fee) - L2 at best, financed by May sale
Docherty - underwhelming and not a definite starter, as per NJ
Berry - goals but a passenger off ball
Edwards # (fee) - decent but not as LWB as NJ had elected to play
Mannion - jury out
Mitchell # - decent but poor sans LJ
Godden # (fee) - poor May replacement
Dixon (fee) exciting but barely played, not an NJ pick. Hylton seems to be ahead of him
A Campbell - scales new heights of uselessness
Potts - past it, crocked and too small
Small - previous window but NJ pick, # if we can shoe him in somewhere
Hylton - nuff said
So he has bought in 12 players, only three sure starters to add to the six, one of which he sold, and two CC/ TT are competing for the same position, to which he added Docherty and Campbell to compete with Anderson for a midfield of cloggers. That adds up to seven/eight decent players (I'm sure a few will dispute my # picks and omissions) and we have to squeeze them all into a coherent unit. The # pick assumes two RCBs, is that wise?
Do we really want to trust Nathan to recruit the missing three/four and strengthen back-up? If we sign another ex-Luton, I will scream. Does he even know his best formation?
There must be some foreign managers out there, Jose Riga was effective.
Given what NJ showed us with a patchwork squad last season, there were a couple of green shoots to give a little belief. A pre-season and a full transfer window of players of his choosing should have been enough, but as this season plods and meanders along for us, I am already feeling the apathy and disbelief that, once again, we lose to the shitters of this league.
We don't look like we can get off on the front foot against any team.
Every game feels like a dice throw.
There is no composure on the ball.
There's an absolute reliance on being gifted goals.
I really want to believe in NJ, but having seen the majority of the games under his management, I just think he's a man that cannot lead a team out of this league. He rubs players up the wrong way and, quite honestly, I think he will be a reason some players will stay away from signing with us. This is probably a big reason as to why we've ended up with a bunch of ex-Luton players that will just ignore his antics and suck up a salary.
I dunno - we keep him, we'll probably end up mid-table again (above last season) and he'll say that's improvement. We sack him, the merry-go-round continues. We get the same excuses from whoever is next - "didn't pick this squad, needs a full rebuild etc". The feeling that he could never lead us to top 6, regardless of players, grows every game. I genuinely want it to come good for him. I just don't think it ever will. The chaos of sacking yet another manager means we go down and down in the regards of actually decent managers that might actually change things.
It's so depressing to see clubs like Ipswich and Sunderland (that were around us in recent memory) go from strength to strength once they could get past the shite that is this league. We consistently get stuck in the mud and can never get out. I just don't truly see NJ fixing that, only continuing to contribute to it. Nobody decent will want this job if we bin him.
sigh
He has had better backing than the other managers before him but his win rate isn’t better.
…& his style of football is utter shite. The worst we’ve ever seen.
Real ambition would have been spending millions not hundreds of thousands.
It may not be the case here, but in general this is my view on how it works.
His withered corpse gets my vote
Sadly I think a lot, not all, of our squad, see us as an easy wage and with our fanbase not being known for being overly volatile, their attitude when they get here is cruise control.
Who do people think will take this job on that’s any more likely to be successful than a bloke who already took a team from bottom half of League 2 to top six of the Championship?