I blame Charlie and his SLT for this mess. They are just clueless clowns. They’ve appointed three managers so far and Jones is the only one to have improved anything (when he saved us from relegation). I can’t believe Andy Scott is twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing, he must be involved in recruitment. The Jones system has worked incredibly well in the past but the crucial elements are the big striker up top and the wing backs. Yet those seem to be the weakest parts of our recruitment over the summer. Jones is panicking and tinkering with selection when he knows the real reason it’s not working is because of those crucial positions. So yet again we got recruitment wrong. It doesn’t matter who the manager is we can’t seem to attract the right players. There’s a pattern forming and it coming right from the top.
I have no time for Scott and he should been shown the door at the same time as Appleton, however the signings we have made this summer have Jones’s say all over it.
Totally agree with the tinkering part.
The back 5 (Not Including Mannion) in the first 6 league games saw 6 different players used. Small replacing the injured Edwards during the Leyton Orient game the only change
In those first 6 games Charlton conceded 3 goals with 4 clean sheets.
In the last 3 games 9 different players have played in the back 5 where Charlton have conceded 6 goals
I am 100% hoping we do not get rid of NJ, purely for the fact that its something we have done repeatedly in the past and got us nowhere.
NJ needs to improve, and he has come out and effectivley said that. He owned up to his mistakes and is in agreement with the fanbase that what is currently on show each week isnt good enough. Thats a good trait for a manager to have.
I do believe he can improve us as a club, and i am here for that journey, if it takes another couple seasons for us to get out of League 1 and there is constant development and fight then I will be happy.
Theres a bump in the road, and there is still a good chance we can have a positive season. Still got my trust in NJ and i hope the board and whoever the fuck else makes decisons do too.
Saying all that, this Saturday there is a good chance that things won't immediately improve, and there will be backlash. I just hope people dont loose there heads and it turn toxic at the Valley.
What I want to know is where has the energy in the team gone? When we were 'winning ugly' at the start of the season, the one huge plus, other than the points, was the work rate. We really were pressing the opposition. No player was left unmarked and no loose ball wasn't mopped up first by us. That just isn't happening now. Did we go in too hard, too early, and run out of steam, or is there something else going on?
I blame Charlie and his SLT for this mess. They are just clueless clowns. They’ve appointed three managers so far and Jones is the only one to have improved anything (when he saved us from relegation). I can’t believe Andy Scott is twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing, he must be involved in recruitment. The Jones system has worked incredibly well in the past but the crucial elements are the big striker up top and the wing backs. Yet those seem to be the weakest parts of our recruitment over the summer. Jones is panicking and tinkering with selection when he knows the real reason it’s not working is because of those crucial positions. So yet again we got recruitment wrong. It doesn’t matter who the manager is we can’t seem to attract the right players. There’s a pattern forming and it coming right from the top.
I think that’s harsh. When we were looking to replace Appleton there wasn’t a queue around the block of quality managers with a track record available to us. Jones was probably the pick of the bunch and I’d guess most Charlton fans were pleased with the appointment. I go as far as saying a lot of people thought it was a bit of a coup. Perhaps the SMT are guilty of quite a few errors but to blame our current form on them is actually quite a stretch.
I blame Charlie and his SLT for this mess. They are just clueless clowns. They’ve appointed three managers so far and Jones is the only one to have improved anything (when he saved us from relegation). I can’t believe Andy Scott is twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing, he must be involved in recruitment. The Jones system has worked incredibly well in the past but the crucial elements are the big striker up top and the wing backs. Yet those seem to be the weakest parts of our recruitment over the summer. Jones is panicking and tinkering with selection when he knows the real reason it’s not working is because of those crucial positions. So yet again we got recruitment wrong. It doesn’t matter who the manager is we can’t seem to attract the right players. There’s a pattern forming and it coming right from the top.
In fairness to them, pretty much everyone was delighted when we got Jones as manager, and the general feeling was 'what a coup for a league one side'.
By all accounts it appears that Jones has been given free reign on transfers as well (happy to be corrected), hence we have signed a bunch of old Luton players, so i'm not sure we can point the blame at the SLT here. You can't sit there and seriously tell me Andy Scott would've sold Alfie May and signed the likes of Campbell, Potts and Hylton. That's on Jones, no one else.
A free reign of sorts, within a pretty limited budget IMHO.
I'm not sure Jones would have gone back to Potts, Campbell, Hylton etc, or signed Godden for example if he was gone a bigger budget to go after targets.
I blame Charlie and his SLT for this mess. They are just clueless clowns. They’ve appointed three managers so far and Jones is the only one to have improved anything (when he saved us from relegation). I can’t believe Andy Scott is twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing, he must be involved in recruitment. The Jones system has worked incredibly well in the past but the crucial elements are the big striker up top and the wing backs. Yet those seem to be the weakest parts of our recruitment over the summer. Jones is panicking and tinkering with selection when he knows the real reason it’s not working is because of those crucial positions. So yet again we got recruitment wrong. It doesn’t matter who the manager is we can’t seem to attract the right players. There’s a pattern forming and it coming right from the top.
In fairness to them, pretty much everyone was delighted when we got Jones as manager, and the general feeling was 'what a coup for a league one side'.
By all accounts it appears that Jones has been given free reign on transfers as well (happy to be corrected), hence we have signed a bunch of old Luton players, so i'm not sure we can point the blame at the SLT here. You can't sit there and seriously tell me Andy Scott would've sold Alfie May and signed the likes of Campbell, Potts and Hylton. That's on Jones, no one else.
A free reign of sorts, within a pretty limited budget IMHO.
I'm not sure Jones would have gone back to Potts, Campbell, Hylton etc, or signed Godden for example if he was gone a bigger budget to go after targets.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Limited for what we’d like as fans, but we still must have a big wage bill for L1, enough to build a squad capable of seriously challenging for promotion.
I blame Charlie and his SLT for this mess. They are just clueless clowns. They’ve appointed three managers so far and Jones is the only one to have improved anything (when he saved us from relegation). I can’t believe Andy Scott is twiddling his thumbs, doing nothing, he must be involved in recruitment. The Jones system has worked incredibly well in the past but the crucial elements are the big striker up top and the wing backs. Yet those seem to be the weakest parts of our recruitment over the summer. Jones is panicking and tinkering with selection when he knows the real reason it’s not working is because of those crucial positions. So yet again we got recruitment wrong. It doesn’t matter who the manager is we can’t seem to attract the right players. There’s a pattern forming and it coming right from the top.
In fairness to them, pretty much everyone was delighted when we got Jones as manager, and the general feeling was 'what a coup for a league one side'.
By all accounts it appears that Jones has been given free reign on transfers as well (happy to be corrected), hence we have signed a bunch of old Luton players, so i'm not sure we can point the blame at the SLT here. You can't sit there and seriously tell me Andy Scott would've sold Alfie May and signed the likes of Campbell, Potts and Hylton. That's on Jones, no one else.
A free reign of sorts, within a pretty limited budget IMHO.
I'm not sure Jones would have gone back to Potts, Campbell, Hylton etc, or signed Godden for example if he was gone a bigger budget to go after targets.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Probably higher than the Stevenage and Bristol Rovers budgets though.......
Methven said on one of his many recent podcasts that we had the 4th highest budget in the division.
The club said similar in the infamous 8-8-8 presentation.
Not sure who the top three are but would assume Brum are one, maybe two from Hudds, Wrexham, Bolton, Rotherham are the others.
As it has been for years it's not that we don't spend but that we spend badly, randomly and are often still paying wages for players bought by the previous manager, the previous previous manager or even the previous previous previous manager.
Our overheads are often higher because of the size of the Valley and that we don't own it while our commercial income is also relatively low for various reason including being in London, having outsourced hospitality and general poor non-football management down the years.
Methven et al have spoken about improving all of this but we still have a bigger playing budget than most and should, based on purely on budget, be in the top six.
So yes, how the club is run by the owners and snr management is part of our failure albeit the current lot have only recently arrived in business terms.
But the director of Football and the Men's 1st team manager are the key management roles in on-field success and bottom line is football clubs have one key performance indicator, winning football games and trophies/promotions.
I really can’t get behind any calls to sack another manager when he stopped the bleeding post Holden & Appleton.
If this losing run continues much longer maybe there’s a conversation to have approaching Christmas.
We were 3-0 down to the team with the worst Xg/Xa.
They had crap stats tonight as well, it’s not as if they created much and deserved to have scored three times.
It’s a “when it rains it pours” situation right now. We could with a team not putting two in the top corner from outside the area when we’re trying to break a losing run.
That was only the fourth time this L1 season where a team has managed to score twice from outside the area. There’s been 102 matches played. 1 in 25.5. Once every couple of weeks it happens. It happened tonight.
We have problems AND we were very unlucky at the same time to make for an especially shit evening all around.
But that's because we gave then acres of space on the edge of the box. These weren't 30-yard worldies, they were simply well placed shots from the edge of the box under no pressure. That's calamitous defending, and the hard-to-breakdown, no easy goals thing that Jones had going (and was his only real selling point this season) us clearly gone.
Berry was about as tight as you’d ask a midfielder to be on the edge of the box. Sinclair got the shot off and went top corner anyway.
Anderson was a marginally out of position but threw his body at the shot to get in the way. Lindsay’s shot went in the top corner anyway.
Everyone is talking as if we rolled out the red carpet for them on both occasions. We didn’t do anything close to that and sometimes the shot just flies in the net anyway despite your best effort.
Our closing down certainly wasn’t any worse than you’ll see from Bristol Rovers or other sides at our level.
Nonsense. Many/most teams block shots like "their lives depend on it". Neither Berry nor Anderson did their utmost to stop the shots.
Berry was tight to his man - it would have been nice to see him be more aggressive in that moment and snapping at heels but he’s an attack minded player that hasn’t been picked for his tackling so I’m hardly surprised that that’s how it played out.
Anderson literally threw his whole body at the shot, he just didn’t get anything on it because his starting position was poor.
Coventry had a shot last night from outside the area that hardly any Bristol Rovers players bothered to block, yet their shots flew into the net and his was tipped over. 🤷♂️
Exactly, Berry was reasonably tight to the scorer but made a half hearted attempt to block. He certainly didn't "throw" his body in the way and if he had of done the shot would have been blocked.
Yes I also agree that Anderson did throw his body at the shot but as you say he was too far away to block the shot.
Both shots could and should have been blocked if the defending was better.
We’re a League One side, it’s not going to be perfect every time. Usually you can get away with not being perfect because the oppo are also a League One side who aren’t perfect.
We should strive to be better - this isn’t me throwing my hands up and saying it doesn’t matter. Even if we start winning games 3-0 every week, training should be working towards how do we start winning 4-0 every week.
Instead, this is me saying shit happens in football and the result of midweek’s game alone isn’t a big enough reason, for me, to start calling for the manager’s head.
We're in bad form and looking shite because over the last few games we've dropped a performing CB unexpectedly and play a revolving strike force and a lack luster midfield, Karoy Anderson being asked to charge around a pitch for 85 mins chasing the ball isnt because Charlie Methven wears pink trousers. And I doubt signing a bunch of Jones' old favs is because we had little to no budget, especially when Berry came straight from making prem appearances and Potts' delayed signing was rumored to be around his wanted wage demands.
We are where we are for the time being down to Nathan Jones' choices and tactics.
All I do know is that I bought a season ticket on a wave of uncharacteristic optimism, and that just a few games later I am struggling to be arsed to go on Saturday. I cant blame the weather, food options or the lack of a lock on the mens bogs so it can only be down to the shit football, with the prospect of even more shit football to come. Alfie may not fitted in with Jones playing style, but I personally don't mind when one of our strikers is actually prepared to have an occasional attempt on goal, just for a change even if it does wakes me up.
Really not much we could do about the first goal, possibly Gillesphey could not show him on his left but very harsh to blame Berry. Second he has way too much time and space for a free shot at the edge of the box.
I am 100% hoping we do not get rid of NJ, purely for the fact that its something we have done repeatedly in the past and got us nowhere.
NJ needs to improve, and he has come out and effectivley said that. He owned up to his mistakes and is in agreement with the fanbase that what is currently on show each week isnt good enough. Thats a good trait for a manager to have.
I do believe he can improve us as a club, and i am here for that journey, if it takes another couple seasons for us to get out of League 1 and there is constant development and fight then I will be happy.
Theres a bump in the road, and there is still a good chance we can have a positive season. Still got my trust in NJ and i hope the board and whoever the fuck else makes decisons do too.
Saying all that, this Saturday there is a good chance that things won't immediately improve, and there will be backlash. I just hope people dont loose there heads and it turn toxic at the Valley.
Look FairPlay for being loyal and avoiding knee-jerk firings. However so much is predictable with NJ due to the up and down nature of his personality. HE has a knee jerk reaction to the performances. Look at his track record jumping ship between clubs. We need someone with long term vision and determination. Sadly I think he's not the one, but we'd still be left with all the misfit players if he goes. If this carries on some like me will drift away. They have my ST money, but I doubt I'll renew if he's still here and the footie stays the same.
Really not much we could do about the first goal, possibly Gillesphey could not show him on his left but very harsh to blame Berry. Second he has way too much time and space for a free shot at the edge of the box.
Isn't Scott Sinclair actually right-footed? If so, you'd think showing him onto his weaker foot would be the sensible thing to do. Makes the finish more impressive imo.
Just arrived as the team decanted the bus. Good news was that Miles is here. Bad news was that the body language was dreadful. All looked as though they had all had a barny, or a roasting, not sure why obviously.
Just arrived as the team decanted the bus. Good news was that Miles is here. Bad news was that the body language was dreadful. All looked as though they had all had a barny, or a roasting, not sure why obviously.
For those suggesting that changing the manager now (or soon) would be a recipe for success, history has some stories which would challenge that. In the more than 100 years that Charlton have been playing professionally, it's worth considering how many times a Chairman has changed a manager and seen that manager bring success, measured in promotion.
Many have tried. Almost every one has failed. In fact there are - if my sources are correct - just four Chairmen who have retained their position while a manager they appointed has gone on to win promotion. As they say in cricket, it's four with the power to add, because, presumably, James Rodwell will want to see his current manager go on to win promotion while he's still in the hot seat. But that's just four, out of twenty (depending on how it's counted). Four times in over a hundred years. That's once in a generation. (And two of those were related). It's very rare for a Charlton Chairman to achieve promotion with a manager he - or she - has appointed. So, question one for those people who insist that now is time to change manager: what gives you unshakeable faith that Rodwell will - with his next appointment - join such a select group?
Promotion-winning Charlton managers are also exceedingly rare. MacFarlane in tier 3. Seed in tier 3 and 2. Nelson and Bailey in tier 3. Lawrence and Curbishley in tier 2. Powell and ten appointments later, Bowyer, in tier 3. So, question two for those people who insist that now is the time to change manager: what gives you the unshakeable faith that Charlton is such an attractive, stable place for a successful manager to be the twelfth (temporary or permanent) manager since way back in 2021?
It's not easy getting promoted. It's even harder getting promoted immediately. Presumably those that are arguing that the result of yet another managerial change will bring immediate success. So, how often has that happened? About once every fifty years. In short, it occurred in the twentieth century as often as a world war. So, question three for those people who insist that now is the time to change manager: what gives you the unshakeable faith that the fluke of Alex MacFarlane's and Mike Bailey's appointments will be replicated in the coming weeks?
Successful Charlton managers success when they are given - among other things - time. List the greatest managers Charlton have ever had. And then think about how long it took them to achieve their first success. As @Stig pointed out on another thread, it took Jimmy Seed 1,081 days to achieve top flight football. Lennie Lawrence did it in 1,258. And Curbishley took 2,497. What success would we have had if they had been sacked in their first, full season? In fact, I will go further, if Jimmy Seed had been subjected to the impatience of Charlton's more recent past, we wouldn't have a Charlton now.
The worst decision Charlton could make right now would be to sack Nathan Jones.
Would love to see those highlighted in the middle table who failed to get a full season in charge.
You'd have to go back to the last highlighted name in Red to find someone.
Nearly EVERY season, we go into the year with a new Manager (Holden and Adkins are the only two to get Summer Transfer Windows, having had the luxury of evaluating the squad before the previous season had finished) - Meaning that the summers we've gotten round to, the new Manager ends up having a clear out of the players they dont want, bringing in the ones they want.
No stability within the squad... No stability within the Management... How the F**K are we ever getting anywhere upwards with that attitude?
A sign of madness is repeating the same failed approach, and expecting different results each time... and I'm simply amazed we're not getting them.
we have to rebuild the team every year and yet I look at Millwall and they seem to only make a few changes each season and their better players stay way longer than ours.
I reckon I’ve mentioned this ten times on here but 1) no Cnut reads what I write 2) plenty of you have the memory of a goldfish
very early on in Jones’s tenure Alfie spoke to my mate who half knew Alfie from junior footy , he said “Jones doesn’t fancy me and I’ve tried to talk to him about it but he blanks me “ and that he was happy at Charlton Two months later my mate had another convo and Alfie May said “still no discussion , he doesn’t rate me “
Alfie knew the manager was forcing him out and of course financially he’s benefitted but it would never have come to this if the manager had rated him there would be no discussion with other clubs unless he was clearly tapped up .
Mitchell when dropped said to someone Jones didn’t give him a reason , that’s poor management
Jones has all the enthusiasm in the world but he’s crackers imo and has limited man management ability . I’ll say it now he won’t get us promoted . We all want him to but it’s not happening imo
Football is not the game it was years back when everyone was playing on the same level playing field .
I’d rather roll the dice and give someone else a go if there’s no real improvement up to Christmas. Jones deserves to be given at least that and realistically probably the end of the season if it doesn’t get to out of hand .
I like Jones, but I 100% agree with this.
His enthusiasm is great & infectious, but his man management appears to be very poor
I really can’t get behind any calls to sack another manager when he stopped the bleeding post Holden & Appleton.
If this losing run continues much longer maybe there’s a conversation to have approaching Christmas.
We were 3-0 down to the team with the worst Xg/Xa.
They had crap stats tonight as well, it’s not as if they created much and deserved to have scored three times.
It’s a “when it rains it pours” situation right now. We could with a team not putting two in the top corner from outside the area when we’re trying to break a losing run.
That was only the fourth time this L1 season where a team has managed to score twice from outside the area. There’s been 102 matches played. 1 in 25.5. Once every couple of weeks it happens. It happened tonight.
We have problems AND we were very unlucky at the same time to make for an especially shit evening all around.
But that's because we gave then acres of space on the edge of the box. These weren't 30-yard worldies, they were simply well placed shots from the edge of the box under no pressure. That's calamitous defending, and the hard-to-breakdown, no easy goals thing that Jones had going (and was his only real selling point this season) us clearly gone.
Berry was about as tight as you’d ask a midfielder to be on the edge of the box. Sinclair got the shot off and went top corner anyway.
Anderson was a marginally out of position but threw his body at the shot to get in the way. Lindsay’s shot went in the top corner anyway.
Everyone is talking as if we rolled out the red carpet for them on both occasions. We didn’t do anything close to that and sometimes the shot just flies in the net anyway despite your best effort.
Our closing down certainly wasn’t any worse than you’ll see from Bristol Rovers or other sides at our level.
Nonsense. Many/most teams block shots like "their lives depend on it". Neither Berry nor Anderson did their utmost to stop the shots.
Berry was tight to his man - it would have been nice to see him be more aggressive in that moment and snapping at heels but he’s an attack minded player that hasn’t been picked for his tackling so I’m hardly surprised that that’s how it played out.
Anderson literally threw his whole body at the shot, he just didn’t get anything on it because his starting position was poor.
Coventry had a shot last night from outside the area that hardly any Bristol Rovers players bothered to block, yet their shots flew into the net and his was tipped over. 🤷♂️
Exactly, Berry was reasonably tight to the scorer but made a half hearted attempt to block. He certainly didn't "throw" his body in the way and if he had of done the shot would have been blocked.
Yes I also agree that Anderson did throw his body at the shot but as you say he was too far away to block the shot.
Both shots could and should have been blocked if the defending was better.
We’re a League One side, it’s not going to be perfect every time. Usually you can get away with not being perfect because the oppo are also a League One side who aren’t perfect.
We should strive to be better - this isn’t me throwing my hands up and saying it doesn’t matter. Even if we start winning games 3-0 every week, training should be working towards how do we start winning 4-0 every week.
Instead, this is me saying shit happens in football and the result of midweek’s game alone isn’t a big enough reason, for me, to start calling for the manager’s head.
But the criticism isn't (just) about last result. It's about that performance and several leading up to it. Jones team and tactics were set up for a solid defence and an energetic press, what we've got is an open invitation to have a crack from distance and a press that couldn't crush a grape. Its tedious but effective when it works, but it's quite manifestly NOT working.
I don't want perfect every time. I would quite like "not embarrassingly bad every time" though.
Read all the key takeouts from his press conference and, well, there was nothing there that made me feel any more confident unfortunately. Its a trite phrase but he sounds like he’s lost the plot. I get that we fans see the game through a narrow and largely uninformed prism, but when you get to a point where nearly all the fanbase is united about the main issue - we hardly create any chances, even in games we won- and the manager doesnt even remotely refer to it, thats a bad sign. I think if a reporter asked him “in retrospect was it a mistake not to keep Alfie May? “ he’d go into full meltdown.
Comments
Totally agree with the tinkering part.
In those first 6 games Charlton conceded 3 goals with 4 clean sheets.
Any more on that?
I'm not sure Jones would have gone back to Potts, Campbell, Hylton etc, or signed Godden for example if he was gone a bigger budget to go after targets.
Maybe I'm wrong.
The club said similar in the infamous 8-8-8 presentation.
Not sure who the top three are but would assume Brum are one, maybe two from Hudds, Wrexham, Bolton, Rotherham are the others.
As it has been for years it's not that we don't spend but that we spend badly, randomly and are often still paying wages for players bought by the previous manager, the previous previous manager or even the previous previous previous manager.
Our overheads are often higher because of the size of the Valley and that we don't own it while our commercial income is also relatively low for various reason including being in London, having outsourced hospitality and general poor non-football management down the years.
Methven et al have spoken about improving all of this but we still have a bigger playing budget than most and should, based on purely on budget, be in the top six.
So yes, how the club is run by the owners and snr management is part of our failure albeit the current lot have only recently arrived in business terms.
But the director of Football and the Men's 1st team manager are the key management roles in on-field success and bottom line is football clubs have one key performance indicator, winning football games and trophies/promotions.
We should strive to be better - this isn’t me throwing my hands up and saying it doesn’t matter. Even if we start winning games 3-0 every week, training should be working towards how do we start winning 4-0 every week.
We're in bad form and looking shite because over the last few games we've dropped a performing CB unexpectedly and play a revolving strike force and a lack luster midfield, Karoy Anderson being asked to charge around a pitch for 85 mins chasing the ball isnt because Charlie Methven wears pink trousers. And I doubt signing a bunch of Jones' old favs is because we had little to no budget, especially when Berry came straight from making prem appearances and Potts' delayed signing was rumored to be around his wanted wage demands.
We are where we are for the time being down to Nathan Jones' choices and tactics.
Can't locate the comment.
His enthusiasm is great & infectious, but his man management appears to be very poor
I don't want perfect every time. I would quite like "not embarrassingly bad every time" though.
I assume NJ admitting he got selection wrong will mean those dropped will come back in. What is the next excuse?
Leaburn i'd like to start as well but it's probably more likely they don't risk him starting until after the international break.