Bournemouth blueprint

I don’t begrudge Bournemouth their time in the sun. They are due some success after decades of struggle.
We know that their Russian owner is prepared to put in more money than our owner but there are other aspects to bournemouth’s success which really aren’t that difficult to copy. Their team is full of talented British players plucked mostly inexpensively from the lower leagues, Matt Ritchie , Harry Arter, Simon Francis, Mark Pugh , Tommy Elphick, Callum Wilson , Charlie Daniels, Andrew Surman, Steve Cook, Brett Pitman and a few others not to mention the odd highly talented and very championship experienced Breton.
Their management team of Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall are lower league experienced British managers.
The team has been built steadily over a 2 to 5 year period so that players are familiar with each other and understand the system. (Under our current ownership philosophy can you imagine any of our current team still playing for charlton in 3 years time , even the young ones ?)

Tactically they are very good but essentially it’s not that complicated , they play 2 guys up front, one who is particularly good in the air and one who is a quick proven goal scorer. They play 2 wingers and 1 , sometimes 2 overlapping full backs . They move about a lot and play with a high tempo . It is exciting to watch and they rely on their attack to compensate for lack of numbers at the back.

Finally , you feel like they care , they are part of the club building something together, they are on a journey as a team, taking the fans and the town with them.

They don’t look like short term mercenaries like Watford and you know who.
Shame the Russian preferred the Seaside to Greenwich park.
We ended up with a Belgian with less money and a lot less common sense.

Scouting with Phil

Sparrows lane ; January window ,scouts meeting
Phil ” so I’ve got a few on my target list – there’s a young energetic goal scoring midfielder from Pompey , a tough quick centre half from Plymouth and a strong brilliant in the air forward from Milton Keynes ”
Guy ” sounds great Phil , just a couple of questions .
Are any of them Belgian ? Have they ever played in Belgium ? Do they have any Belgian family ? Do they know any Belgian songs for the pre season tour. Have they ever been to Belgium on holiday ?
Phil; well boss I haven’t checked any of that but they are excellent young footballers and available at sensible prices.
Guy; “I think you’ve rather missed the point Phil .
How about you karel ”
Karel; “well boss I’ve got a few absolute corkers for you.
Firstly a bloke who played for Belgium in the 1966 World Cup. He says he’s still got electric pace least I think that’s what he said , it could have been pacemaker.
Then I’ve managed to persuade the legendary Eddie Merckx out of retirement , you don’t win 4 Tour de Frances without a good engine and a deep knowledge of performance enhancing drugs and finally and this is a real coup I’ve managed to recruit the brilliant Belgian international eden hazard’s older brother , rolandsa”
Guy ; there you are Phil , now that’s what I call proper scouting.
Phil leaves shaking his head and clutching his copy of “Tintin and the case of the disappearing English scout ”

Roland duchatelet doesn’t like English people

Yes, yes I know it’s an international game these days
BUT
Well first of all ,he couldn’t care less about the fans of charlton athletic ,who are nearly all English.

Since he has been the owner, despite a high turnover of playing staff, he hasn’t signed a single English player.
He sacked our English manager and his English assistant and has now hired 3 managers and their assistants, none of whom were English.He has also installed a non English CEO with no experience of football or sports franchises or indeed of being a CEO.
He has sent us quite a lot of non English players who are useless, bulot,thuram, Polish Pete, nego , reza, koc to name just a few.
No smiths,browns, armstrongs, arkwrights, sidebottoms or indeed morrisons to be seen.
There are 54 million of us , that’s 5 times as many as Belgium.
Surely someone out there is suitable for a senior role at the club

Does he realise that we play in the English championship and there are many excellent , experienced, successful and talented English chief executives ,football managers and football players ?
Can we have , even just a few , please

Its not rocket science

It really isn’t that complicated , the prinicipal problem is that we don’t have enough Championship quality players.
The problem is compounded because most of our key foreign imports /new players haven’t played this many games in a season ever before .As a matter of interest if you look at the playing records of Ben Haim , Bikey, JBG, Vitokele, Buyens , most of them haven’t played more than 30 club games in one season for either a long time or ever. We are only half way through a season and they are virtually all reaching a record number of appearances.
You might say they get paid £10k a week and they are young and fit , so who cares , but it is evident from watching them that they are mentally tired , which is just as problematic.
As SCP used to say you need 2 experienced players for each position. We haven’t got anywhere near that.

It doesn’t really matter who the manager is . As we all know , Bob Peeters who knew nothing about the league or its players did pretty well with the resources he was given by Doctor Evil. SCP, who is an experienced and successful manager at this level did pretty well whilst the team was being dismantled around him.
This new bloke , Guy Losing might be a great manager , but unless he gets (at least) 3 or 4 experienced, physically tough ( preferably already British based) players , the results will continue to disappoint.
Airy fairy , tippy tappy , non heading ,non tackling, glove wearing, network club, unfit underperformers need not apply .

Maybe what Doctor Evil and Vanessa Kensington really want is a rocket scientist in which case they should have reappointed Dowie.

STOP PRESS : Charlton News- Football Club CEO required

Essential requirements

Person Specification

No prior experience in sports franchise management required
No knowledge of consumer PR or sales and marketing required
No understanding of interaction with stakeholders required
No understanding of international employment legislation ESSENTIAL

Total compliance to owners instructions ( however irrational and nonsensical ) MANDATORY

Applications in writing to Doctor Evil c/o The Poirot suite, The Valley ,Floyd Road SE7.

Unsuccessful Owner appoints unsuccessful Manager

From a shortlist of one, (existing employee , currently working his notice and a lot cheaper) Guy Luzon has been appointed as the new Charlton Manager .
Despite assurances from the CEO that no decisions had been made and that an exhaustive process would be conducted to find the right candidate , the club has indeed confirmed what a random mate of Guy’s in Israel tweeted a week ago which was that he was going to be the next Charlton Manager.

Guy’s extensive cv includes managing a number of poor Israeli teams and losing a Belgian Championship despite having the best team in Belgium at his disposal.
His ‘Coup de grace’ was being so poor at football management that the fans of Standard Liege instituted a riot to engineer his dismissal.

Guy has been given a 2 year contract which is meaningless at Charlton because regardless of finishing position he will be sacked at the end of the season, to be replaced by the current coach of Standard Liege , who himself will be sacked to be replaced by Bob Peeters.

Welcome to Charlton , Guy ………..may the farce be with you.

Bring Back Curbs

Why would we do that ?

1) He saved us from relegation and extinction when we were playing at Upton Park

2) He got us into the Play Offs once

3) He got us into the Play Offs a second time – and got us promoted at the best day of our lives ( sorry Love)

4) He got us promoted as Champions of this Division

5) He built the best team we have ever had with the highest placing , 7th in the Premier League .

6) He’s a bloody fantastic manager    and finally ………………….

He’s available and is prepared to come and we love him

Now why would we do that ?

Ridiculous Charlton

I got a fair bit of stick on here in the summer when I satirised bob peeters new contract as one which guaranteed he would be sacked whatever position we finished in the league. I wasn’t far wrong.
I think in Roland, we landed the Belgian equivalent of Robert Maxwell.
Presumably bob the unknown (but likeable) Belgian will be replaced by xxxxx the unknown Belgian who will be sent a whole host of useless underperforming players from around the lower leagues of continental Europe before being sacked to be replaced by yyyy the unknown Belgian who will be sent a whole host of useless underperforming players….. Second Verse same as the first.

Engine room help needed

Good news that tony watt has finally signed . In addition to scoring multiple hatricks, Lets hope he can head a ball and hold it up to give igor some help and relieve the pressure on the defenders. The beast made his view clear on that one. Surely ,we also need more legs in the middle to have a decent chance of turning it around against Brighton on Saturday. With buyens out and the skipper not looking his usual inspirational self and cousins inexplicably exiled to the wing where he looks completely out of place we are very short of engine room legs. Hopefully the management team are on it. There is some speculation about chalobah from Chelsea who would be welcome.

As an aside, with regard to the debate about zonal marking and our inability to defend set pieces, some of you might remember that not only did Yann win most of the headers up front , but he also used to clear corners and free kicks for fun. Let’s hope our new centre forward, young Tony can use his head defensively too.