It's nearly a week now since Charlton announced that Bob Peeters is the new Head Coach. I'm trying to keep an open mind about the appointment. As others have pointed out, many of us, me included, got Jose Riga all wrong when he was appointed and he surprised us with his commitment, attitude and ability. Maybe Peeters will be good for the club. Let's hope so.
But what's odd is that there hasn't been a peep out of Peeters since then. Not even the obligatory few words, however insincere and platitudinous, about his excitement at the new challenges and opportunities facing him. Nothing about the kind of football he wants his team to play, or his ambition for what the club can achieve next season. Not even an automated phone call urging me to renew my season ticket.
A lot of people have legitimate doubts about this appointment: his record as a manager isn't brilliant (though you could have said that about the previous two postholders), and we know very little about him. The underlying fear is that he'll have more loyalty to the Duchatelet network than to Charlton. His silence isn't doing anything to assuage those doubts.
It's worrying that the owner of the club can't see this, or doesn't think it matters. As Matt Wright wrote in Voice of the Valley last week, Duchatelet had the easiest job in the world to win the Charlton fans' affection, simply by not being Slater-Jimenez. Investment in the pitch and training ground are obviously good things. Maybe we should accept that he has good intentions. But he's making it very difficult. Actions don't always speak louder than words.
Update 4 June
Within hours of my posting this, Charlton announced that an interview with Peeters would be posted on the official site at 8pm. I'm perfectly used to my views being proved wrong, but not usually as quickly as this. The interview is here, so make up your own mind.
03 June 2014
27 May 2014
Dyer speaks
The South London Press today has an interview with Alex Dyer. It's not online, and for copyright reasons I can't just scan it in, but here are some of the highlights, if that's what you want to call them. If you're in South London, buy the paper. It's only 50p.
First, Dyer confirms that CP had no control over the signings brought in, and seems to have argued specifically that there was no need for Loic Nego. Sometimes the signings were played, "because the owner wants to have a look at them" but "In the end Chris went 'I'm not playing them' ... the owner was always on him, sending him emails and phoning him up... Then it was 'you should be playing him'. We said no."
Dyer also says he believes Riga didn't get the long term job was because he also didn't play any of the imports other than Reza and Astrit.
He describes Duchatelet's methods of tracking players: "He has three or four scouts who just sit at computers and watch WyScout or tapes. One might go and watch players. They just do it in front of a screen and they look at stats. [This means] you can't see the true picture. You can't see how someone reacts in training of what they'd be like around the boys." Once some players find they're not playing "they kick up a fuss or they don't want to train. You wouldn't know half the things that have gone on with players who don't want to play because they are not in the squad or team and want to go home". I think we have a good idea who he's talking about there.
The general impression is that the club was a chaotic mess after Duchatelet took over. Clearly, Powell resisted a lot of pressure from the owner, and we have to assume that Riga did so too. Duchatelet's desire was for his loaned players to be playing, regardless of their suitability. This doesn't do anything to overcome my fear that his priority is not Charlton's success. And his methods are the opposite of Chris Powell's. Instead of selecting a squad that has guts and heart and can fit together, he will build assemble a random collection of players, and expect his coach to get them to work as a team, without any input into the selection.
There's also an interview with Ben Hamer. In it, he says that he tried to open negotiations over a new contract in December, but nothing happened until after the last game of the season. In the meantime, unsure of his future, he'd explored other options. Leicester offered him a four year contract, Charlton just two years. He doesn't say so, but we can assume Leicester offered more money, too. As he says, it was a no-brainer.
If his experience is typical, it's likely that most player contract talks didn't start until after the end of the season, and so there must be other players who've talked to other clubs in the meantime. It's not certain, of course, that Charlton and Hamer could have reached agreement in January, but it seems clear that the delay played a part in his decision to leave, and meant that he's gone as a free agent, for nothing. Let's just hope this doesn't happen with any others.
From my previous posts, you'll realise none of this really surprises me, but it's depressing to have all my worst fears confirmed.
First, Dyer confirms that CP had no control over the signings brought in, and seems to have argued specifically that there was no need for Loic Nego. Sometimes the signings were played, "because the owner wants to have a look at them" but "In the end Chris went 'I'm not playing them' ... the owner was always on him, sending him emails and phoning him up... Then it was 'you should be playing him'. We said no."
Dyer also says he believes Riga didn't get the long term job was because he also didn't play any of the imports other than Reza and Astrit.
He describes Duchatelet's methods of tracking players: "He has three or four scouts who just sit at computers and watch WyScout or tapes. One might go and watch players. They just do it in front of a screen and they look at stats. [This means] you can't see the true picture. You can't see how someone reacts in training of what they'd be like around the boys." Once some players find they're not playing "they kick up a fuss or they don't want to train. You wouldn't know half the things that have gone on with players who don't want to play because they are not in the squad or team and want to go home". I think we have a good idea who he's talking about there.
The general impression is that the club was a chaotic mess after Duchatelet took over. Clearly, Powell resisted a lot of pressure from the owner, and we have to assume that Riga did so too. Duchatelet's desire was for his loaned players to be playing, regardless of their suitability. This doesn't do anything to overcome my fear that his priority is not Charlton's success. And his methods are the opposite of Chris Powell's. Instead of selecting a squad that has guts and heart and can fit together, he will build assemble a random collection of players, and expect his coach to get them to work as a team, without any input into the selection.
There's also an interview with Ben Hamer. In it, he says that he tried to open negotiations over a new contract in December, but nothing happened until after the last game of the season. In the meantime, unsure of his future, he'd explored other options. Leicester offered him a four year contract, Charlton just two years. He doesn't say so, but we can assume Leicester offered more money, too. As he says, it was a no-brainer.
If his experience is typical, it's likely that most player contract talks didn't start until after the end of the season, and so there must be other players who've talked to other clubs in the meantime. It's not certain, of course, that Charlton and Hamer could have reached agreement in January, but it seems clear that the delay played a part in his decision to leave, and meant that he's gone as a free agent, for nothing. Let's just hope this doesn't happen with any others.
From my previous posts, you'll realise none of this really surprises me, but it's depressing to have all my worst fears confirmed.
21 May 2014
Apocalypse tomorrow
What a confusing day it's been for us valleyologists. Today, we have mostly been relying on the Belgian press, who seem to have more interest in little old Charlton than the British press do. Personally I've been relying on the francophone Belgian press, my flemish being limited to beer label language.
They all seem pretty sure that Bob Peeters is set to be appointed Charlton's manager.
Here's what dh.be had to say:
Or, in English (I'm unsure about some idioms, but the gist is OK):
Well, we'll soon find out.
I suppose the central question is this: if Duchâtelet's aim in appointing Riga was to keep Charlton up, why let him go after he did just that? I can't find an answer that both makes sense and makes me happy.
Everyone assumed Riga had been appointed as Duchâtelet's yes-man. Maybe, but he doesn't seem to have acted like one. He ended up using the loan players even less than Chris Powell had. Pragmatically, Duchâtelet had no choice but to let him get on with it, even if he hated it.
My best guess is that Riga had, in old-fashioned and possibly offensive language, gone native. He fell under Charlton's spell, and committed everything to the team's survival, including, it now seems, his own job. We could sense this, watching the team. It's why the initial mistrust turned so quickly into real affection. He was no longer Duchâtelet's man. The only conclusion I can come to is that Duchâtelet won't tolerate this sort of divided loyalty.
Sooner or later, someone would have to come up the river and take out the renegade.This is the end, beautiful friend.
They all seem pretty sure that Bob Peeters is set to be appointed Charlton's manager.
Here's what dh.be had to say:
José Riga, qui a réussi à maintenir Charlton, est pourtant remplacé du jour au lendemain par... Bob Peeters !
Mercredi soir, José Riga avait encore eu Roland Duchâtelet au bout du fil, ce dernier estimant vouloir s’accorder un petit temps de réflexion avant de prendre sa décision. C’est dire si celui qui a sorti Charlton du pétrin en le maintenant en Premiership à la satisfaction générale est tombé en bas de sa chaise ce jeudi matin en apprenant la nomination de Bob Peeters à la tête des « Addicks. »
« Quand bien même aucune clause de prolongation n’avait été prévue lors de la signature du contrat me liant au club londonien, ce que j’avais accepté bien volontiers, je n’imaginais pas un seul instant que cela s’arrête de cette manière, aussi brutalement. Sans forfanterie de ma part, supporters y compris, on avait été très satisfaits de la bonne tournure des événements et du travail que j’avais pu accomplir dans une compétition que j’ai eu beaucoup de plaisir à découvrir. Maintenant, à savoir pour quelle raison je n’ai plus voix au chapitre, cela reste un mystère total à mes yeux. »
Or, in English (I'm unsure about some idioms, but the gist is OK):
José Riga, who kept Charlton up, is however replaced overnight by ... Bob Peeters! On Wednesday [sic] evening, Riga had still had Roland Duchâtelet on the end of the wire, the latter reckoning to give himself some time for thought before making his decision. That is, whether the one who had got Charlton out of the mess and in the Premiership [sic] to general satisfaction has fallen out of his chair this Thursday [sic] morning when he learnt Bob Peeters has been named as the Addicks' boss.Reader, do you spot the mistakes? It reads as if the story should appear tomorrow (Thursday). As if Riga has advance-released his response to a club statement that will only be made public tomorrow.
"Although there was no extension clause when I first signed the contract - which I freely accepted - I never for a moment thought it would end this way, so brutally. Without boasting, I thought everyone, including fans, was very happy with the way things turned out in a competition that I had a lot of pleasure in discovering. Now, knowing that for some reason I no longer have a role to play is a total mystery to me."
Well, we'll soon find out.
I suppose the central question is this: if Duchâtelet's aim in appointing Riga was to keep Charlton up, why let him go after he did just that? I can't find an answer that both makes sense and makes me happy.
Everyone assumed Riga had been appointed as Duchâtelet's yes-man. Maybe, but he doesn't seem to have acted like one. He ended up using the loan players even less than Chris Powell had. Pragmatically, Duchâtelet had no choice but to let him get on with it, even if he hated it.
My best guess is that Riga had, in old-fashioned and possibly offensive language, gone native. He fell under Charlton's spell, and committed everything to the team's survival, including, it now seems, his own job. We could sense this, watching the team. It's why the initial mistrust turned so quickly into real affection. He was no longer Duchâtelet's man. The only conclusion I can come to is that Duchâtelet won't tolerate this sort of divided loyalty.
Sooner or later, someone would have to come up the river and take out the renegade.This is the end, beautiful friend.
30 April 2014
Charlton 3 Watford 1
Thank goodness that's over! The season, I mean. The game was terrific entertainment and for once I could have watched more. Watford were surprisingly competitive (by which I mean violent) given their league position, but Charlton finally put together a decent, full-length performance and thoroughly deserved the win.
It was especially good to see Callum Harriot get two goals. He's been so unfairly scapegoated this season by some individuals that you sometimes had to wonder if it would affect his confidence. But he doesn't seem to lack that commodity at all (by which I mean he's cocky) and he got a standing ovation when he was taken off with about five minutes to go - presumably the substitution was made precisely so that he got that ovation.
And once again Johnnie Jackson scored a vital goal at exactly the right time. Watford's equaliser - a rather lovely goal itself - might have a trigger for the kind of collapse we've often seen, but Jackson seemed to use sheer willpower to get the ball across the line.
After the game Jose Riga probably won over any doubters with a simple and moving speech, while Jackson embedded himself deeper into Charlton folklore with his few words. He specifically thanked the crowd for not getting on the team's back during bad performances. And it's true that the support has been exceptional even during the worst times. There has been a real connection between the fans and the team. Comparing this to the Pardew times, it's been clear this season that, to use a tarnished phrase, we're all in this together.
The past is awful, the future is doubtful, but last night was a time to live in the beautiful, glorious present.
It was especially good to see Callum Harriot get two goals. He's been so unfairly scapegoated this season by some individuals that you sometimes had to wonder if it would affect his confidence. But he doesn't seem to lack that commodity at all (by which I mean he's cocky) and he got a standing ovation when he was taken off with about five minutes to go - presumably the substitution was made precisely so that he got that ovation.
And once again Johnnie Jackson scored a vital goal at exactly the right time. Watford's equaliser - a rather lovely goal itself - might have a trigger for the kind of collapse we've often seen, but Jackson seemed to use sheer willpower to get the ball across the line.
After the game Jose Riga probably won over any doubters with a simple and moving speech, while Jackson embedded himself deeper into Charlton folklore with his few words. He specifically thanked the crowd for not getting on the team's back during bad performances. And it's true that the support has been exceptional even during the worst times. There has been a real connection between the fans and the team. Comparing this to the Pardew times, it's been clear this season that, to use a tarnished phrase, we're all in this together.
The past is awful, the future is doubtful, but last night was a time to live in the beautiful, glorious present.
27 April 2014
Charlton 1 Blackburn 3
For a while there, I felt I might have over-reacted. The unlikely recovery and win at Hillsborough on Monday, and the news that the club has applied for planning permission to completely renew the pitch, bringing in new-fangled doohickeys like undersoil heating and something called "drainage" (no, me neither) led me to believe that all is not lost. Basically, unless Charlton lose both their remaining games they should be safe, and that'll surely never happen.
But then Chris Powell went on TalkSport, the station that has to shave five times a day, and gave what I think is the fullest account yet of his experience of this season. Clearly, there are still contractual restraints on what he can say about Roland Duchatelet, but what he could say - and what he didn't - told a fascinating, angrifying story.
If you reassemble his comments into chronological order, it's like a descent into hell from the paradise of just two years ago. The first season in the Cham astonished everyone. Finishing ninth, Powell saw that this was one of those tides in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to ... a £2 million pound cut in his budget. Powell said he told the owners that with that budget they could expect a bottom-six finish.
So a season of purgatory began. The owners left him alone, with a barely adequate team and a totally inadequate pitch. But at least they left him alone. League results were OK, not great, but Charlton put together a cup run. A cup run! Even Danny Murphy realised how unheard-of that is.
But then January: lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate.
Here's what Powell wanted to say::
Essentially, nothing here contradicted my belief that Duchatelet was set on sacking Powell as soon as he reasonably could. He wanted to toss aside one of the most promising managers in the country, and eventually did.
So, to return to today's match. It was a performance typical of the season: a good commanding start, playing better than the opposition but lacking a finish. Blackburn scored with their first chance. It looked like Hamer should have saved it, and he clearly thought he should. And then the usual descent into incoherence. A missed penalty was at least a new way of avoiding scoring and while Sordell's goal was taken and finished with the air of a man with a point to make, Blackburn always looked like they could score another if they had to.
Thanks to other results, with this defeat Charlton have probably secured their place in the Championship next season. But it felt like we'd been relegated. On the last day of every season television cameras have two favourite subjects: a young supporter, in tears as football teaches him or her how cruel life can be; and an old geezer staring blankly into the middle distance, numb.Yesterday, a week early, that was me.
But then Chris Powell went on TalkSport, the station that has to shave five times a day, and gave what I think is the fullest account yet of his experience of this season. Clearly, there are still contractual restraints on what he can say about Roland Duchatelet, but what he could say - and what he didn't - told a fascinating, angrifying story.
If you reassemble his comments into chronological order, it's like a descent into hell from the paradise of just two years ago. The first season in the Cham astonished everyone. Finishing ninth, Powell saw that this was one of those tides in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to ... a £2 million pound cut in his budget. Powell said he told the owners that with that budget they could expect a bottom-six finish.
So a season of purgatory began. The owners left him alone, with a barely adequate team and a totally inadequate pitch. But at least they left him alone. League results were OK, not great, but Charlton put together a cup run. A cup run! Even Danny Murphy realised how unheard-of that is.
But then January: lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate.
Here's what Powell wanted to say::
But, for legal reasons, he can't say those things. He allowed himself a moment of triumph to comment that Jose Riga isn't playing the Standard players either: "So, I was right". And you could tell that there had been "discussions" about this.[it was t]he slough of unamiable liars, bog of stupidities, malevolent stupidities, and stupidities, the soil living pus, full of vermin, dead maggots begetting live maggots, slum owners, usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authority, pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books, obscuring the texts with philology, hiding them under their persons, the air without refuge of silence, the drift of lice, teething, and above it the mouthing of orators, the arse-belching of preachers. -
Essentially, nothing here contradicted my belief that Duchatelet was set on sacking Powell as soon as he reasonably could. He wanted to toss aside one of the most promising managers in the country, and eventually did.
So, to return to today's match. It was a performance typical of the season: a good commanding start, playing better than the opposition but lacking a finish. Blackburn scored with their first chance. It looked like Hamer should have saved it, and he clearly thought he should. And then the usual descent into incoherence. A missed penalty was at least a new way of avoiding scoring and while Sordell's goal was taken and finished with the air of a man with a point to make, Blackburn always looked like they could score another if they had to.
Thanks to other results, with this defeat Charlton have probably secured their place in the Championship next season. But it felt like we'd been relegated. On the last day of every season television cameras have two favourite subjects: a young supporter, in tears as football teaches him or her how cruel life can be; and an old geezer staring blankly into the middle distance, numb.Yesterday, a week early, that was me.
The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching of preachers. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19839#sthash.rjNaiX6z.dpuf
The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching of preachers. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19839#sthash.rjNaiX6z.dpuf
The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching of preachers. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19839#sthash.rjNaiX6z.dpuf
The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching of preachers. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19839#sthash.rjNaiX6z.dpuf
The slough of unamiable liars,
bog of stupidities,
malevolent stupidities, and stupidities,
the soil living pus, full of vermin,
dead maggots begetting live maggots,
slum owners,
usurers squeezing crab-lice, pandars to authori
pets-de-loup, sitting on piles of stone books,
obscuring the texts with philology,
hiding them under their persons,
the air without refuge of silence,
the drift of lice, teething,
and above it the mouthing of orators,
the arse-belching of preachers. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19839#sthash.rjNaiX6z.dpuf
18 April 2014
Charlton 0 Bolton 0
Lucky old Bolton! Sitting 13th in the table, with no danger of doing anything interesting for the rest of the season, they played well within themselves today, and really that was all they needed to do.
Some sanity had prevailed in Jose Riga's selection, and Morrison was back where he should be. I strongly suspect we could have lost without him. The starting line-up also saw Morgan Fox come in at left-back, and he had a generally excellent game, marred by some wayward crossing and some lapses of concentration towards the end. Diego Poyet added to his repertoire by making a superb acrobatic save off the line. There appears to be no end to his talent.
Otherwise it was what we've seen so often. A basically competent performance, but no real threat. A few chances were weakly finished, but mostly the half-power Bolton had nothing to worry about.
Towards the end, Riga replaced Simon Church with Andy Hughes: the clearest possible indication that he thought a point was enough.
Maybe it is, but if Charlton or our relegation rivals are going to win any games, it will surely be against this kind of dead-season opposition.
Sorry, no jokes or vitriol today. But here's a picture of Johannes Brahms. He spent much of his youth playing the piano and writing music in a house of ill-repute. I don't know what made me think of him.
Some sanity had prevailed in Jose Riga's selection, and Morrison was back where he should be. I strongly suspect we could have lost without him. The starting line-up also saw Morgan Fox come in at left-back, and he had a generally excellent game, marred by some wayward crossing and some lapses of concentration towards the end. Diego Poyet added to his repertoire by making a superb acrobatic save off the line. There appears to be no end to his talent.
Otherwise it was what we've seen so often. A basically competent performance, but no real threat. A few chances were weakly finished, but mostly the half-power Bolton had nothing to worry about.
Towards the end, Riga replaced Simon Church with Andy Hughes: the clearest possible indication that he thought a point was enough.
Maybe it is, but if Charlton or our relegation rivals are going to win any games, it will surely be against this kind of dead-season opposition.
16 April 2014
Charlton 1 Barnsley 2
As this Mariana Trench of a season reached a new low, at last my feelings have #movedon from sadness, but to anger, not acceptance. This time last year we were fancifully imagining a late, improbable and hilariously doomed foray into the playoffs. This year the best we can hope for is a late and improbable escape from relegation. After this result, who do we imagine we can beat in the remaining games? Barnsley were awful, and will be relegated, but they beat us and I'm pretty sure we'll be playing them again next season.
Who's to blame? The players? I'm a firm believer that players basically want to win. They are by nature ultra-competitive - if not, they'd never have made it into the professional game at all. It takes exceptional treatment to beat that out of them, to make them not give a toss about the result. That hasn't happened to Charlton since the great pardewing of 2008.
But there are plenty of ways to make sure the players don't give everything. Leave their contracts unrenewed, maybe. Prove your contempt by offloading three of the best of them. Sack their well-respected manager. Bring in loanees and reserve team players from some other club, saying, in effect that these people could easily do your job.
Of course, when the being known as Duchatelet collects his trophy from the Wreckers Club, he'll pay humble tribute to those who made it all possible: his parents, his creator, his accountant; above all his predecessors who apparently thought that global warming had made drainage a thing of the past, and who cut Chris Powell's already skinflint team budget with the mad-eyed glee of Iain Duncan Smith taking away a disabled child's benefit.
Unsurprisingly, we learned this week that season tickets will remain on sale at the current "bargain" rate until the end of the season. You need to be any kind of cynic to work out what that tells us about the number of renewals so far. You don't need to be Martin Lewis to suppose that the price is hardly going to rise.
So a weak team, a dodgy manager, and even less money. Next season will be such fun.
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