After working for an owner with no ambition at all it must be a great relief to work for an owner who wants to win games.
Hang on... What exactly did you expect him to say? With any managerial position comes the responsibility to toe the party line. Much of this is for reason of internal politics and keeping morale up among the workforce (in this case players/staff). If he had said a year ago (even if he believed it) the Charlton set up is a crock of ****e, RD is a cnut and because he is tight we only have crap players and no future ambition do you think results would have been better or worse? The bloke couldn't win, and just about every other manager would have said exactly the same. You only have to read through the internal bickering among this group and that group among your fanbase to see what the biggest problem is. Too many people with no idea trying to willywave their way into some sort of voice of the masses position. The divisive elements in your fanbase are as much of a problem as owners and managers...
Are you referring to Rick Everitt and the other leaders of CARD? To a limited extent I agree with you. Many Charlton fans who were angry with the RD regime and wanted to protest did not ask for an organisation to be formed to speak for them or tell them when and where and how to protest. I'm not saying RE is a bad guy, just that the way he does things is not the way some other people would do them. But those internal differences between fans of differing opinions have often been blown out of all proportion by acrimonious exchanges on Charlton fans' forums. What we all oppose - the divisive and destructive policies of Duchatelet - unites us much more than our squabbles with each other divide us. A handful of wums and apologists and fruitcakes can seem to speak for many if tiny groups of them back each other up. But they are little more than background noise. Our differences are part of our freedom to think for ourselves. And many of us do love to bicker and wind each other up a bit. But surely no more than fans of any other club.
The internal politics at Charlton are bigger than at any other club from my observations. At times it just reads like sour grapes cos this person or that has gained some sort of profile. You have been shafted and too many are using it for their own agendas. Imo. It’s a great read but ultimately damages the club.
Yes, there are players and people looking to advance themselves and/or their careers. Charlton has been in decline for over a decade now, and there has not been much stability. For the best of reasons or others, there are folk who want a bigger say in efforts to turn around our fortunes. But I don't think that's true of the vast majority of Charlton fans who post their views in forums. Can only speak for myself but I don't want a job at the Club, or VIP treatment, or to suck up to anybody to make me feel more important. All I want is to support my team and know that the owner and staff at my Club are working for a common cause with the fans - the betterment and success of our first team, so we can feel proud of our badge and our name when it is spoken in football circles. This I believe is what every fan wants for his or her team. But it has been denied us for four shameful years by an owner who betrayed his responsibility to be a good steward.
Your are clearly a gent I like reading your stuff. There are some that take more joy from attacking other Charlton fans than anything else. They attack this group or that group and will be gutted if the good times eventually roll. You know who they are.
Richard Cawley article from the SLP: https://www.londonnewsonline.co.uk/...charlton-athletic-had-been-brewing-for-weeks/ Karl Robinson’s departure from Charlton Athletic this week was not a shock – because the signals had been coming out loud and clear for a number of weeks that he was deeply unhappy. And the game-changer came on Tuesday when his two attempts to resign from his position were made public. Initially owner Roland Duchatelet had rejected them, but once they became public knowledge it made the Liverpudlian’s position pretty much untenable. The fact that his desire to leave became public was only a matter of time. Too many people had been told. What’s more, Robinson’s future had become the talk of the dressing room every bit as much as it was on the various messageboards. Action had to be taken, even if Duchatelet’s priority right now is to sell the South London club rather than be dragged into team matters. But it is that lack of focus on the playing side which caused the major fault lines to open up. Robinson felt aggrieved that after helping to clear the playing decks – Jorge Teixeira, Tony Watt, El-Hadji Ba, Cristian Ceballos and Lee Novak – he was unable to spend in January. He felt that the promise of investment if the club was in the promotion shake-up had been reneged upon. Why has he chosen to go now? Charlton’s season is on the verge of implosion. If Robinson had kept them in the top-six despite the never ending injury problems then it would have reflected well on him. But the fact that they are now an outsider to achieve that – and could suffer almost a fatal blow to their hopes against Plymouth on Saturday – does not quite reflect so well. There is a chance, and Lee Bowyer taking caretaker charge with Johnnie Jackson assisting him, does not avert the risk, that the Addicks will continue dropping over the coming weeks and not finish with any improvement from 12 months ago. The Valley would be a pit of vitriol with Robinson still in charge, he has already had a few tasters of that of late. Bowyer and Jackson, both with that affinity to the club, will not get the same kind of rough ride. Robinson is the longest-serving boss that Duchatelet has appointed. But stability and tranquilty have not been words used too often in SE7 since the Belgian bought the club. Charlton do not have a permanent manager, chairman, chief executive or finance director. There will be those Addicks fans who will be delighted to see the back of Robinson. My Twitter timeline would light up with abuse for him when they suffered a setback, which was happening with increasingly regularity in recent weeks. He was clearly stung by criticism of his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. There are those in the playing ranks who privately felt that there should have been a shift to two out-and-out strikers, especially when they had only won four times since November 21. It doesn’t help that Charlton only had one forward until the January return of Nicky Ajose. Josh Magennis has been overworked and looked in urgent need of support but even Ajose, who was a poacher in his successful season at Swindon Town, has been brought on in slightly withdrawn roles. The Addicks looked desperately light up top at the end of the August window. The same applied when the January transfer shutters came down. And yet even then the loans that came in – Stephy Mavididi, Sullay Kaikai and Michal Zyro – were not players renowned for spearheading the attack. Magennis would have been sold in January if Oldham’s asking price for Craig Davies had not been too steep. In the end it all comes down to results. There was nothing wrong with Charlton’s system up until the start of November, but by the end you could moan about the fact that it was a toothless 4-2-3-1 against strugglers like Blackpool and Fleetwood Town. Robinson has improved the quality of the Addicks squad but aside from Tariqe Fosu, not even seen as a starter until Mark Marshall’s injury in pre-season, their best newcomers from the summer have been the loans – Ben Amos, Jay Dasilva and Mavididi. Ben Reeves and Marshall were voted the top players at Milton Keynes and Bradford City last season but would not even make the top six in a poll of Charlton’s fans for the 2017-18 campaign. If the Addicks had only had half of their injuries in the current campaign then would they have made the top six? I’m pretty confident the answer would be yes. Instead things are threatening to unravel. Duchatelet’s Charlton are used to crisis management, but they are unskilled at dealing with it.
I suggest you read back through some of the many threads on here which are all about bitching about others. There are enough to choose from. Don’t shoot the messenger,
