Obviously I would love Charlton to win the Championship, then the Premier league then the Champions league. Is that better? Incidentally, FHB jnr reported that the atmosphere was quite flat at the Nou Camp last night, except for a small group of noisy fans.
@lardiman is a good man, and I know where he’s coming from. It’s counter intuitive to limit your ambitions to finishing 21st, but it will always be the case in the Championship under this helmet of an owner. What stuck in the craw - hence posting it on this particular thread - was the likes of Jeddez and Seriously and Mundell claiming that the money released by the Aribo departure had somehow been spent on the squad.
The problem is multiple, but while I agree that staying up is a very limited way of meesuring success, what exactly do you expect with the lowest budget in the Championship - demand promotion? My feeling after ten matches is that what we need, and clearly lack, is a forward going plan. We have a decent manager now, given our history going back to the eighties, that's a fairly unusual event. He has also shown that with his management team, he can find decent players on a shoestring. We should be negotiating a longer term contract now, to plan a longer term plan. While he is being asked to go on a year by year basis, we are missing out on what could be a chance to build. The arguement is that RD wants to sell, and a buyer may have their own man. But any buyer happy enough to pay RD's overpriced fee, and then dislodge a manager who has achieved real success with us in a short time, virtually for free, can afford to pay off Bowyer. Money and sense don't always go together. Then there is Taylor. We have now run into the reality of our front line without Lyle, and it is not pretty. To keep him, we Will need to pay a big weekly wage. But the alternative is we sell him cheaply in january (how much could we realistically get for a 29 year old with six months left on his contract?). We then have a modest sum available to try and find someone cheap who can score in the Championship. There will be a lot of clubs with more money than us doing the same, and we need a lot better quality tan Bonne. Even that guy at Peterborough isn't proven at a higher level, though if we try and buy him he will cost a lot more. It would be cheaper in the long run to give Taylor a big two year contract. I worried earlier that if we break the wage structure with Taylor, others will demand more money. But we Will probably run into that anyway - we Will need to bring in new players as and when, and Championship players Will want something resembling Championship wages. So at the very least, lets get Bowyer tied down, get Lyle signed up for a couple of years, and start aiming higher. In the meantime, with what we have, survival will be an achievement. Dreaming of promotion is free, but the teamsi in this league are fast and talented, and I'm not convinced we have that level in the squad to do more than battle it out.
I didn't say I was happy with it. I am being realistic with the players we have got and the budget we have. To expect these players to push for promotion is barmy. Yes I would like us to win the league, FA Cup. But none of those things are going to happen under Roland. Taking my blinkers off, Swansea were superior to us. Their movement, passing and finishing were on a different level. Some of these Championship teams have spent a fortune. I feel that Fulham will give us a lesson at the weekend. You can't expect Bonne and Leko to turn into Messi and Ronaldo.
@Ken Shabby Many of Bowyer’s signings are “gambles” through necessity. To be fair, in the last 12 months he has got about 95% of them right. I can think of only Josh Parker and now possibly Oztumer & Bonne as duds. Most of his loan signings have been masterstrokes, as have persuading the likes of Ben Amos and Jonny Williams to take substantial pay cuts to sign contracts with us. We have seen in recent weeks at the Valley that Bowyer remains very popular with the supporters of his former clubs, Birmingham and Leeds. The time will come when he will outgrow Charlton, but as he said to Sam Allardyce on TalkSport again this week, he loves Charlton. In an ideal world, this demented freak of an owner will fvck off, and a new owner will give Lee Bowyer the contract and the playing budget that his ability deserves. In the meantime, all the fanbase can do is remain tolerant and patient with him, because we will lose 50% plus of our league games this season.
Bonne isn't a dud. He is a player with a lot to learn who has come straight out of non league football. He is a punt by Gallen and Bowyer. I was actually impressed with him. He won a lot of headers an tried to work the channels.
He’s a dud at this level, because you can see already that he lacks technical ability. Compare him to Ayew & Boraja for Swansea last night. Running around & closing down is great, but he won’t score 5 goals this season. The goal he got v Leeds was a freakish deflection he knew nothing about.
How can you compare Ayew an ex Premiership player to Bonne? The comparison is ridiculous. Bonne has started two games for us and you are calling him a dud. Why don’t you give him a chance.
.I quite like Bonne, especially his enthusiasm, something which should not be dismissed. But not surprisingly he's finding it difficult against Championship defenders, and Swansea's defense was very good, as was Leeds'. In both games we were outplayed in midfield, difficult for any forward, let alone a raw kid from non-league. As Bowyer said when he signed up "One for the future". But with Taylor and Hemed out he's had toplay him.
I said the same about Parker. You xan't ask a player to give any more than their best. Parker did that and it sounds like Bonne is doing the same. Besides he's made a huge jump in level, and his two matches were against teams with Prem aspirations. A baptism of fire. I agree he probably didn't know much about the goal he scored, but it's to early to write off a youngster. Patience. Watch the rocks grow.
The 3 defeats in 4 thread is a cracker on ITTApologist, I can feel another invitation from Ivor looming.
You’ve got an amazing micro climate of extremes on ITTV. 1. Ivor, the trigger happy irrationalist “I won’t criticise Bowyer ...but ......” 2. The wringing wet apologists ....even Uber Belgian Bum Licker Bert Jeddez admits today the squad is too small.
Why do you keep on criticising ITTV, is it because you were both kicked off there and you are feeling bitter? Everybody is entitled to an opinion, opinions are like arse holes everybody has one. They are entitled to air their opinions without being called an apologist, or other name calling. Christ how old are you? It is like being back at School.
You didn’t say that when the Mod on ITTV made obscene allegations about you ? In fact, I remember everyone on here supporting you at the time.
Dick has a point, though. This forum appears to be obsessed with ITTV, when in fact it's only two posters who are. In your line of work you must be constantly hearing opinions you disagree with, and as you know, personal attacks are counterproductive.
