It’s getting worse by the week. 10 points from our last 9 league games. Absolutely bizarre, mentalist team selections. Not learning from glaring mistakes - it’s like the Plymouth game never happened. Are we going to write off this season ? Schwartz won’t make that much of a difference.
Bowyer is probably better at managing better players, like Cullen and Gallagher. Managers stand or fall by recruitment, so Steve Gallen has to produce the goods this month. It's not the manager's fault if a striker takes an air shot form 5 metres, or Pratley gets himself sent off for something stupid. Bowyer wouldn't play players out of position if he had the right players to play in their natural positions, but it is always a calculated risk.
More worrying than Bogle, Watson & Levitt (Bowyer / Gallen signings)? Thomas Sandgaard isn't a enemy of CAFC. He's trying to help.
Regarding playing players out of position - At centre half he has Barker & Oshilaja- but chooses Pratley. At left back he has Maatsen & Purrington - but chooses Matthews. So he does have substantial cover in these positions, but referencing my “mentalist” comment, LB persists with bizarre selections which are clearly not working. Without Maddison or Williams in the midfield, we had nobody to carry the ball 30 yards up the pitch yesterday. You needed the Humber Bridge to link the wide chasm between our midfield and attack. We have to be honest, Bowyer’s team selections and tactics stink at the moment. Perhaps the thing that most alarmed me was his comment post match that we were on top and controlling the game .....Hull should have been 5-0 up on chances created.
Watson came with a good background. Levitt was brought in on a recommendation, I doubt Bowyer or Gallen had even seen him play so that was a gamble. As for Bogie, I know nothing about him.
Watson is 35 - played in the same position as Pratley - who is also 35...we had other players for that position as cover. Levitt seemed to have been taken on the recommendation of Nicky Butt saying he is the best passer at Man United. Perhaps we will get Bruno Fernandes as his replacement then ? Bogle - I posted his career record on here. One good season in ten years as a pro - for Grimsby Town at the bottom level. He has done nothing anywhere else. We can now see why.
To be fair pratley has been good for us and is one of the fittest players we’ve got but it’s been said time and time again Pratley and Watson in the same team doesn’t work
The evidence is that Charlton are not scouting potential signings anything like as thoroughly as we used to. As you point out, it looks as if we took Dylan Levitt on loan based solely on the word of Nicky Butt. This is not a sudden problem. Our scouting has been in decline for a decade or more. But this season we seem to be suffering because of it more than usual. Thomas Sandgaard and his senior managers at CAFC need to address this.
Phil Chapple would recommend a player, but it was Curbs who would watch him several times before making a decision. Now it appears that Gallen is entrusted with the decision. In the pre-match interview he said he was trying to get more pace , youth and enthusiasm into the squad, that's the brief, now it's up to him. Bowyer clearly rates Oshi and Purrington so badly that he thinks playing them is a greater risk than playing Pratley out of position, and Purrington at all. As I read it Maatsen is the only one with pace and energy, so getting him into the engine room was seen as more important than having him at LB. It didn't work yesterday, and if he picks the same players out of position again it will probably have the same result. I think he's overcomplicating his selection, and hope he'll keep things simple next game.
If Duchatelet was not gone, the only person he'd be on the 'phone to would be Richard Murray, asking him to cut the budget by another 10%.
