I am totally ambivalent towards CP as a manager. However, i find this mass hysteria over him quite embarrassing and slightly condescending. After a week in the job he was knighted by some of our fans, now in a CL poll, I find that nearly half of cafc fans would rather him keep his job than the club have massive investment. What is all that about? I sometimes wonder if CP rankles at the CaFc fans subconscious and that he has become our own Frank Bruno, we all know deep inside he is pretty ordinary, but we can overlook that, as he is a beacon of our diversity and fair functioning society. Being a nice guy and model professional is not the extreme it is an requirement of a human being.
He does not even support cafc and to say he loves the fans and the club is the sort of stomach turning guff I associate with Justin Bieber. He at the moment is a ripple in the cafc ocean.
A few things I disagree with here.
Of course it's your view, but I don't see how you can only be 'ambivalent' towards CP as manager, given how successful he's been. What more could he realistically have done to go up in your standing?
I don't believe a 'pretty ordinary' manager could have done what CP did over the past couple of seasons. Signing the right players in 2011 (compare them with Alan Pardew's signings for us) and making them a team that looked like it would get promotion pretty much from the opening day against Bournemouth at home. Could a 'pretty ordinary' manager have broken so many records? Then, with little investment, he got us to a very respectable 9th place finish in the Championship, when other more celebrated managers like Mowbray and Dave Jones ended up at the other end of the table, thus proving himself to be a fine coach (as if that were in any doubt, given the boost he has given the likes of Kermorgant and Morrison). If that's you definition of 'pretty ordinary' I'd love to know what you consider to be 'extraordinary'.
'A beacon of diversity' - I have never heard or seen a single Charlton fan (I read CL as well) say that the reason they like CP is because he is black. The media make a lot of the relative lack of black managers in the league, but it is to Charlton fans' credit that we judge him on his achievements rather than because he is 'diverse'.
As for not supporting Charlton - Jamie Carragher grew up an Everton fan, yet no-one would doubt his commitment to and affection for Liverpool. If you watch Powell's interview after we won promotion at Carlisle you can see him welling up. Of course his first love was and is Spurs, but it is clear that, as a result of the time he has spent at Charlton, he has the club close to his heart. Compare this with, say, Neil Warnock at Leeds or George Graham at Spurs and the general lack of joy around the clubs when they were there.
A 'ripple in the cafc ocean'? Really? Scott Sinclair is a ripple in the CAFC ocean. Eggert Jonsson is a ripple in the CAFC ocean. Jesper Blomqvist is a ripple in the CAFC ocean. Chris Powell has had an enormous impact on the recent history of Charlton, and I cannot believe you have diminished his influence like that.