I think he must have meant that it would be up at the end of the season. After all Swindon have paid a n undisclosed fee of £100,000 for him. The bottom line is that Sir Chris clearly didn't rate him, so from that perspective his departure made sense. Seems to me that Sir is much happier working with attacking players who are the finished article. I'm probably more concerned about what has happened to Joe Pigott under his guidance, because Joe is that rarity, a natural goalscorer. It seems that Sir, like a lot of fans, is judging Joe solely on the Millwall game. When it comes to defensive players it'a a different story, he knows what he's doing with the youngsters.
I agree sending Smith to one of RD's other clubs looked a good alternative, but he is not good enough for Standard, and maybe Smith prefers to play for Swindon rather than for a small club in Spain or Hungary. Not all youngsters (or older players for that matter) are mature and sophisticated enough to live abroad. When we sent two youngsters to Inter Milan for a year, they left us equally rated, but Michael Turner loved the life there and improved his game while the other was homesick and failed. Who was he? I cannot remember.
The whole thing stinks of weak management or arm twisting. Take away Kermo and we have a front pair as unimpressive as Keira Knightly's tits. We need another striker by Friday or we are in trouble. I think Chris panicked at a decision that was forced upon him, and it may be a howler. Piggy may be paying for Millwall but what did Smith do wrong? This sale could have waited until a replacement or a compromise presented itself.
4 players went to inter and I don't think turner was one? Scott Parker, konch and izzet were 3. I seem to remember the 4th being an attacker but I'm not 100% on that. Edit Sorry Eddie - turner was one
Yeah Turner was one. I read a daily mail article about him. He did go to Inter. His brother was a royal marine and is by all accounts one hard bugger. I thought Sankofa was the other. I'm not sure Parker went tho. I thought he was sent to norwich
Yeah he was loaned to Norwich too. Four of them spent a summer there - reading turners story now on the mail. His seemed to be more long term. Good little read actually.
The bottom line surely is that the new owners have not bought us a single new player yet ? Meanwhile, almost unnoticed, we slipped into the Bottom 3 yesterday. It is quite possible that only our decent striker could leave on a free this week, and we replace him with Monsieur Carlos Kickaball from Standard Liege (on loan). I see the Usual Suspects are defending Powell again. People really need to divorce their feelings of middle class guilt and pretentiousness from their objective analysis of his ability as a manager. Being a blind defender of Powell doesn't automatically qualify you for the next meeting of the Guardian Readers Supper Club in your street.
Why do we need to 'defend' our manager after we won the game?! Your repetition of the middle class guilt mantra reveals more about you than us - you have no real arguments why we should get rid of him, so you make something up to discredit those of us who support him. For the last time: we do not support him because he is black, but because he has done a really good job as manager. The colour of his skin has NOTHING to do with it.
@ Captain Congratulations on playing the race card- the traditional smear tactic of the wannabe Citizen Smith / Guardian reading numpty How on earth can you say that Powell has done "a really good job as our manager" when he quite clearly hasn't, as witnessed by relegation in his first season as our manager ("that was Parky's fault" ) ....I hear Captain clearing his throat....followed this season by back in the relegation zone, and whats more playing some of the worst football at home ever seen at Charlton (undeniable). And you call that "doing a really good job" . LOL. One day a book will be written on Charlton fan's real motivations for blindly supporting a manager, come what may. Yours will be the first interview requested,Captain it will set the benchmark.
LOL. When I watch football with my Haitian partner she does not favour one team or the other team. She favours all the black players on both sides against all the non-black players on both sides. According to her, no black player evers commits a foul and every goal scored by a white player is "lucky" or "offside". Of course to wind her up I take the opposing view. Vol would love it in our household. It gets quite heated sometimes. I think another reason I support Powell despite his eccentricities is that I see the chances of our hiring a better manager are extremely slim. If we make a change we could be a lot worse off. Now if RD hired a top manager and gave him a budget to build his own and better team that would be different. But that is very unlikely to happen and would probably fall foul of the fair play regs.
If you're on a wind-up then you've got me. If you're being serious... You played the race card, not me, by referring to middle-class guilt. I said, quite unequivocally, that the colour of his skin has NOTHING to do with it. We weren't relegated in Powell's first season. We went on a really bad run but finished mid-table. You then miss out the best season in our recent history, brought about by Powell, when we broke records left right and centre. He had money to spend, but spent it brilliantly (not always easy; look at Villas Boas for example) and also picked up Yann for nothing. Then, without spending much money, Powell got us 9th in the Championship, outperforming a fair few clubs who had spent a lot more money than us. If you don't think that's a really good job, you know nothing about football. This season has been difficult, given that we haven't had the money to strengthen the squad. That is not Powell's fault. He has made mistakes at various times, yes (what manager hasn't?), and the quality of football has been poor. Given these constraints, I think it's unrealistic to have expected us to be much higher. We don't know how this season will pan out yet, and I think we can pull away from the relegation zone. Even if we don't, let's not forget how we stuck with Curbs even after relegation from the Prem in 1999, and how well that turned out. Oh, and by the way I don't read The Guardian. I read The Times.
two wins in a week and the anti powell brigade still shout. these people will never be happy. we wont get a better manager than him. who in their right mind would want a job for a bottom 3 club? we're only bottom 3 now, because we ran out of money and let so many players go. when the new board have got to grips with the club they'll outline their plans and back the person in charge. we'll move up the table then. we are one point off safety with 2 games in hand.
I see that at Cardiff Solksaer(is that right?) has been allowed funding to bring in 3 new players, whereas McKay was told "Not a penny more". It's not the first time that's happened, and it wouldn't surprise me if something similar happened at Charlton at the end of the season. Maybe Sir Chris should have Kevin Keegan as co-manager. KK could manage the attack and Sir could manage the defense. By the way, is the Guardian off-limits in football? I seem to remember that le Saux's Chelsea team-mates decided he was gay on the basis that he read the Guardian. Possibly real men read the Daily Mail?
So Vol goes quite again after being confronted with un comfortable truths re his Powell out campaign. Vol accept many of us look at the whole picture and believe with what he has had to work with Powell overall has done a pretty good job. If he goes and the finances don't change (we all want to know the answer to that one) then there is no one better, not even you Vol. If the new owners let the money role in for players then there MAY be a better alternative. For your pole I read the Mail, even though I disagree with 98% of its editorials. May Charlton be successful under whoever runs us and I hope the club outlives all of us
