And will like every other manager/player in this greedy, money obsessed game leave if a better offer comes along....
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.
There have been plenty of managers who have gone back to their old clubs to a hero's welcome only to come unstuck because they haven't been up to the job. Think Souness at Liverpool, Hoddle or Ardiles at Spurs, Eddie Morrison at Kilmarnock (ybabobmij knows ) pardew at Charlton. It doesn't take the fans long to realise when the game's up. If Chris Powell wasn't a good manager the game would be up for him too.
@ Captain The debate about Powell's merits as a manager is becoming increasingly polarised. I find myself agreeing 100% with Typical's view. When apparently serious people are saying that they are more concerned about seeing one man stay at the club ad infinitum in preference to gaining new investment and security for the club, hero worship has turned into something a little more creepy, IMO. I am in purdah on CP for the next three games now (all of which I plan to go to). He needs 7 points IMO. God knows what the records are that you keep referring to ? We basically bought promotion from the old Div 3 with the Jenkinson money ( a player Parky brought on) @ AHLL Have you been making mischief over on another Charlton site
That would give us 10 points from 8 games, comfortably mid-table. To Sack a manager in this situation would be an unusual way to build a club's future.
I have to side with the Captain and FHB on this one, not that I believe CP is a "legend", since my schoolboy dictionary defines that as a traditional story or a myth, nor do I believe that he deserves support for reasons of diversity since that is inverse racism and to put it politely, patronising of the man. I also cannot support childish short termism of the nature that says "I'll give it the next three games" since that is the sort of tosh that gets clubs into trouble. This is a football club not the sort of overblown pi55ing contest that deluded heads of state enter into over Syria. It is also strikingly reminiscent of some of the statements over Curbishley when he "failed to get us into Europe" or "failed to get us into the top half of the premier league", just dressed up in a different way. CP has a very limited budget and cannot get in some of the players he would have liked to bring in. We still finished in the top half of the championship last season and could still do so this season. The next three games do not define the season any more than one swallow makes a summer. As a manager he has proved his ability already with promotion and the achievement of last season. In neither case did we spend a fortune. He has also demonstrated that he can turn around a season that was going the wrong way by imbuing one of the things that he is personally good at - team spirit. We are entering a tipping point in the financing of championship clubs with FFP, it may be that our owners have chosen to act early on the basis that we will not be in the panic position that the likes of Massive, Watford or QPR could be in with a requirement to pump in equity to reduce the debt liability at the end of the season if they fail to get promotion.. Being sensible we should hold onto whatever stability we have and that includes the manager, not bringing in a Championship Dowie or Pardew who will demand to splash cash and then get us relegated for failing to comply with financial fairplay rules. For information I do not support the FFP rules since they fail to address the iniquity of the inbuilt advantage of the parachute payments to the relegated clubs. They were relegated because they were not good enough for the Premiership and should shed their cost base on relegation and immediately live within the budget of other championship clubs, otherwise there is not an even playing field. A golden handshake for promoted clubs would be far more sense and a contract structure in the leagues which allows for this. In business there are many failed companies out there that have changed for the sake of change rather than play to their strengths. Not recognising the need for change is a failure, making a mistake by changing when it is not needed is frequently terminal.
One of the main worries when he was appointed manager was that he was maybe "too nice a guy" for the job. There was also his non-use of substitutes, and the fact that he was out-manoevred tactically on occasions by other managers. There has also been his defensive substiutions when we've taken the lead, and the way the players have dropped back on these occasions. But....... Too nice? Definitely not. He's been quite ruthless if he sees that a players is not good enough through lack of ability, inconsistency, or not having the right attitude. His use of substitutes has improved a lot, and there was no sign of the dreaded extra CB coming on last saturday. It's not as though there's some mythical Brian Clough type supermanager waiting in the wings to come in and sweep us to success in the Champion's League, Paul Hart? seriously? Chris Powell is a very good manager, and an improving one. Sacking him would damage the club.
I stand by the point there are only a few people who would put the time in that CP has done, and also put up with in recent weeks. He's not a messiah, but he's currently a very good Championship manager who will go on to be a good Premiership manager.
Exactly, FHB. Much as I love my job, if someone comes along and offers me ten grand more for doing the same thing, and chucks in better software too, I'm offski.
I have absolutely no axe to grind here over CP. I think he is a cracking bloke and have no issues with him as Manager, that is until we drop perilously to the relegation zone and I would sack him like a shot. What boils my pee is that cafc fans have gave him a knighthood two games into his becoming Manager. Why? Is is some form of white middle class form of acceptance? Like 'our' frank Bruno or 'Britain's favourite funny man' Lenny Henry? why do we need to do that? it's is patronising to Chris and this was done about 100 years ago in America and everyone saw through it then for what is was, apologetic insincere nonsense. It does not belittle Chris achievements but those of others, Was Alan C given a knighthood no! He didn't even get a thank you just a kick in the nuts from so called fans. Poor Lennie Lawrence is forgotten in history. Why? I don't recall him even being offered a bus pass or even a seat named after him at cafc. This pathetic fawning of CP has to stop, he has to be given a chance to fail or succeed, let him MANAGE but don't get the excuses ready by blaming the board or a lack of investment, you cut your own cloth, if he can't keep us up, then he has to go. If CP left tomorrow I am expecting a flood of tears to engulf Blackheath, a condoloance book on CL and wreath the length of Floyd Road He has to be judged at Xmas not know but like us all he does have to be judged. Fairly.
A lot of people gave Geoffrey Boycott a knighthood, it's just a harmless nickname. Anyway isn't that on another forum? It would make more sense to respond to the points made on this forum.
What points? Chris has hardly achieved the moon landing with a promotion from what was in all honesty a very poor div 1 and he had backing to do it. If Powell is called a Sir by disproportionate amounts of fans there must be a reason behind it? No one has explained that reason or given it validation when put against other more successful CAFC managers. VOL has properly pointed out how creepy it is to want to keep a manager at the expense of investment, which means that the kids in the academy and the fans will suffer for what.? We are told that Chris loves the fans and the club-where is the evidence for that? Does he have a picture of the West Stand massives on his wall? I am tired of this one directional view of this club that the board are all bad and Chris is keeping the ship afloat. My view is like every badge kissing faker that dons a shirt he will play for ever who pays him the most. So pass me the bucket when I hear that he loves the club! Remember Parker? Sir Geoff was nicknamed sir by the ICC when he was the first player to enter the hall of fame- and he hated it, knowing full well that his MBE was all the recognition he would ever get given his gob. So it was ironic rather than endearing. Why no adulation for AC then? who actually did achieve something special?
I think the original delirium (myself included) was mainly down to the previous few years where we had to suufer at the hands of Dowie, Reed and Pardew, and it finally felt like we were turning a corner with a takeover and a club legend returning to manage us. We needed a hero at that point and CP was the man. I'm sure several others would have had the same treatment as CP did.
