Prediction League No bottle

This stage of the season...high pressure games where careers & promotions are actually at stake ...aren’t these the sort of games players should thrive on ??

It seems that after ridding ourselves of the handbrake that was Gobbo. our players showed their capabilities for 3 games...took a look at the league table ...and collectively sh1t their pants.

Not only are we giving away p1ss poor goals - two howlers by Bauer and one by Pearce in the last 3 games, the work rate, energy & commitment has gone.

Portsmouth Away next Saturday is last chance saloon for all of these players as far as I am concerned. A 20,000 sell out and a raucous atmosphere guaranteed with 2,500 away fans. Winner effectively takes all.

If anyone at the Club seriously thinks (or cares) that fans will advance then £350-500 next season to watch Accrington and Mansfield they are deluded.

There is a shroud of mediocrity around this Club. It’s not just the owner and the CEO and Murray ...these w*nky players get off too lightly.

 

I agree with almost all of what you said there Royston.

Unfortunately now I fear that the Portsmouth game could well be a dead rubber as far as Charlton are concerned instead of a vital must-win. If we are beaten by Shrewsbury Town on Tuesday evening our chances of finishing 6th will be pushed right to the extreme end of mathematical possibility.

Once the possibility becomes mathematical we are relying on very unlikely events like Scunthorpe or Plymouth losing three or four games in a row.
Obviously I hope that we can somehow scrap a win against Shrewsbury, even a totally undeserved one. That will make the Pompey game the huge showdown that it should be.


Despite the poor performance yesterday I am still glad I went to the game.
There is no other way to gain the full experience of the match including all the nuances of the atmosphere (good or bad) except to be there.
The mood of the crowd became frustrated after only twenty minutes or so, and loud early singing faded into quiet punctuated by groans and shouts for the team to get the ball forwards. But there was no political chanting that I could hear.
Muted boos at half time and full time, and of course a collective air of disappointment you could cut with a knife.

I renewed my season ticket before the game.
If that makes me a fool or deluded, then so be it. But speaking only for myself I have decided that I cannot walk away from what is happening at the Valley. Even on woeful days like yesterday I feel less bitter and angry about matters, much better able to understand them, if I have witnessed them for myself rather than reading about them on a forum or seeing a few seconds of 'highlights' on TV.

 

Rather than no bottle, I'd say no team spirit. The players showed that they have bottle in what now looks like a 3-game blip. The change in attitude is unbelievable, and makes me wonder what has been going on behind the scenes. You could write pages about individual failings, but this looked like a team that had lost its collective mojo. The difference in attitude between the teams was shocking and depressing. The fans stood no chance of lifting the team, and efforts to do so became laboured. Whatever is going on at our club is a mystery to us, but does anyone genuinely believe that the owner has one iota of interest in the future well-being of Charlton? What we do know is that the club is an utter shambles, and I believe that in some way it is reflected in what we are seeing on the pitch. A performance like yesterday's would normally be booed, but there didn't seem any point. Our promotion push is dead. There isn't even any fake news about the takeover, and we are left to ponder the possibility of Roland's continued ownership next season. Tough times for Charlton fans.

 

Is it possible that the players have been told that ....

1) BowJackson will not be in charge next season,
2) Few of the current squad will be retained for 2018-19 whatever league we are in,
3) Due to the low value of offers received, the Belgian will still be in charge next season.

The announcement of ST prices for next season last week suggests that someone (who??) has been planning for the 2018-19 season and prudence would suggest that this will be in L1.

I feel sorry for those conned into buying ST's yesterday as I fear they will be served up extremely poor fare next season.

 

So is it a lack of bottle or attitude ? I would say the former. These are the same players that we witnessed rip Northampton up barely 3 weeks ago, playing attacking and free flowing football. Collectively the players now seem to have frozen....they have been in a comfortable "Charlton bubble" of mediocrity for so long, they have forgotten the pressure of playing in matches that actually mean something. I fear for our performance at a packed Fratton Park.

 

I suspect you are going to be one of a very dwindling minority @lardiman , in terms of advancing Duchatelet more money to watch filth. Ask yourself, if RD doesn't sell...do you think Konsa and Fosu will stay for another year of League 1 dross [Kashi definitely won't], and how much will the Virus invest next season?

 

If the Belgian is still in charge for next season... the playing budget will be cut, I am certain of that.

 

Kashi out of contract this summer. Konsa & Fosu this years "Summer Bunce Money" aka Gomez, Pope, Cousins, Lookman etc etc.

Of the loans - da Silva and Amos gone - the other 3 not worth having.

that doesn't leave us with much ?

....apart from all of the proven failures, of course

 

I appreciate your meaning Royston, but for me it is not about money.

Perhaps it was not about money for Duchatelet either at the beginning, but more about trying to impose his political philosophy on the world of football by using some of his vast wealth to buy a number of Clubs across Europe and make them interact and cooperate in a manner not tried before.
An intellectual hobby if you will on an expensive scale, by a successful businessman who probably likes to think of himself as a progressive thinker in political as well as business terms.

If so, then privately he is probably deeply disappointed that his experiment failed. This would explain why he no longer conceals the fact that he has lost all interest in owning football Clubs. As for the money (which is all that matters to him now) I guess he might lower the price eventually, though I suspect his losses at Charlton do serve some kind of obscure tax purpose when related to the rest of his business empire.

But I'm speculating here about something that is not important to me anymore.
I did say in another thread to DickPlumb that if I had nothing new or positive to say about RD then I would say nothing. This is probably the last time I will mention him at any length.

I have bought a season ticket for my own convenience really, as it makes going to see Charlton playing at the Valley a simple matter.
Granted I could buy tickets on a match-by-match basis and perhaps that would mean some of my money would go to the new owners after a future take-over. But as I've said already, where my modest amount of ST money goes does not really matter to me anymore.
Being there at our home games is all I care about now. To share the experiences, both good and bad.

 

The Australians have officially been linked to Charlton for a year now. Its hard to escape the feeling that something is majorly amiss, and they don't have the funds. The prospect of the Virus infecting Charlton next season must be at least 50%.

 

I would estimate that the chances of a takeover happening before next season are down to 20 to 30%.... next season's budget at Charlton will be heavily reduced.

 

Trouble is fans got carried away because of a new Charlton man at the helm, a few wins, and the brief play-off spot appearance....The reality is nothing has changed.

We still have too many players that we can't call our own.
We still have poor player options, due to signing crocks and the owners love for thin squads.
We still have players (even one is too many) that wouldn't be here if they could pass a fitness test.
We still have too many overrated players.

Worse of all we still have Roland Duchatelet, and whilst that remains the case nothing's truly going to improve.

Let's see where we are when we're building success from solid foundations.

It's been a long wait already...

 

The surge in hope from fans after the useless Gobbo went was understandable- it briefly looked as if Lee Bowyer had the answers. RD still remains the black cloud over the club, but many of these players are very well paid by League 1 standards and could be doing a lot, lot better.

A good example of the player’s mindset came in Forster-Caskey’s “plea” in the Newshopper on Friday for the fans to get behind the players ....a complete and utter red herring. The fans have been superb since Gobbo left. We have a squad of players that goes out of its way to look for excuses why they can’t perform ...I would imagine it was drummed into them by Gobbo, who never stopped banging on about the Club/owner politics.

 

Ultimately success starts from the top...The rest is just filler.

 

In football, as in any walk of life. We now have a club with a culture of dishonesty, right from the top. TBF, that predates Roland, the previous owners were maybe even more devious. The only common factor is Richard Murray, who set down the marker when he replaced one of football's honest men with a proven liar, for his own ulterior motives. Mind you, serial liars are doing quite well these days (Trump, Putin, Boris, Kim-Jong for example).

 

It certainly does predate RD...With his money he had the opportunity to do something positive, but sadly all he did was amplify the disastrous feeder Club policy.

Look at Southampton they've been operating a high class player farm, and they got away with it longer than most, but the consequences are about to hit home.

#Failure

 

You accidently forgot to include Corbyn in that list Billy... I'm sure his name just slipped your mind mate

 

I knew someone else would

 

I’ve witnessed 2 shameful performances this weekend -

Charlton vs Scunthorpe
Corbyn on the Marr Show

The man is a national embarrassment- he still wouldn’t bring himself to say his hero Putin was behind the Salisbury attack.

 

I think lying is a requirement for working as a MP