Robinson quits- joins Oxford

He'll do it himself.

 

Article from Rick Everitt.

Not so long ago, Charlton Athletic were a respected Premier League club. Now they are languishing in League One with no sign of a change in fortunes. Voice Of The Valley fanzine editor, Rick Everitt, has written exclusively for talkSPORT about their continuing struggles under the ownership of Roland Duchatelet...

Two years ago, the newly formed Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet threatened to make Charlton Athletic “unmanageable" in protest at the antics of the club’s absentee owner.

But now Duchatelet seems to have achieved that feat all by himself.

Karl Robinson has lasted 17 months in the manager’s chair at The Valley, easily the longest of the eight different tenures under the Belgian since 2014. And he may be the first to end his spell in charge voluntarily, after having his resignation refused twice in the last nine days.

What’s weird, not to say unique, about this departure, however, is that the top level of the club now resembles the bridge of the Mary Celeste.

The former Premier League outfit is adrift in the EFL’s third tier with no chairman, no chief executive, no finance director and neither of its two-man board having attended any of the team’s last three League One matches.

Indeed, Duchatelet (pictured below) hasn’t put in an appearance at a match since October 2014, which was five managers ago – or seven, if you count caretaker spells.



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Fellow director Richard Murray, who according to Charlton on December 28th would be “liaising with the senior management team regarding the daily management of the club”, has apparently been “away”. In fairness, there’s not much left to liaise with.

And The Valley is fast emptying in other respects too, with fewer than 6,000 people entering the SE London club’s ground for last Saturday’s goalless draw with Fleetwood Town, its lowest league turnout in a quarter-century, despite an official attendance figure of 9,865.

Either figure looks pitiful against Charlton’s official Championship average of 18,500 in the season before Duchatelet took over. Or the 17,401 in League One in 2011/12. The numbers staying away are a telling commentary on the shambolic way the club has since been run.

Murray was last heard from at the end of February, when he updated fans on takeover talks in an official club statement, promising: “The terms of the deal, including the price, have now been agreed between the parties and we are now just waiting for their respective lawyers to finalise the sale and purchase agreement.

“You can never tell how long lawyers will take but I’ve been informed it should be within the next few weeks.”

That was three weeks ago. Indeed, new owners had been expected throughout February.

But the prospect of an end to the ordeal for Addicks fans was thrown into new doubt by Robinson last Tuesday when he informed the media that he had been told such a deal was “completely up in the air” and “nowhere near” being completed.

It may be, of course, that Robinson had an interest in distracting attention from his team’s performances, which have now yielded just four wins in 19 League One matches since November and seen the Addicks plunge from play-off favourites to rank outsiders.

And it may also be that Murray is no more in touch with Duchatelet’s plans than his former chief executive Katrien Meire, who took a 14-month vow of silence after telling talkSPORT’s Jim White that then boss Russell Slade was “the future” in October 2016, days before Slade was sacked. It wasn’t the first time she had had the carpet pulled from under her feet.

Meire left, abruptly and unlamented, last December. It’s hard to see why Murray clings on.

There will be few tears for Robinson (below), whose tactical inflexibility failed to get the best out of an unbalanced but not untalented squad. A club with Charlton’s resources, even with the millstone of Duchatelet around the manager’s neck, ought still to be able to out-perform three quarters of its rivals in League One.



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Yet in Duchatelet’s absence, with Meire silent and Murray popping up again only lately, the garrulous Liverpudlian at least provided Charlton with a public face. Indeed, he was usually the only person the media could get to speak on its behalf.

Long-serving midfielder Johnnie Jackson is likely to step up as caretaker, which most fans will welcome in the short term. Surely, however, he cannot also be expected to speak for the club as well as oversee the team.

Two parties, believed to be led respectively by Arabs and Australians, are understood to be ready to take control at The Valley, but nobody can confidently predict what Duchatelet will do next or when. Probably not even himself.

in the meantime, the Charlton that fans have known and cherished for decades is disappearing fast. It is a race to get new owners aboard before that club is sunk for good.


Read more at https://talksport.com/football/char...and-manager-who-wants-out#pD3c7Kagf5QVIVql.99

 

I would imagine today has been a day of wrangling. The point is that Robinson is now in such a bad position he can’t face the Press tomorrow

 

@DickPlumb

Fair summation to be fair. The club is in an unholy mess. On Saturday, for the first time since our last season at Upton Park in 91/92, Charlton fans will be outnumbered by away fans at a home game.

 

I’ve banged this drum before - but to bring some context:

Imagine players in January being told new deals are forthcoming, loanees like Amos being told a deal is agreed with Bolton and they start making plans to move to London.. then told for there isn’t a deal and with no explanation. KR is the face, he doesn’t have the answers, so how does he look?

Weak.

Through no fault of his own. It’s easy to look at football at face value, but it’s never that simple and as the game progresses and more people look to get involved, and as they do (it’s an accepting industry if you have value - capital or connection wise) it will downgrade.

Don’t blame an individual for being naive when he worked hard for the commodity that we love. He’ll be blaming his judgement enough as it stands. Blame those around him who mitigated his circumstances. When push comes to shove and it hasn’t worked, we should say “thanks, but no thanks”. We have that right. But he doesn’t deserve to be strung up and hung to dry.

 

Depressingly accurate!!

 

And I can’t be bothered to change my grammar and such. It’s a packed train and I’m pretty certain the guy over my shoulder is reading this

 

It is difficult to believe that Karl Robinson did not know any of that was likely to happen before he accepted the job as Charlton manager.
He was not born yesterday.

Did Katrien Meire pull the wool over his eyes and convince him that all the stories about the RD regime being dishonest to the core were just the sour grapes of a few ex-employees who had whipped up discontent among bigoted fans when there was nothing really wrong?
Did Karl Robinson believe the ITTV propaganda that Charlton Athletic was actually being run in a competent manner, and all the evidence to the contrary was fake news cooked up by a few core actors and vinegar pissers and racists.
Did he really think he could trust Meire and Murray?

Robinson knew the score before he took the job - that disqualifies him from any sympathy as far as I'm concerned.
And if he did not know, he is a naive fool. Stupidity is no more endearing than dishonesty.

 

He should have walked in January. I bet he wishes he had.

 

So do we.

 

He knew a(!) score and took a calculated risk. But an assumption you’ve always made is that money might not be an issue for KR. It is. He’s not a “rich” man, certainly not in the footballing world. He has to work to pay bills. And coming to Charlton is still a pull to “league one” managers.

He rolled the dice and he lost. One thing in football is, players/managers/coaches etc have NOWHERE near the knowledge of die hard fans. I was having dinner on Friday with an old academy player of ours who has gone on to carve a career in the game as a professional at the age of 22, and he had little knowledge to a lot of what I was saying. I used to think that was complacency or ignorance on their behalf, but it’s not. They do live a sheltered life.

Some know on here that I was meeting KM pre Christmas to discuss Ben Amos. We negotiated a fee of ZERO but what we would do is offset his wage difference between what he was owed from Bolton to the wage CAFC was prepared to pay, and give them that sum. It was all agreed.

Then silence. Radio silence. We as an agency firm couldn’t find an answer and we looked stupid. KR didn’t have the answers and he then looks like he’s not in the knowledge of the ship. Sinking and all.

 

And nick knows the player I’m referring too as I showed him a WhatsApp convo between me and him months ago. This isn’t a brag, but it’s trying to bring context.

KR hasn’t worked out. But he isn’t a villain, he worked his arse off, and he was extremely naive. We’ve all been a victim of naivety in a working environment, I’m sure.

 

When do you think he realised he was flogging a dead horse? January?

 

And by no knowledge, I mean from gossip/general in depth of the club we live. They obviously know their salt in regards to tactics/formations etc.

With exception to KR

 

Plymouth will not have more fans than us on Saturday.

 

No idea. I know he was working his arse off to get deals done.

My opinion, I think he was waiting for an offer to arrive before he looked to move. As he should - protect your self interests when your employer isn’t interested. But we were spoilt with curbs and it’s easy to draw on examples like that. But scenarios like curbs rarely exist in football right now. They did with CP, but let’s be honest, how did that go with a percentage of fans towards the end?

 

I cannot comment on his football as seen so little of it.

But.................

1/He should not have opened his beak about Duchatelet and squirrel face being so great
2/He lets his gob run away with him and is a mass of contradictions
3/Discipline with him is woefully lacking
4/He said we were a basket case of a club before he signed, SO HE HAS ONLY HIMSELF TO BLAME.

 

1) you’re right
2) you’re right
3) not true
4) can’t comment on that. I believe he was questioned on that and proof was never given.

 

I couldn't listen to him any more. Literally. He may be a lovely bloke in private, but with a mic under his nose he talks too much rubbish.

 

My summary of KR -

- from what I have learned of him first hand off the pitch. - a decent human being

- as a manager, too rigid & stubborn and until that changes he won’t go beyond L1 in the game

- needs an older, wiser head in the game to take him aside and tell him to cut out 80% of the guff he spouts.