The knives are once again sharpening and supporters are either experiencing anger rising to unprecedented levels, or even worse, complete non-plussed numbness as the swathe of disappointment doesn't even particularly register anymore.
Once again, a promising start to the season has evapourated at an alarming rate. The first 17 games of the season saw our side average 1.82 points per game. The following 16 games have registered just 1.06 points per game, and that's including the run of four consecutive victories.
And there lies the key fact; The whole story is what we are witnessing is not purely a rookie manager cocking it up. Our downturn started a long while before Chris Powell arrived through the door.
Ahead of Powell's first game in charge, Charlton had recorded just 1 win in 10 games, and that being an arguably fortuitous win against a non-league team in an FA Cup replay.
A huge degree of thanks must be shown to Plymouth Argyle showing up on our door amid administration problems. The combination of them arriving in disarray and a positive backdrop to our new managerial appointment helped stopped the rot, and the spike in confidence from that result went on to give us the extra edge in the following three tight, even games. Thankfully, that run ensured we are not nervously anticipating another relegation battle, as ridiculous as that sounds.
But had there been a fundamental turnaround ? Had there been a marked improvement in performances and belief ? Sadly we all know the answer to that.
Trying to determine what exactly has gone wrong from mid-November to now is not easy as it is not obvious.
Formation
One thing i think is clear, whatever side we put out appears more settled and organised in a flat 442 than in a 433, 4141 or 451. We simply don't have a player with the ability to play the lead role effectively in isolation (particularly with Abbott gone), and we equally don't have the players to support that role who are influential in attack and disciplined defensively.
Players
Confidence is clearly an issue. The wheels began to fall off when both Elliot and Doherty began to lose form and our defence began to look increasingly vulnerable. Francis has simply not been good enough throughout, and we haven’t had a settled left back all season. Combining with an unsettled defence, we’ve been overly exposed and Dailly has finally started to show his age, though still performing better than others.
What worked best was when we had Fry and Jackson providing natural left balance, and Wagstaff on form on the right. It gave us defensive shape and meant we were less exposed at the back as midfield runners weren’t being allowed to roam free and push play so easily into our final third, whilst weary of our two wide players ability to register goals.
Once a side becomes weak defensively, it loses the confidence to try and stretch the game offensively. Injuries are now a key factor, leading to changes being made and players come into a side with no clear, defined structure around them.
Style of Play
It is clear Powell was brought in to improve our style of play and make us more visually attractive. However, getting lower league players to have the confidence to take the extra touch, extra second and belief in their ability to either hold the ball, or seek the ball to feet when pressurised is no easy act; it normally takes the use of a full pre-season to change a style of play.
Against a backdrop of poor form, the impact has seen us losing possession in our own half to a greater degree, increasing crowd frustration and defensive pressure as space is exposed at the turnover stage as players defensive shape has been stretched by trying to find space to be a receiver of a pass, and with less time to recover shape compared to when we lose the ball further up the pitch. Many of the goals conceded in recent weeks have stemmed from given possession away cheaply in the wrong areas.
What Powell needs to do to turn this around ?
Get tough.
Abandon the footballing principles for now and return to basics, setting the team up defensively with the mentality and formation that we will be hard to beat, with a settled formation the players are accustomed to with clearly defined roles. Give us a platform in a game and then become more offensively adventurous as the game progresses. Once the team is more settled and the run of losses have been halted, then is the time you can gradually work on bringing new ideas to the table.
There are simply too many individual areas of the team that need improvement, and with the transfer window closed and marginal loans left available, there cannot be wholesale change.
But two areas of the side need urgent address; A tough, no nonsense centre half is required to give us a platform at the back, while either a play maker in the centre of the park to get the footballing ethos working effectively, or failing that an energetic, yard covering, hounding central midfielder. The spine of the team is not providing enough impact one way or another, get the spine right and it is easier to impose a formation around. This side needs the addition of at least one ‘leader’.
Francis, for whatever reason, just hasn’t worked out. A very game tryer, who never hides, but defensively he is weak and clearly being targeted, while his distribution is increasingly woeful. Even if it is just a chance to try something different, Solly should be given a run, or Jenkinson switched to the right as soon as Bassone regains full fitness.
Whatever happens, there looks like there is going to be a huge turnaround in the close season. A few years ago our season was routinely over in March and the majority of us fully accepted that. Now in League One, people are rightly not so forgiving. If there is huge work to be done in the Summer, there is even more that needs to be done now.
Hopefully the return from injury of a number of players will provide the fresh impetus to have an impact, but things need to change very quickly and we have a lot more chance fighting our way out of it than playing our way out of it.
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Comments
Find it amazing our season has just gone without any sort of fight in a such a short space of time.
We walked away from the win against Peterborough with the tannoy guy saying something special is happening here. 6 games later it's all over.
Sad times, time for the Chairman to share his vision for next season if he wants people to renew season tickets.
But how is going to know if they can do it until they try it in matches? (training and matches are completely different)
Well once we get another 6 or 7 points and have avoided relegation he might have a few games to experiment. On the other hand there might not be many games left.
But in the first four matches when we started playing more football, we won.
Where to from here?
Powell is in charge for the foreseeable future. Let's recognise that. Equally the new owners seem less concerned about promotion being 'imperative' this season - and thank you, New Owners, for that breathing space.
So ... if this season is to be written off, let's make sure that we use it to begin the re-building for next season. We don't have to wait until the summer to get started, although I accept that personnel changes can only really happen then.
Powell needs to decide which of his current squad will form part of next season's squad. If contracts are an issue, get them sorted now, one way or the other. Don't wait until June.
He needs to decide which of the younger players are likely to make the grade. I have hopes for Jenkinson (if someone can beat the rashness out of some of his decision making). I'm not convinced about Solly. I would try to get Fry permanently. I would not bother with Mambo. But it's Powell's call - and it's against decisions like these that he should be judged in the fullness of time.
He needs to decide if we are going to play with two out-and-out wingers like Wagstaff and Reid or if our basic style of play is to be narrower in midfield, hard to beat, maybe hard to watch ... but effective.
He needs to find a significantly better set of forwards. BWP is fine, but needs to be nursed through a full season because of the knee problems. Anyinsah looks good, but seems like he will only play about 15 games per season at best. Not enough sadly. We need better. And I won't even begin with Benson.
He needs to offload Doherty, Fortune ... and probably Francis. And he needs a better keeper. We love Elliott because he is living our dream and, although he has strengths, physically he lets himself down. The nature of his injuries tell you that.
So there's the framework. Much of that cannot be addressed until the summer ... but some of those things can be initiated now. I'd like to see Powell draw up the template for next season even if many of the faces are not known until July/August.
Most would say , in those four games we still didnt look any good!
I'm a Charlton supporter and I want to see us do well so I can't simply "write off" this season with no emotion
Never having played the beautiful game, I am less able to summarize the frailties of the formations we employ on the pitch - thanks for clarifying them and suggesting why they exist.
Dave Rudd's acknowledgement of the new owners should not be ignored. OK - it's tough being a Charlton supporter at the minute but without them we could be another Plymouth....
The nub comes in your peroration: ''Whatever happens, there looks like there is going to be a huge turnaround in the close season.''
What we do between now and then needs to keep that longer-term perspective as well as the short-term objective of giving the supporters something they can enjoy over the final two months of this season and not sliding ignominously into the bottom half of the table.
Obviously, Powell could not be expected to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. As you point out , he inherited a team that had one fortuitous win in its previous ten outings. To use an analogy I used elsewhere, when he arrived we hoped a combination of a better mechanic and plenty of good will to give a push when needed could keep the vehicle roadworthy. But in the end there were just too many parts of the engine that were coughing and spluttering - as AFKA puts it, '' too many individual areas of the team that need improvement.''
Promotion has gone, I fear. But we need to end the season with pride - and then let the major rebuild begin.
And while Dave Rudd makes a lot of valid points about how to move forward I have to agree with WSS when he says:
Abandon the footballing principles for now and return to basics, setting the team up defensively with the mentality and formation that we will be hard to beat, with a settled formation the players are accustomed to with clearly defined roles. Give us a platform in a game and then become more offensively adventurous as the game progresses. Once the team is more settled and the run of losses have been halted, then is the time you can gradually work on bringing new ideas to the table.
One of the many complaints voiced on this board during Parky's reign was that, regardless of results, the style of football was unattractive. Personally I thought that, with the resources made available to him, attractive football and promotion simultaneously was too tall an order. The same applies to Chris Powell, which all makes the decision to sack Parky midway through the season look pretty foolish now, as we have apparently ended our chances of promotion for this season, as well as putting a new manager, who I have still have a great deal of faith in, in the potentially damaging situation of losing the goodwill of his supporters by spending roughly half a season trying to get a bunch of bargain bucket grafters to play pretty football which they aren't really capable of.
I've seen, through the recent grimness, the odd flash of nice passing, an intention to play the ball on the floor, evidence that good footballing principles are being encouraged on the training ground. A lot of these players aren't up to playing that way but, regardless of the level of investment, a lot of the players are out of contract in the summer and Powell will therefore have a proper chance to put his own mark on the side. I really do hope, following the rash decision-making by the new board this season, that our new manager will be given a chance to put a side together for next season, and that supporters who are understandably extremely angry at the way a promising season has been virtually written off with a third of our games still to play, will resist the temptation to get on Powell's back. I really think this is a mess of the board's making rather than CP's, and any criticism should be directed accordingly.
Additionally, I note Henry Irving's (I think) comments on another thread regarding other new managers being expected to improve results with the same players as the previous incumbent (Eddie Howe for example). Whilst this is a justified comment, I would add to the points made above, that whilst it is possible for a new manager to improve a team's general standard of play, it is not necessarily possible to do this and change the style of play as well. As an extreme example, a new manager can make a Carlton Palmer-style player play better than he had previously been doing, but he'd have to be a genius to turn him from a midfield spoiler into a playmaker. As I understood it, Powell's remit was to get us playing nicer football and I don't think that's a reasonable ask with the tools he's had at his disposal.
Think this may have turned into a bit of a ramble, but hope the points come across nonetheless.
I agree to turn this around we need a simple 4-4-2 (without 2 out and out wingers) and go back to the basics. On changing the style of football I'm wondering if he's tried to change too much too soon. I listened to the FL podcast the other day on the way to the game, Brendan Rogers was talking about that being a mistake he made at Reading. Blackpool perhaps didn't take long, but they had found a playmaker in Charlie Adam to build the team and style of play around.
On the current squad I'd agree the spine of the team is a problem, I'd also add we need a striker. A targetman, either a physical Iwelumo type or an intelligent Burton type of player. On the Benson ban article on the OS, it hints that Powell is expected to step up his attempts to bring a striker in.
I hope they are already planning for next season, have an idea how we'll play and are trying to find players we can try and bring in during the summer. I've seen some people say if the board had money they'd have spent some by now, but Powell didn't even have the whole of January to get to know the squad, identify the weaknesses and then find replacements. The rest of this season gives him a chance to do that and his team to watch potential signings.
Fair play to Powell for trying to change the way we play; but at present we resemble the John Barnes prototype (oh how we laughed at the time)rather than the Poyet model.
With these players I don't see any easy transition to a passing game and it would probably be a lot less painfull to watch if we went back to basics and started grinding out a few results.
I wasn't convinced that Parky would have achieved promotion and I am now certain we won't; but I am looking for Powell to stop the rot and restore some pride by going back to basics; shoring up the defence and giving the players roles that they are comfortable with.
Come pre-season we'll find out whether the new owners do indeed have the means and the intent to fund a rebuild and whether they still trust Powell to see it through.
Meantime I foresee weeks if not months of uncertainty and who of the owners/management/supporters will hold their nerve?
I think the board need to be circumspect about their summer plans at this point, if they say they are going to give CP (or whoever) a decent budget then they may well inflate fees and wages quoted to us, better to keep quiet and get maybe a couple of key signings done at decent value for money.
I think we could do with an experienced man in, as a consultant, until the end of the season. Not Curbs, (what does he know about league 1!), how about Dave Penny? Has just been sacked by Rovers, has managed in L1 and L2 for years. I wouldn't want him as manager but as consultant for 3 months....
a keeper, a big imposing presence (Warner for Tranmere last Sat would've fitted the bill)
centre half, no nonsense...
centre midfielder/playmaker, we have enough 'ballwinners'
a target man centre forward to partner BWP
I do actually believe that since Powell took over we have tried to play alot more football, play out from the back more rather than just lumping it, however unfortunately we just don't have the players to do it.
I was thinking the same think a few days ago. Warner looked an imposing figure for Tranmere - Just what we need.
Either way I'd understand Powell's choice. I doubt he'll give up on trying to play good football just yet, and that'll surely help him decide who he should keep for next season.
Depends whether she's got big tits or not.
Anyway, it would need investment in the summer, and Tj's recent comments suggest that will be forthcoming - although to what extent time will only tell.
Certainly there's a lot of mediocrity there right now, but results aside I'm encouraged by (i) what Powell's trying to do with the football (ii) the quality of the two players he's brought in, BWP and Bessone. If he can continue that form in the summer, next year might be a very different kettle of feeesh.