Scott Kingsley gives a good account of where we are, and what might lie ahead:
Even if you weren’t paying much attention during Religious Education at school you’ve still properly heard of Joseph and his coat of many colours. Or maybe you are a big fan of musicals and the work of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Weber.
So you’ll remember that poor old Joseph wasn’t much liked by his brothers so they sold him to the Egyptians. Despite being an economic migrant Joseph managed to get the gig of interpreter of the royal dreams.
He correctly predicted that Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat cows and seven skinny cows foretold seven years of plenty for the Land of Egypt to be followed by the same number of years of famine. Joseph told Pharaoh he had better start stock pilling the grub now.
Neither Richard Murray nor Peter Varney have ever revealed if they have had a similar dream but after the play-off win Charlton enjoyed around seven years of plenty, nearly all of it in the promised land of the premiership. The Club grew and it grew fat and content.
Then things started to go wrong and the only fat on show was Jimmy Floyd Hasslebank’s backside and some ex-managers wallets.
Last year was the seventh in a row where Charlton have finished lower in the league that the season before. The reasons for decline that have picked over and debated more that the Dead Sea scrolls but we are where we are. Anyone attempting to start yet another “where did it all go wrong?” debate will be visited by plagues of frogs and locusts! You have been warned!
Now it is hoped that the decline maybe over. Certainly if the turnover of players is any indication then we can expect something totally different from what has gone before.
But there are still two questions, two unknowns, that we will only find the answers to once the season is well underway.
Firstly, this is a very new squad. We have signed 18 new players and only ten remain from the season passed. And of that 10 only two or three will be expected to start v AFC Bournemouth this coming Saturday. The positive or rose tinted way to look at that is that most of them are untainted by the failure of the past and the majority have played and been successful in this division before. Players who had success with Exeter (Taylor and Hamar) and Bournemouth (Wiggins and Hollands) have joined. And Charlton picked up Danny Green, another of last year's success stories who did so well with Paul Benson while both were at Dagenham. Hayes and Hughes won promotion with Scunthorpe and Leeds respectively.
That they already know each other will surely help the team. We hope so and good players can soon forge new partnerships and understanding, right? “Gel” will be a word use more often in the next few weeks than any time since the fashion horrors of the 80s. So if these players can become a team then they have a real chance of promotion.
Which brings us to the second question. Chris Powell has assembled this Technicolor Dream team and it’s pretty clear, to me at least, that is has been Chris Powell and not Jeff Vetere calling the shots despite what some conspiracy theorists may claim.
But can Chris Powell manage them? After a great and winning start last winter Charlton tailed off alarmingly. Anyone looking from the outside the Charlton community, and quite a few inside, would doubt Powell’s credentials to lead a team to promotion.
People have said that last year he was a craftsmen trying to use someone else’s shoddy, second rate tools. The riposte to that is that a poor workman blames his tools.
So is Powell a poor workman, a poor manager or will he now show his true worth with his team playing his style of football?
The answer to that won’t be revealed in a dream nor during the 90 minutes v Bournemouth. We’ve seen great starts, and not just under Powell, turn out to be false dawns before.
And if we lose or draw neither will that mean that the plan has failed though you can guarantee there will be calls for Powell’s head even that soon. That’s what years of famine do to you. You want your hunger fed and you want it fed now.
The pressure is on Chris to get the recipe right and serve up enough tasty morsels over the next nine months that we’ll all be sitting down to eat at a bigger, more expensive restaurant this time next year. So wash your hands, spread that napkin and get ready to tuck in. The season is about to start.
Comments
Im hoping and praying that CP can turn it round as i just want some consistency in managers now and don't want us to be chopping and changing.
Hoping it works out and going back to the Valley can be an enjoyable experience rather than the twisted place its sort of become.
As Rodex says "Deja vu" (but I can't do accents)
Unfortunately I cant be there on Saturday (writing this on holiday in Mexico) but I'll be listening on player and hoping the fans really get behind Chrissy and the team. I'm sure we can recover from a bad start but would love not to have to and start as we mean to go on in a supportive and loud Valley. Seven seasons finsishing lower than the last- the time is surely now for the tide to turn. COYRs
Loving it, guys . Let's keep the optimism and positive vibes going through the good and inevitably not so good months ahead.
The atmosphere by 3pm on Saturday will be electric .
I can't wait.
We'll never know if he'd have turned it around, but his League 1 record suggests he would have.
The difference with the Swindon game was Parky clearly tried to get the team to pass the ball more, something the new board wanted to see. They passed it around without having the players that could then do something with it.
Remember Dailly losing the ball on the edge of the area leading to Austin scoring? He'd have simply cleared the ball a month or so earlier.
I think you have to watch them. Poor against Aldershot, and all reports since suggest set plays and high balls are a problem, full backs not stopping crosses. Hamer might help but he'd have to have improved claiming in the air from his Brentford days.