January 4th 2015. Out of the FA Cup , 31 points from 24 League games. 13th in the championship.
Delighted? Acceptable? What you expected? Content? Disgusted? Sack the board? Sack the head coach/manager?
The squad was not big/strong enough in August and with injuries/suspensions now affecting us we are suffering. The bench yesterday summed up how short we are. All seven under the age of 21 with a handful of games between them. We need at least 5/6 players this month who are good enough to go straight in the first eleven.
Out of the current squad Gudmundsson, Ben Haim, Bikey, Solly, Vetokele, Henderson would get into the likes of Ipswich and Derby's sides. With our strongest eleven all fit and on form we are a top 6 side, However we are a bottom half side at present.
Good start to the season and nice football as well, but Wolves at home in September were the first side to work out how we play and since then the style of football has dropped. Injuries and suspensions are a factor. Does Peeters have another plan that is effective?
Whilst i feel for Peeters in what he is working with, i feel he needs to be more proactive. Yesterday cracks started to show, with Wilson (out of favour this season) looking totally dis-interested, Jackson having verbals with Peeters and vica versa when the floodlights went off. Taking our best player off (Gudmundsson) when we are 2-1 down in the Cup with 10 minutes to go.
Duchatelet whilst spending 20m plus since taking over needs to speculate to accumulate this month. Either give Bob the funds required to bring in proven championship players or otherwise League One could back on the horizon.
Would a change of head coach be on the cards again? To have four managers in 12 months would seem crazy, but with Duchatelet nothing would ever surprise me.
3
Comments
I think the fault lies in all parties, bob, katrien and RD need to do better as losing is a habit and we have started to fall into it. It's a downward spiral from there.
It's the manager who isn't getting enough out of the players at his disposal at this point in time and that has to get sorted
And he has a limited squad provided to him by RD
Fumbluff, the £20m will include the purchase price (£14.5 million) Cost of Vetokele (£2.5 million) Ground work in the summer including the ptich (£0.75) plus other players and the ongoing losses of the club £5-6m per year). - I suspect, although other have the definitive costs.
The thing is whether it is £20m £30m or whatever, to secure a top half position and be sure of avoiding being sucked into a relegation fight now and be able to push for a play off next season then now and in the summer further relatively significant investment.
Yeah, a totally reasonable request
If FFP is going to be removed (or as good as) then it is unlikely we will be seeing promotion anytime soon as other clubs will risk their future on a gamble to get promoted. With three clubs going up (and often comibg straight back down) there will always be half a dozen that have spent millions on going up and failing.
Frankly I'm just happy that we are no longer living under the threat of administration from week to week.
I don't think we will go down and I am more than happy with that to be honest.
RD wants better results he's got to provide better equipment to get them with, it's that simple. Replacing Bob might or might not get the 'bounce' initially but whoever it was would end up playing Solly at right back or Cousins on the wing sooner or later because the squad as it stands is not deep enough. Duchatalet has to decide between principles and profit, he can't sell assets that have no value, and currently that's what Charlton are for the most part.
I like the way RD has gone about things in terms of looking for good, young talent (if Igor and JBG for example eventually move on at a profit then it means they've done well here and we've done well out of the whole thing, so all well and good), but less so the puffing out the squad with effectively whatever the network has to hand and the youth team - fine if they are ready, but not good for them or us if they aren't.
I agree with others who've said we need more in, but they need to be selected carefully not just bought in as they're there. Solly we know can't play all the time, there's a problem on the left as Cousins would be better in the middle, we need to be able to drop/rest Buyens and/or Jackson when they or the team needs it. Most importantly, Igor needs support and backup, George and Church aren't going to get us anywhere as yesterday showed.
If Duchatelet works out that he is not likely to get a ROI on his FFP game plan it is not at all clear how he gets a ROI from CAFC at all other than finding someone else to buy the shooting match for more than he paid, if such a person could be found. What I cant see him doing is speculating big bucks on players chasing a PL dream and why should we expect him to?
I don't accept that Peeters is the problem, but if he is he's entirely one of RD's making, isn't he?
Can't you see that going from near relegation to comfortable is an improvement? Or like most fickle fans is it not enough for you? We must be challenging or else the manager deserves to go.
We should be grateful we have an owner that has invested in the long term infrastructure of the club and I think will continue to do so.
Even Pardew didn't come out and say "there is nothing you can do" so far as I can recall...That's not the sort of fighting talk we need from a manager right now. I'd prefer him to say "well, its tough, but we are going to be working bloody hard to get it sorted"!
Personally I would also like to see a different approach when, as is frequently the case, we are not in possession of the ball or are fortunate enough to have a slender one goal lead. It is not RD sending them out with instructions to sit back, lay off and soak up inevitably mounting pressure until we concede late on, is it? You'd hope he might try something different some time although to be fair it has been that way under Powell sometimes too!
I expected nothing more than survival and would happily accept mid table mediocrity this season. Was even saying so earlier in the season when some of us had the audacity to suggest we weren't actually as good as results and table suggested at the time and were just shouted down as negative and anti RD.
Trouble is that at this time it's not certain that we are mid table mediocrity or comfortable is it??
Hopefully we will sign 2 or 3 players in January get a couple of wins under our belt and then our "early season" confidence will return. I just think we all need to put things into perspective and get behind our manager, team etc. Who would we want to replace BP? an experienced football league, premiership manager? someone like Ian Holloway? I know who I would rather!!
And what about our pitch????.............Superb....................Keep the faith lads and lasses!
COYR................
Sadly we still have another half to go. Let's just hope this January transfer window is better than last January as we need all the help we can to keep us mid table.
I don't think anyone is to blame as such & agree with SHG that CAFC and the other network clubs are all part of RD's football experiment.
The trouble is, that it was unlikely to work well with FFP in place & now that FFP has been drastically weakened, instead of strengthened, his plan for CAFC is well & truly buggered.
So what will he do ? Who knows.
All we do know, is that we have Henderson, Solly, Wiggins, TBH, Bikey, Gudmunsen, Buyens & Vetokele who are good players at this level. Henderson & Wiggins are out injured, so that leaves 6.
Of this 6 Vetokele has been struggling for months with fitness & form and we know Solly struggles with 2 games a week.
That leaves TBH, Bikey & Gudmunsen (Buyens suspended). It's no wonder the centre halves are showing signs of tiredness/not being as brilliant as they were.
Yes we have Jackson, Cousins, Gomez, Wilson, Bulot, Moussa, Harriot, as reasonable support.
But Oyewu (injured hammy), Pope, Fox, Church, Ahearne-Grant, Tucadean, Pigott, Thomas, are probably not good enough to keep us in this division (at present).
Peeters is in the same boat as Powell. He's trying to perform miracles with an under strength squad.
Now if RD wants to play the U21's mainly as a 1st team, then I'm starting to think this can only work in L1, just as Crewe have done for 30 years. Play 1 or 2 U21's if they're good enough. But we only have Cousins & Gomez IMO.
Does RD want CAFC to replicate Southampton or Crewe ?
This is the question.
Bob was aware of this and assured us that the team needed time to adjust to his way of playing. We've gradually got worse, to the point of we find ourselves constantly chasing games and (more often than not) going out with a whimper.
Halfway through the campaign now, the players must surely be fully aware of how Peeters wants them to play, so they're either not listening to him or this is how he wants them to play.
Either way, I'm not impressed and am struggling to see a light at the end of the tunnel he's driving us down.............