I was and always will be very unhappy with the whole appointment process. That leaves a bad stain in my mind, even though he has done well since.
The rumours about him seem true - he is a yes man (to Roland), and he rotates his squad (that may have gone un-noticed by some, but he definitely did it toward season end), and we don't know how much clout he has with what players stay.
I felt he was lucky in that he was "allowed" to sign squad back-up (Diarra, Johnson, Eagles) that Peters was apparently refused, had a resurgent Bulot, a fit-again Henderson, and an injured Jackson (which allowed Cousins to move central).
If he signs good players this summer, hangs on to the good ones we have (Johan, Joe, Jordan, and Hendo), and is lucky with loans and injuries, he could be a fine manager for our club. If he doesn't do all that, expect a bumpy ride (copyright Henry Irving).
A possible interpretation of the highlighted points is:
1 Nothing to play for. If RD asked him to give them all a chance in the shop window, he probably wouldn't think it was worth resisting because he is:
2 not lucky, trusted. And he doesn't want to jeopardise that.
I think he'll be under a bit more pressure next season.
He came in when we were on a bad run and after a bad start he had the boost of Hendo coming back, Coquelin playing and Watt finding form. He was backed with senior experienced players coming in too.
At times we played very well and we finished much higher in the table than our position when we arrived. And he seems to be liked by the players while even Seth Plum likes him now.
But next season it will be his season, not a clean up of Peeters mess. And Peeters was equally if not more liked by fans. We sung his name for sure.
Expectation will be that we improve on last season which means at least near the play-offs. But that depends on the club finding him 7 or 8 (at least) top notch players and some kids being able to step. I think that is a very big ask albeit outside his control.
Wanted him to be a success when he came and still do but I think he needs to be backed.
This season just gone was the warm up. His real test starts now.
Agree with most of those sentiments Henry apart from Coquelin, who I think was recalled when B.P.was still in charge.
Like everyone else I was concerned by the process but happy enough to see how he panned out. We had some great results during our good phase under him, far better than our decent run under Peeters and more importantly when things didn't go so well he refused to blame individuals and stayed professional. Bob was really bad for chewing out individuals like Pardew used to in our sinking like a stone season. Bob said the right things at first but then his true character came out under pressure; Luzon started out under pressure and seemed to thrive on it. I'm happy.
Like everybody else, it was very concerning how the whole recruitment process was played out in public.
But take that to one side and Luzon won me over with the team line-up against Brentford when we finally had our best players playing in there best positions. I was sat in the car when the team lineup was coming through on twitter and was ready to turn round and go home if I saw another negative lineup so credit where it's due, well done Guy.
Someone said Luzon was lucky to bring squd back ups in, I put this down to Luzon being the golden child amongst all the managers across the network. In some sense we are lucky to have RD's most trusted manager within the network with us, after all he has appointed him twice now, a bit like Mourinho at Chelsea and no I am not saying Luzon is the new Mourinho but you get the vibe that Luzon could be known as the handpicked one, he seems to fully buy into RD's way of working and RD will probably be more likely to trust his money with Luzon in the transfer market than he would any manager at all the other network clubs.
Hard to argue that he hasn't done a decent job so far. However I think I'll only be truly convinced by his ability if we have more of the same next season.
I don't really have much opinion of him at all - quite neutral. I don't have a lot of interest in what he says in interviews or feel any kind of connection with him or anything like that, which isn't usually the case.
Whilst I don't want to downplay his ability as a coach, I think our end of season form was more a result of Bob Peeters NOT being the manager.
We all seem to have conveniently forgotten the mass hostility caused by his appointment process which was farcical and the reporting of it by the club, which was dishonest and misleading. His only real qualification for the job was that he was already on the network payroll and he was a chum of the owner.
Am I the only one who remembers the "Guy Loser" posts and the "crouching tiger hidden wanker" insults. Not to mention the "you don't know what you're doing" taunts in the middle of home games?
He has proved us all wrong and deserves enormous credit for rescuing a club dropping down the league like a large stone, dealing with a hostile fan base that did not want him (including me) and sorting out a divided dressing room. He turned it around within 2-3 matches too which was one hell of a personal achievement.
Whether we like him or if he has great affinity with the club is entirely irrelevant though. As soon as the owner thinks he is needed somewhere else in the network, he will be moved on. That could be next week or in five years time and we will never know.
He is a highly competent Starprick employee but not a Charlton man which is why "Guy Luzon's red and white army" will always stick in the throat.
Like others I wasn't comfortable with the way he was hired, or at least the way that process was communicated but I was always willing to give him a chance, albeit I probably felt he needed to do a bit more to win me over than other new managers might have done.
Didn't think he came over too well in his first interview but since then I've warmed to him. Seems honest and genuine and a generally nice bloke and it matters to me that we have decent human beings representing our club.
On the field there have been good and bad things. Not sure he's the new Curbs or Jimmy Seed but seems a safe enough of pair of hands who with a fair wind and some backing can potentially move us forward. It seems at the very least try he will tryand entertain us.
Curbs always used to talk about how his excellent relationship with Richard Murray played a big part in his success here so while we don't want a Roland yes man in charge it's also important that Roland and the manager can work together.
I think, as others have said, next season will be the acid test. He has the summer to make his own signings and prep the team in pre-season so he'll have made his own bed and will have to lie in it. There will be more expectation on him from club and fans alike, too, so he has some work to do to keep everyone on side, but after being booed in his first home game he has done remarkably well to win so many of us over. I am hopeful he can keep up the good work and further improve.
I can't honestly say that I neither like or dislike him. The cynic in me says he won't be about for long anyway. However all that said, he has done a decent job so far and hopefully he will be given the chance to carry on doing so.
Will be interested to see what happens on the transfer front over the next few weeks.
Bored. He's been here too long. Let's get another network guy we've never heard of...
I think Roland should rotate the managers of all his clubs every Monday morning - put the names in a hat and see who gets which club for that week. Squad rotation is so last decade, manager rotation is where it's at.
Surely the whole point of this is that it doesn't matter how well he does / how badly he does, because RD calls the shots and if he wants him elsewhere in the network / wants to sack him (again), then no amount of outcry from the fans is going to make a single bit of difference.
GL said recently that there will be a few additions to the squad for next year but no major push for promotion, so if we start off with 10 x 1-1 draws, he will be fumbling for the Eurostar timetable and his Mrs will be looking for Carl Zeiss Jena on the map. We will be told almost nothing, and he will be replaced after a fictional interview process by some assistant coach from the network.
Cue the Average White Band............Let's Go Round Again.
Luzon is in huge credit as Charlton manager at the moment. Rejoice in that. He's young and no doubt ambitious so if he continues to be successful with us then at some point he moves onwards and upwards. To Liege ? I doubt that very much. It would be like us taking Pardew back. To any other network side would be a step backwards.
It's in his interest to succeed and if he does everyone's a winner.
IMHO the football club is currently in the best position it's been in since Curbs left the room. We have been a complete shambles.
Can't we just be happy with that for now and see where it takes us. I honestly think we must have the most negative miserable fans in football.
He arrived with a 5-0 defeat against a now promoted side and finished the season with a 3-0 master class from Eddie Howe and his squad.
In the middle a mix of players returning from injury / arriving plus playing our best players in their best positions led to what I think has been our best front six since we were relegated from the FAPL!
As SHG states why are people so bleedin' miserable?!
Bulot and Cousins in the right place plus the replacement of Tucudean with Watt transformed the team and results in less than a month.
That wasn't money nor luck when we scored three goals every week. That was just like Riga and making the most of what we had and delivering three points on a regular basis.
As he stated the other day he assessed the squad within three months which led to no less than seven senior players being released - and only Diarra being extended a month or two back.
The squad might have some gaps today but it is significantly better than 12 months back. And this has been achieved with academy players, Liege loans, free agents and just two significant transfers: Watt and Vetokele cost €5m between them.
When was the last time we spent that kind of money on two players?
So the early announcement of released players is a precise and decisive move between Luzon and the board. The next challenge is to retain and add to the quality we have and deliver consistent results over 46 game and not just 14 games at a time.
As for the nature of his appointment, that was not of his making. The simple fact is he was judged the best man for the job and had worked for the owner for 15 months before circumstances at Liege meant he had to fall on his sword.
To this day I am unsure why the club had to go through the motions of publicising employment practices when it's perfectly clear that the short list was probably Luzon, Riga and one or two others.
Ben Haim has gone so maybe they didn't get on but Watt is clearly thriving and the difference in Bulot after Christmas was akin to buying a new player - and a very good one at that. I mention all this because there was a particularly malicious line on the Web suggesting that Luzon had fallen out with the four players he had coached before.
Not only was this demonstrably untrue (from Watt press releases) but was also a classic assertion of incompetence on the part of the owner... We have about 12 decent players so "RD busses in a failed coach who has fallen out with four of them... And only because GL was already on the payroll " is a pretty strong condemnation.
The board have made mistakes for sure but replacing Peeters with Guy Luzon was certainly not one of them.
For our club to move up a level it means that Luzon has to be given the player salary budget to bring in at least four top quality players plus quality replacements for any players sold.
Championship football is decided on the thinnest of margins. Personally I think that if Luzon is given a stronger squad by August than this time he can take us up a level.
Will he last the entire season and then be renewed? Well that's a question for October at the earliest when we've seen the 2015-16 squad perform for a couple of months.
If he's a Yes man, than recent comments would suggest he's not a very good one
*He likes British players mentality and referenced so many being in the Bournemouth side *He wants to bring in 6 or 7 additional quality players *He doesn't want to sell the key players
I appreciate that's pretty standard stuff, but those quotes weren't exactly pulled from him, his been pretty vocal on all three points in a few interviews, all points which based on some people's beliefs would fly in the face of Roland's 'business' strategy',
If he was a yes man wouldn't we have seen a lot more of Le Point.
Exactly. I don't even know where this 'yes man' thing has come from. Riga wasn't a yes man, BP wasn't a yes man (just a bit of a bell end) and neither is Luzon.
The circumstances of his arrival, whilst distasteful, were not his fault so I do not blame and have not blamed him for that.
At the time of his appointment there was a real danger that we would well and truly be sucked into the relegation morass. He got us out of that and more so for that he deserves credit.
I haven't yet "taken to him" in the way I did Curbs or Chris Powell but that is hardly surprising given the short time he has been with us.
He has my support for now and will continue to do so all the time I feel he is genuinely doing the best he can with what he has.
I don't have any negative feelings towards GL personally, but like I said, he is working for a boss who has already sacked him once - anything could happen, so no point getting over excited.
Not even by the arrival of Christophe Lepoint (signed a 2.5 year deal aged 30), or whatever GL says about signing British players like Bournemouth have done. Instead, I think about the interview that CP gave to the Trust in which he referred to "players arriving with a suitcase in reception, unexpectedly, and immediately joining the squad".
Roland pays the piper and GL will have to do as he is told. End of.
I don't have any negative feelings towards GL personally, but like I said, he is working for a boss who has already sacked him once - anything could happen, so no point getting over excited.
Not even by the arrival of Christophe Lepoint (signed a 2.5 year deal aged 30), or whatever GL says about signing British players like Bournemouth have done. Instead, I think about the interview that CP gave to the Trust in which he referred to "players arriving with a suitcase in reception, unexpectedly, and immediately joining the squad".
Roland pays the piper and GL will have to do as he is told. End of.
I understand the new plans for Sparrows Lane include some kind of hostel like residential use.
I don't have any negative feelings towards GL personally, but like I said, he is working for a boss who has already sacked him once - anything could happen, so no point getting over excited.
Not even by the arrival of Christophe Lepoint (signed a 2.5 year deal aged 30), or whatever GL says about signing British players like Bournemouth have done. Instead, I think about the interview that CP gave to the Trust in which he referred to "players arriving with a suitcase in reception, unexpectedly, and immediately joining the squad".
Roland pays the piper and GL will have to do as he is told. End of.
I understand the new plans for Sparrows Lane include some kind of hostel like residential use.
I'm led to believe this is mandatory for Grade A Status.
He has done way better than expected but I can't help but worry he is a bit of a rabble rouser and when things turn as they always do I am not sure he has the tactical nous to correct it. Hopefully I am wrong, I certainly was this season.
Comments
1 Nothing to play for. If RD asked him to give them all a chance in the shop window, he probably wouldn't think it was worth resisting because he is:
2 not lucky, trusted. And he doesn't want to jeopardise that.
But take that to one side and Luzon won me over with the team line-up against Brentford when we finally had our best players playing in there best positions. I was sat in the car when the team lineup was coming through on twitter and was ready to turn round and go home if I saw another negative lineup so credit where it's due, well done Guy.
Someone said Luzon was lucky to bring squd back ups in, I put this down to Luzon being the golden child amongst all the managers across the network. In some sense we are lucky to have RD's most trusted manager within the network with us, after all he has appointed him twice now, a bit like Mourinho at Chelsea and no I am not saying Luzon is the new Mourinho but you get the vibe that Luzon could be known as the handpicked one, he seems to fully buy into RD's way of working and RD will probably be more likely to trust his money with Luzon in the transfer market than he would any manager at all the other network clubs.
I don't really have much opinion of him at all - quite neutral. I don't have a lot of interest in what he says in interviews or feel any kind of connection with him or anything like that, which isn't usually the case.
Whilst I don't want to downplay his ability as a coach, I think our end of season form was more a result of Bob Peeters NOT being the manager.
Am I the only one who remembers the "Guy Loser" posts and the "crouching tiger hidden wanker" insults. Not to mention the "you don't know what you're doing" taunts in the middle of home games?
He has proved us all wrong and deserves enormous credit for rescuing a club dropping down the league like a large stone, dealing with a hostile fan base that did not want him (including me) and sorting out a divided dressing room. He turned it around within 2-3 matches too which was one hell of a personal achievement.
Whether we like him or if he has great affinity with the club is entirely irrelevant though. As soon as the owner thinks he is needed somewhere else in the network, he will be moved on. That could be next week or in five years time and we will never know.
He is a highly competent Starprick employee but not a Charlton man which is why "Guy Luzon's red and white army" will always stick in the throat.
Didn't think he came over too well in his first interview but since then I've warmed to him. Seems honest and genuine and a generally nice bloke and it matters to me that we have decent human beings representing our club.
On the field there have been good and bad things. Not sure he's the new Curbs or Jimmy Seed but seems a safe enough of pair of hands who with a fair wind and some backing can potentially move us forward. It seems at the very least try he will tryand entertain us.
Curbs always used to talk about how his excellent relationship with Richard Murray played a big part in his success here so while we don't want a Roland yes man in charge it's also important that Roland and the manager can work together.
I think, as others have said, next season will be the acid test. He has the summer to make his own signings and prep the team in pre-season so he'll have made his own bed and will have to lie in it. There will be more expectation on him from club and fans alike, too, so he has some work to do to keep everyone on side, but after being booed in his first home game he has done remarkably well to win so many of us over. I am hopeful he can keep up the good work and further improve.
Will be interested to see what happens on the transfer front over the next few weeks.
GL said recently that there will be a few additions to the squad for next year but no major push for promotion, so if we start off with 10 x 1-1 draws, he will be fumbling for the Eurostar timetable and his Mrs will be looking for Carl Zeiss Jena on the map. We will be told almost nothing, and he will be replaced after a fictional interview process by some assistant coach from the network.
Cue the Average White Band............Let's Go Round Again.
Luzon is in huge credit as Charlton manager at the moment. Rejoice in that. He's young and no doubt ambitious so if he continues to be successful with us then at some point he moves onwards and upwards. To Liege ? I doubt that very much. It would be like us taking Pardew back. To any other network side would be a step backwards.
It's in his interest to succeed and if he does everyone's a winner.
IMHO the football club is currently in the best position it's been in since Curbs left the room. We have been a complete shambles.
Can't we just be happy with that for now and see where it takes us. I honestly think we must have the most negative miserable fans in football.
Get a grip ffs.
In the middle a mix of players returning from injury / arriving plus playing our best players in their best positions led to what I think has been our best front six since we were relegated from the FAPL!
As SHG states why are people so bleedin' miserable?!
Bulot and Cousins in the right place plus the replacement of Tucudean with Watt transformed the team and results in less than a month.
That wasn't money nor luck when we scored three goals every week. That was just like Riga and making the most of what we had and delivering three points on a regular basis.
As he stated the other day he assessed the squad within three months which led to no less than seven senior players being released - and only Diarra being extended a month or two back.
The squad might have some gaps today but it is significantly better than 12 months back. And this has been achieved with academy players, Liege loans, free agents and just two significant transfers: Watt and Vetokele cost €5m between them.
When was the last time we spent that kind of money on two players?
So the early announcement of released players is a precise and decisive move between Luzon and the board. The next challenge is to retain and add to the quality we have and deliver consistent results over 46 game and not just 14 games at a time.
As for the nature of his appointment, that was not of his making. The simple fact is he was judged the best man for the job and had worked for the owner for 15 months before circumstances at Liege meant he had to fall on his sword.
To this day I am unsure why the club had to go through the motions of publicising employment practices when it's perfectly clear that the short list was probably Luzon, Riga and one or two others.
Ben Haim has gone so maybe they didn't get on but Watt is clearly thriving and the difference in Bulot after Christmas was akin to buying a new player - and a very good one at that. I mention all this because there was a particularly malicious line on the Web suggesting that Luzon had fallen out with the four players he had coached before.
Not only was this demonstrably untrue (from Watt press releases) but was also a classic assertion of incompetence on the part of the owner... We have about 12 decent players so "RD busses in a failed coach who has fallen out with four of them... And only because GL was already on the payroll " is a pretty strong condemnation.
The board have made mistakes for sure but replacing Peeters with Guy Luzon was certainly not one of them.
For our club to move up a level it means that Luzon has to be given the player salary budget to bring in at least four top quality players plus quality replacements for any players sold.
Championship football is decided on the thinnest of margins. Personally I think that if Luzon is given a stronger squad by August than this time he can take us up a level.
Will he last the entire season and then be renewed? Well that's a question for October at the earliest when we've seen the 2015-16 squad perform for a couple of months.
*He likes British players mentality and referenced so many being in the Bournemouth side
*He wants to bring in 6 or 7 additional quality players
*He doesn't want to sell the key players
I appreciate that's pretty standard stuff, but those quotes weren't exactly pulled from him, his been pretty vocal on all three points in a few interviews, all points which based on some people's beliefs would fly in the face of Roland's 'business' strategy',
At the time of his appointment there was a real danger that we would well and truly be sucked into the relegation morass. He got us out of that and more so for that he deserves credit.
I haven't yet "taken to him" in the way I did Curbs or Chris Powell but that is hardly surprising given the short time he has been with us.
He has my support for now and will continue to do so all the time I feel he is genuinely doing the best he can with what he has.
Let's hope that is also backed by funding for signings, about £60m should do it.
Not even by the arrival of Christophe Lepoint (signed a 2.5 year deal aged 30), or whatever GL says about signing British players like Bournemouth have done.
Instead, I think about the interview that CP gave to the Trust in which he referred to "players arriving with a suitcase in reception, unexpectedly, and immediately joining the squad".
Roland pays the piper and GL will have to do as he is told. End of.