The thing is, I'm 99% certain, that if it was a network manager in at this stage, and we were playing as bad a football as we were now, having spent as much money as we did and having undeniably one of the best teams in the division, people would be so forgiving, nobody was keen to give Fraeye a chance to build a team and his start wasn't actually much worse than Slade's. No matter what people think of our recruitment our squad is not he 16th best in the league, not a chance. It is play-off standard at the very least and Slade's absolutely atrocious game of football has made it look like a relegation contender.
People (not necessarily on here) have been saying how Wigan didn't 'click' till December, yet at this stage they already had 14 points and would've been in the playoffs this season, it's always said that after 10 games you can start to see what's happening in a season, yes we've got a seemingly easy game on Tuesday which could see us go up the table a fair amount, but having got to know Slade's play style in these first 9 games, I'm certainly far from confident with him.
Ok I'm sold. Sack the manager, new boss comes in and moves on 12 players and brings another 12 in..with help of the twat with the stats. I'm not sure why this hasn't been tried before by the board
He should never have got the job in the first place.
Until he grows the minerals to criticise KM and guy hiding in Belgium, I won't support him.
Don't think that's a reasonable expectation. What we need him to do is stand up to them behind the scenes. He is an improvement on Peeters, Luzon, Fraeye and Riga, IMO, although I doubt if he will get us promoted.
I expect us to beat Oldham, and so should we all. Duchatelet will probably sack him before the end of the season though.
Not sure (yet) if Slade is better than Riga - but it would be absurd to sack the bloke after 9 games.
The team is better than most in League One and we're not conceding. The downside is - despite 5 x strikers who ought to have plenty of goals in them - Slade's game plan isn't adventurous enough to kill matches off and take the points.
Not at all clear to me what could be done without worsening matters further. Just hope the team gels, Slade is a bit more ruthless and the results pick up with us avoiding defeat often and picking up a few more wins to finish somewhere in the top half of the table.
He should never have got the job in the first place.
Until he grows the minerals to criticise KM and guy hiding in Belgium, I won't support him.
Don't think that's a reasonable expectation. What we need him to do is stand up to them behind the scenes. He is an improvement on Peeters, Luzon, Fraeye and Riga, IMO, although I doubt if he will get us promoted.
I expect us to beat Oldham, and so should we all. Duchatelet will probably sack him before the end of the season though.
Not sure (yet) if Slade is better than Riga - but it would be absurd to sack the bloke after 9 games.
The team is better than most in League One and we're not conceding. The downside is - despite 5 x strikers who ought to have plenty of goals in them - Slade's game plan isn't adventurous enough to kill matches off and take the points.
Not at all clear to me what could be done without worsening matters further. Just hope the team gels, Slade is a bit more ruthless and the results pick up with us avoiding defeat often and picking up a few more wins to finish somewhere in the top half of the table.
I share the frustration but suggest there is a need to take a look at the broader picture.
First and foremost the only reason the club have been able to trade in the UK football market for this season is Slade. The club executive has zero industry credibility. Just one transfer direct from another UK club before this season.
Slade after 20+ years knows League 1. Had someone of his ilk not accepted the job I dread to think where we would be. Like it or not at one level the club needs someone like Slade more than he needs the club.
He was appointed late. His assistant was appointed very late. Circa 30 players have left the payroll. Players under contract were left with no close season training programme. Those carrying injuries were left to their own devices. That it is corporate neglect.
He inherited a dispirited and chaotic club steeped in failure. No team spirit, no collective identity and no momentum. The clubhouse with a head coach had operated in a vacuum . Many players have commented for the first time in 2yrs the clubhouse now felt "normal".
He has had to put in disciplines and structures that anywhere else would be standard practice. None of that will get any headlines but we have all seen the consequences when such fundamentals are ignored.
The club is screaming out for some stability. In 32 months it has had 120 players under professional contract. We are now on our 7th head coach/ manager. I have lost count of the assistant coaches, sports scientists and changes in the medical support team.
Meire, Keohane, Joyes have not the faintest notion of what a senior professional football CLUB should even look like. Slades' most telling quote to date is "Sometimes you do have to spend time managing upwards"
With the relegation the executive failed to act with the urgency required. Everything in the close season was too late. The knock on effect was the pre-season was wasted. 50% of the present senior squad were not even in Austria.
In terms of recruitment we can only guess at the missed targets. Slades ability to build "his" squad will have been compromised by the clubs industry profile. The squad rebuild for whatever reason fell short. The unexpected departures of Pope and Holmes-Dennis will not have helped, if only for creating the distraction of generating further needs to be addressed.
The squad is overloaded with central defenders, lacks energy, creativity, genuine pace and penetration in central midfield meaning the front six is at present disjointed and largely unproductive. It is immensely disappointing the squad for a 3rd season appears to be at least two key players short of what is needed.
As with his 6 predecessors Slade has to manage the consequences. The close season and pre-season have come back to bite. We have lost points as a result.
It does appear Slade has of late deferred to a fallback Plan B in terms of adopting a "we shall not be beat" philosophy. It should work well in closing other sides down. I suspect it was a long standing philosophy at Orient.
However to challenge for promotion you need a Plan A to actually win games. I am far from convinced the squad has the "where with all" to consistently to meet the requirements, no matter who the manager maybe.
In light of the pre-season it is still early days. Results have however produced an unfortunate pressure on the next two home games which need to be won. At which point with a quarter of the season gone we will have needed to build some momentum. Two wins and the past few weeks will be seen as stepping stones to the top. Anything less and we will appear to be stumbling to determine how we progress for the season.
None of this will yet necessarily have to define the season but will pose significant challenges going forward. We can but hope one or two players can step up to take us forward.
We are 3 points from the final play off position but conversely 3 points from the last relegation spot. The challenge is there are 10 teams better positioned for the former with just 5 teams in a worse position for the latter.
Even the view we have played most of the top sides does not really stand scrutiny because at this stage of the season it largely means that those above us have played and managed to take points off us.
Has Slade made mistakes? In my view quite a number but I do recognise the scale of the task at hand on and off the field of play. Six previous encumbents have failed for good reason. Will he prove to the manager to take us back to the Championship? It is too early to tell but the current results and performances simply do not measure up to such ambition.
For where the club is now it has to be in our interests to allow Slade every opportunity to take the club forward. He has the grounding and the experience to contribute. His departure would only create even more instability and likely render the club even more of a basket case than it already is.
Quite who would then be willing to the take on the job is a much bigger issue.
It's the modern way that success has to be almost instantaneous. But history shows that very often it takes far longer. The old sayings "patience is a virtue" and "Rome wasn't built in a day" are as relevant today as they've always been, Curbs and Fergie being good examples. Unfortunately we have an owner who in knocking on 70, but who thinks like a rebellious, progressive, 20 year old just out of Uni, with little regard for reality or conventional wisdom. He has surrounded himself with likeminded immature disciples like Meire and Driesen who treat him like the messiah who can do no wrong. With that in mind, if Slade fails to get another win in his next 3/4 games, he could well be on his bike.
All good points but until clubs, all clubs realise that the most important signing they make is the bloke in charge of the team and that it's worth more than the star striker or creative midfielder then the churn of managers will go on. Getting a successful manager is worth paying the premium.
We employed a manager with a mediocre track record and expect him to perform outside of this. Rarely if ever happens. Sometimes a journeyman manager gets lucky like Holloway did at Blackpool but the evidence was there in his record. Same as Slade. No sign that he's going to get lucky with us.
By all means persevere with him until the obvious becomes obvious but he's not going to get us promoted.
Very true. I'm far from convinced and wasn't jumping for joy at his appointment. However the revolving door policy over the past few years has got us nowhere, and the chances of them appointing someone even worse are very high.
The close season is so important to get the team at optimum fitness. CAFC just let their injured players disappear. Why ? Every since the money dried up under kevin Cash, we have been a desperately run Football team. Sordell and Church came to the club a week before the season started ! no other Championship team wanted them. We were a shambled in the last 6 months(could be longer) of the Jimenez/slater regime. We are even worse now.
Is Slades's remit just to try to get us in to the top half of League 1; 12th will do.
what is the point of sacking Russel Slade while you have owners with no ambition of winning football matches ?
Slade is like a horse who's been finishing out of the places, yet is given top weight by the handicappers. (he is a slim man really !)
He must of known this was a stable with more donkeys than Blackpool Beach; and that is just in the board room.
Slade is average at best, but he is the best we've had since Powell and the best we're likely to get under present circumstances.
His best quality is his relative independence and strength of position. Unlike the other network patsies, they really needed him and would be under intense criticism f they fired him - so he can deal with them firmly. Sure, his tactics, selections and personal characteristics are questionable but hey ho.
He'll be here come the end of the season. We'll be somewhere in mid-table.
I think there are pros and cons with Slade. I knew he was a negative manager before his appointment and said so. It is a british trait. They need to question everything they have learned to bring themselves in line with the best foreign coaches. But I do feel the quality in our squad, which Slade has played a part in will push us up the league. I just wish that Slade understood that if you have better players than your opponents and you are one up, you go for two! Not over cautiously but with vigour. But it is ridiculous to sack him.
I'd usually say judge the manager after 10 games but given the absolute disaster he inherited he surely should get at least until Jan to try and turn things around a bit, probably the full year. He's not exactly working in the most positive environment.
Slade, whilst not tactically brilliant (or devilishly handsome) is probably exactly what we need right now in a no bullshit type of way.
It would be amazing if we were bouncing back straight away but the catastrophic SMT has destroyed the internal structure of the club over the past 2.5 years. Slade is not the problem.
Too many think we are too good and shouldn't be where we are. Undefeated at Oxford and Scunthorpe only bad results if we think we are good. We aren't, so good results and the team will improve. Calling for Slade to go is ridiculous and shows that we don't only have clueless players, we have clueless fans as well.
I'm sure Slade will see that the team is still a work in progress - but evidently not being able to sign a strong influential midfielder, resulting in a weak and unbalanced midfield in his usually preferred 4-4-2, he needs to compensate and build a more solid midfield.
Even if he played a gung-ho attacking formation, the goals we scored would be undermined by the midfield being over-run and goals conceded. Recently he went away to a then in form Fleetwood - and started with 2 strikers and 2 wingers.
We were always looking vulnerable chasing the game and clearly the midfield was over-run, conceding 2 goals from positions where the midfield should have closed down. At Scunthorpe, for another difficult away game, he set his stall out differently and we never looked like conceding - yet should have taken all 3 points.
People won't like a defensive game, but no doubt Slade we'll see it as first getting the basics right. Of course, the issue is that all this should have been done in pre-season.
He'll know that. And if we think about it, so should we.
I'm sure Slade will see that the team is still a work in progress - but evidently not being able to sign a strong influential midfielder, resulting in a weak and unbalanced midfield in his usually preferred 4-4-2, he needs to compensate and build a more solid midfield.
Even if he played a gung-ho attacking formation, the goals we scored would be undermined by the midfield being over-run and goals conceded. Recently he went away to a then in form Fleetwood - and started with 2 strikers and 2 wingers.
We were always looking vulnerable chasing the game and clearly the midfield was over-run, conceding 2 goals from positions where the midfield should have closed down. At Scunthorpe, for another difficult away game, he set his stall out differently and we never looked like conceding - yet should have taken all 3 points.
People won't like a defensive game, but no doubt Slade we'll see it as first getting the basics right. Of course, the issue is that all this should have been done in pre-season.
He'll know that. And if we think about it, so should we.
What about Wimbeldon at home when we were clearly completely overrunning them with the ball on the ground and as soon as we went a goal up he reverted back to his usual hoof and hope? Taking off Holmes and putting Jacko out wide? He's tactically inept and I can see why Cardiff fans hate him as much as they do. Yes we will eventually grind out a win or 2 playing like it as he's said but for the money we've spent and the squad we have that's not good enough.
Just to add, yes he's inherited a pretty awful job, but I really don't see what on earth that has to do with his 'way of football' which was established long before he came to us and thinking back is probably the reason he hasn't gained any promotions. I stick up for him when he was initially appointed as he's never been at a great team but having watched some of the absolute tosh he puts out of the pitch it's clear to see.
Just to add, yes he's inherited a pretty awful job, but I really don't see what on earth that has to do with his 'way of football' which was established long before he came to us and thinking back is probably the reason he hasn't gained any promotions. I stick up for him when he was initially appointed as he's never been at a great team but having watched some of the absolute tosh he puts out of the pitch it's clear to see.
My assessment is just how I see Slade thinking ...... that doesn't mean I necessarily agree with him, but am only trying to understand what he is thinking and why.
You can see he's trying to build a team on solid foundations, but it's obvious that a couple of the pieces of the jigsaw are missing. So he goes back to basics, not pretty but it means the team don't implode.
Curbs, you'll remember, used to do exactly the same thing. Nothing new in football there ...... every manager thinks, 'first don't get beat'.
It's not pretty, but it gets a result and something to build on.
You mention the Wimbledon match - what makes you think the team played 90 minutes exactly to his instructions? It was evident in the subsequent breakdown of our play that they didn't, and the gameplan went out the window.
You'll have read Ricky Holmes has barely trained and hasn't been fit for a month, so why were you surprised that he's subbed? Jacko coming on: He's the skipper, he's got a cool head on the ball, can pick a pass and tackle - and give Morgan Fox a bit of protection.
Maybe the Wimbledon sub who came on and changed the game should have been closed down better. Ask Chris Solly why he let him run in the box and missed his tackle .... or is that Slade's fault too?
We know Slade has limitations otherwise he'll be manager of Man Utd or Chelsea, not Charlton in the 3rd Division. It's a total car crash at Charlton and word gets around quickly in football - perhaps he was the best we could attract this summer?
cliche...........the group............cliche................moving forwards...................cliche.................good positive football.............the group..............cliche..........................we go again..................cliche..........................responsibility.....................cliche....................dynamic...................cliche...................dust ourselves off.....................cliche........................the wins will come....................cliche.........................the right things..................cliche
Absolutely dreadful football, clueless substitutions and no results coming either way. People will inevitably deflect to RD and KM but the blame for our results is solely on Slade. Our recruitment was more than good enough and I'd say second to Bolton. No excuse whatsoever for being as poor as we are. There's the inevitable question of what comes in after but I seriously don't want Slade to be in charge for too much longer. I fear if we leave it too long the damage will be irreparable.
Comments
The team is better than most in League One and we're not conceding. The downside is - despite 5 x strikers who ought to have plenty of goals in them - Slade's game plan isn't adventurous enough to kill matches off and take the points.
Not at all clear to me what could be done without worsening matters further. Just hope the team gels, Slade is a bit more ruthless and the results pick up with us avoiding defeat often and picking up a few more wins to finish somewhere in the top half of the table.
First and foremost the only reason the club have been able to trade in the UK football market for this season is Slade. The club executive has zero industry credibility. Just one transfer direct from another UK club before this season.
Slade after 20+ years knows League 1. Had someone of his ilk not accepted the job I dread to think where we would be. Like it or not at one level the club needs someone like Slade more than he needs the club.
He was appointed late. His assistant was appointed very late. Circa 30 players have left the payroll. Players under contract were left with no close season training programme. Those carrying injuries were left to their own devices. That it is corporate neglect.
He inherited a dispirited and chaotic club steeped in failure. No team spirit, no collective identity and no momentum. The clubhouse with a head coach had operated in a vacuum . Many players have commented for the first time in 2yrs the clubhouse now felt "normal".
He has had to put in disciplines and structures that anywhere else would be standard practice. None of that will get any headlines but we have all seen the consequences when such fundamentals are ignored.
The club is screaming out for some stability. In 32 months it has had 120 players under professional contract. We are now on our 7th head coach/ manager. I have lost count of the assistant coaches, sports scientists and changes in the medical support team.
Meire, Keohane, Joyes have not the faintest notion of what a senior professional football CLUB should even look like. Slades' most telling quote to date is "Sometimes you do have to spend time managing upwards"
With the relegation the executive failed to act with the urgency required. Everything in the close season was too late. The knock on effect was the pre-season was wasted. 50% of the present senior squad were not even in Austria.
In terms of recruitment we can only guess at the missed targets. Slades ability to build "his" squad will have been compromised by the clubs industry profile. The squad rebuild for whatever reason fell short. The unexpected departures of Pope and Holmes-Dennis will not have helped, if only for creating the distraction of generating further needs to be addressed.
The squad is overloaded with central defenders, lacks energy, creativity, genuine pace and penetration in central midfield meaning the front six is at present disjointed and largely unproductive. It is immensely disappointing the squad for a 3rd season appears to be at least two key players short of what is needed.
As with his 6 predecessors Slade has to manage the consequences. The close season and pre-season have come back to bite. We have lost points as a result.
It does appear Slade has of late deferred to a fallback Plan B in terms of adopting a "we shall not be beat" philosophy. It should work well in closing other sides down. I suspect it was a long standing philosophy at Orient.
However to challenge for promotion you need a Plan A to actually win games. I am far from convinced the squad has the "where with all" to consistently to meet the requirements, no matter who the manager maybe.
In light of the pre-season it is still early days. Results have however produced an unfortunate pressure on the next two home games which need to be won. At which point with a quarter of the season gone we will have needed to build some momentum. Two wins and the past few weeks will be seen as stepping stones to the top. Anything less and we will appear to be stumbling to determine how we progress for the season.
None of this will yet necessarily have to define the season but will pose significant challenges going forward. We can but hope one or two players can step up to take us forward.
We are 3 points from the final play off position but conversely 3 points from the last relegation spot. The challenge is there are 10 teams better positioned for the former with just 5 teams in a worse position for the latter.
Even the view we have played most of the top sides does not really stand scrutiny because at this stage of the season it largely means that those above us have played and managed to take points off us.
Has Slade made mistakes? In my view quite a number but I do recognise the scale of the task at hand on and off the field of play. Six previous encumbents have failed for good reason. Will he prove to the manager to take us back to the Championship? It is too early to tell but the current results and performances simply do not measure up to such ambition.
For where the club is now it has to be in our interests to allow Slade every opportunity to take the club forward. He has the grounding and the experience to contribute. His departure would only create even more instability and likely render the club even more of a basket case than it already is.
Quite who would then be willing to the take on the job is a much bigger issue.
At some point the "revolving doors" need to stop
Doesn't mean Slade hasn't made errors but there are mitigating circumstances.
Worryingly, we seem to be racking up the injuries.
Pearce missing now and Lennon suspended. Thank Gawd Johnson stayed.
At last a bit of perspective.
Thank you, Grapevine.
CAFC just let their injured players disappear. Why ?
Every since the money dried up under kevin Cash, we have been a desperately run Football team.
Sordell and Church came to the club a week before the season started !
no other Championship team wanted them.
We were a shambled in the last 6 months(could be longer) of the Jimenez/slater regime.
We are even worse now.
Is Slades's remit just to try to get us in to the top half of League 1;
12th will do.
what is the point of sacking Russel Slade while you have owners with no ambition of winning football matches ?
Slade is like a horse who's been finishing out of the places, yet is given top weight by the handicappers. (he is a slim man really !)
He must of known this was a stable with more donkeys than Blackpool Beach; and that is just in the board room.
His best quality is his relative independence and strength of position. Unlike the other network patsies, they really needed him and would be under intense criticism f they fired him - so he can deal with them firmly. Sure, his tactics, selections and personal characteristics are questionable but hey ho.
He'll be here come the end of the season. We'll be somewhere in mid-table.
Slade, whilst not tactically brilliant (or devilishly handsome) is probably exactly what we need right now in a no bullshit type of way.
It would be amazing if we were bouncing back straight away but the catastrophic SMT has destroyed the internal structure of the club over the past 2.5 years. Slade is not the problem.
I'm sure Slade will see that the team is still a work in progress - but evidently not being able to sign a strong influential midfielder, resulting in a weak and unbalanced midfield in his usually preferred 4-4-2, he needs to compensate and build a more solid midfield.
Even if he played a gung-ho attacking formation, the goals we scored would be undermined by the midfield being over-run and goals conceded.
Recently he went away to a then in form Fleetwood - and started with 2 strikers and 2 wingers.
We were always looking vulnerable chasing the game and clearly the midfield was over-run, conceding 2 goals from positions where the midfield should have closed down.
At Scunthorpe, for another difficult away game, he set his stall out differently and we never looked like conceding - yet should have taken all 3 points.
People won't like a defensive game, but no doubt Slade we'll see it as first getting the basics right.
Of course, the issue is that all this should have been done in pre-season.
He'll know that. And if we think about it, so should we.
You can see he's trying to build a team on solid foundations, but it's obvious that a couple of the pieces of the jigsaw are missing.
So he goes back to basics, not pretty but it means the team don't implode.
Curbs, you'll remember, used to do exactly the same thing.
Nothing new in football there ...... every manager thinks, 'first don't get beat'.
It's not pretty, but it gets a result and something to build on.
You mention the Wimbledon match - what makes you think the team played 90 minutes exactly to his instructions?
It was evident in the subsequent breakdown of our play that they didn't, and the gameplan went out the window.
You'll have read Ricky Holmes has barely trained and hasn't been fit for a month, so why were you surprised that he's subbed?
Jacko coming on: He's the skipper, he's got a cool head on the ball, can pick a pass and tackle - and give Morgan Fox a bit of protection.
Maybe the Wimbledon sub who came on and changed the game should have been closed down better.
Ask Chris Solly why he let him run in the box and missed his tackle .... or is that Slade's fault too?
We know Slade has limitations otherwise he'll be manager of Man Utd or Chelsea, not Charlton in the 3rd Division.
It's a total car crash at Charlton and word gets around quickly in football - perhaps he was the best we could attract this summer?
....that was worse than Wimbledon and Slade can piss off