We are playing the best football we have played since SCP left and its no surprise
Since then we have had
Riga
Peeters
Luzon
Fraeye
Robinson.
None of these knew the club properly or understood the fans properly.
Bowyer is Charlton like SCP was, they get the club, they know the club inside out.
I honestly think other clubs should do the same, ex players who know the club inside out who know what the fans want.
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Bowyer was enjoying fishing and had no plans to return to football when he got Robinsons call to become assitant.
If it wasnt for Robinson I dread to think what shit we would have as manager right now, but I doubt it would be soneone who knows the club and is passionate about the club
Think people go on about this too much. The issue with Fraeye wasn’t because he didn’t know the club, it was because he didn’t know how to be a football manager.
In the top flight when u can spend what u want and get anyone u want its different.
But in the lower leagues working on a budget it seems to work better if you know the club and are passionate about the club
You ask @Big_Bad_World or @MillwallFan I am sure they will say Harris is there best manager lf recent years
Neil Ardley was the same at AFC Wimbledon for a few years(his issue was not replacing Taylor this summer)
So with Robinson for example it was all about him. Even bringing back Bowyer was, I think, him trying to make himself look good-“I’ve brought back an explayer!”
But Bowyer rejoined us 20 years after leaving us. Jackson yes but not Bowyer, it’s a confirmed different club.
Curbs and Bows were/are good fits.
Solskjaer and Mike Phelan knowing United's DNA with help in the interim.
Some ex players will just make lousy managers because they can't get the players to gel or play to a pattern for that division.
So it's a Yes, No and sometimes from me.
Then again you look at Keegan at NUFC for instance or Curbs at Wet Spam...
As I said further down, Its lower league teams that I think this works best for
Nice thought though.
You then said that "Robinson deserves credit". Robinson is not an ex-Charlton player. This gives rise to the conclusion that you're suggesting that some of the better Charlton managers are not ex-Charlton players.
Overall, you're giving the impression that your view is that the best managers are always ex-players, except for someimes when they're not". If that *is* your assertion, I agree with it, completely. Two of Charlton's best managers were also good Charlton players - Alan Curbishley and Chris Powell. Two more of Charlton's best managers weren't - Jimmy Seed and Lennie Lawrence.
Although, of course, one of Charlton's worst managers was an ex-player (Alan Pardew). And several of them weren't.
The achievement of his 1980/81 promotion is underrated in my view.
He literally took the worst performing second tier side and lead it to promotion the following season. The only signing he made was Terry Naylor halfway through the season and I guess he also benefitted from the emerging Paul Walsh
Bowyer has started off very well so hopefully this will be the start of a successful managerial career with us.
It's not necessarily the answer though. Appoint an ex-manager and do well. Portsmouth and Sunderland were in a bad way and it's not ex-players that have turned them around, nor at Leeds.
I actually started a thread about this a couple of seasons ago asking what ex player you would want to see manage us seeing as the only ones ever "Good enough" to manage us have to be ex-players. At that time LB was in France & was on no-ones radar.
May not have played many games but was at the club for a few years still at youth level