Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
This is insane. Even Pep Guardiola would’ve struggled to keep us up.
“Insane”...really? Ok.
In my post I stated that I put some of the responsibility for the relegation on Bowyer. Not all of it. He was dealt a tough hand.
But it was still his decision making which lead to us throwing away points in injury time on many occasions.
Would Pep Guardiola have gone into a must win final game of the season against the champions elect and started an inexperienced Josh Davison up front, instead of Chuks Aneke?
When we were relegated, I did not state that I wanted Bowyer out. He deserved the chance to have a clean slate and start afresh. But now that the same excuses cannot be put in his favour for our poor performances, it does shine bit of a light on how Bowyer’s decision making likely did have an impact on our Championship relegation.
I don't think we would have got anything from Leeds however we played or set up. There were a few games where we went ultra negative which cost us points.
I agree - But the point being that going into a must win game against a top side, why would you still be tinkering with a line up to put in a largely inexperienced player when you have your best available player on the bench? It doesn’t add up.
A bit of revisionism going on here IMO. There were people on this forum calling him 1 goal Chuks up until September even. Davison had played well in cameo appearances and scored as many goals as Chuks had at that point.
Not revisionism on my behalf. At the time, I didn’t understand the decision at all. Chuks’ goal return wasn’t great at the time but he was having a decent impact on games, well beyond Davison.
You might disagree, but considering the ‘all or nothing’ matter of that game, that selection made no sense.
I’ve seen Birmingham away singled out in the past as an example “Bowyer went negative and cost us points”.
Is that the same Birmingham game where they were all over us, missed (Dillon saved) a penalty to go 1-0 up and we take the lead against the run of play?
We didn’t go negative after scoring the goal - the home team had us on the back foot for the entire 90 minutes. Not to mention, McGeady hits the post when presented with the chance to make it 0-2.
They also put a player on who signed for Borussia Dortmund a few months later, the same kid getting an assist after sprinting past a Darren Pratley whose hamstring had just gone so could do nothing about it, even if he was on the same level
Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
This is insane. Even Pep Guardiola would’ve struggled to keep us up.
“Insane”...really? Ok.
In my post I stated that I put some of the responsibility for the relegation on Bowyer. Not all of it. He was dealt a tough hand.
But it was still his decision making which lead to us throwing away points in injury time on many occasions.
Would Pep Guardiola have gone into a must win final game of the season against the champions elect and started an inexperienced Josh Davison up front, instead of Chuks Aneke?
When we were relegated, I did not state that I wanted Bowyer out. He deserved the chance to have a clean slate and start afresh. But now that the same excuses cannot be put in his favour for our poor performances, it does shine bit of a light on how Bowyer’s decision making likely did have an impact on our Championship relegation.
With Taylor, Leko and Gallagher all gone we were relying on Bonne for goals. Due to ESI the January window weakened the squad rather than improved it.
The fact that our choice of strikers were between a young player from non-league in Davison and Aneke who struggled with his fitness and injuries all season shines a light on how poor our attacking options were at the time. Then we had Hemed who still isn’t scoring while playing in the Australian league.
Bowyer’s decision making kept us out of the relegation zone all season and we only went down due to Brentford (a team going for automatic promotion) conceding to Barnsley in injury time. With our budget and the ownership situation we should have been relegated long before then.
All valid points, and that is why I said that I don't lay the blame of relegation entirely at his door. He did incredibly well in the circumstances and deserved to stay on and start afresh.
However, I do suspect that a number of those results where we threw away leads or draws could have been avoided with decisions from the manager. Those same mistakes have filtered into this season even though we do have a better squad / weaker opposition. The two main problems in particular - the extreme tinkering of the starting line-up, as well as the tactical decisions leading to late goals/poor results. Then you add on top of that the manager's management of certain players, which are seemingly driven by temperament (Jonny Williams at Shrewsbury for example).
The usual suspects will just "lol" any post that dares to debate Bowyer's ability, but its noticeable how they're unable to give genuine justification as to why quite a few of the mistakes have happened this season don't sit with Bowyer. So, my question to those people would be - would you be giving the same leeway and blind loyalty to another manager if it were not Lee Bowyer? I highly doubt it.
If Bowyer was sacked tomorrow, I'd still see him as a Charlton legend for what was achieved in the 2018/19 season, Wembley etc. But to dine on that forever and just stick fingers in ears whenever someone tries to call out the current situation for what it is - that is just blind loyalty. I really hope he gets us going on a run from here on in, but I currently am yet to see evidence that he is the long-term leader for us. Hopefully I'll be proved wrong.
The mistakes do sit with Bowyer, I'm not claiming they don't. I was moving very close to thinking he needed to go but recently I've seen signs that he's turning it around and now feel it's worth giving him a bit more time.
That's not blind loyalty, I'm not against replacing him if we continue to be inconsistent for the rest of the season. My expectations are still that we make the play-offs as a minimum.
If you agree you don't blame him for relegation then we're saying his only real bad run in his entire time as manager is across a three months of this season. If that's the case then you're saying your expectations are that a poor run for more than a handful of games at this level is unacceptable.
If the club is ran in that way then we'll be replacing the manager as regularly as Roland did in his first few years as owner.
He needs to prove he's still capable, he can't live off the 18/19 season forever - I completely agree with that. No one would claim the last three months have gone well. I'm sure we'd all agree that to stay in his job Bowyer needs to play more adventurous football than he has done. He needs to find a formation that suits the squad, I believe now has. He needs to stop critisizing players in public - he's clearly calmed down in that area.
Bowyer's blamed for choices such as not playing Oshilaja and Pearce, but maybe that time out of the team made them even more determined to win and keep their place. Some of the mistakes he made were things fans had different opinions on, for example whether Barker should have been thrown in at CB. These were then presented as arguments for replacing Bowyer as if they were obvious choices that were guaranteed to work.
The fact that he's Bowyer isn't important to me. The key thing for me is he's shown he's capable of building a promotion winning squad, playing exciting football, he can develop players and adapt his tactics. Yes he's struggled recently and ideally those problems would have been solved earlier, but no manager is perfect and the improvements recently show it wasn't an impossible situation with a lost dressing room. Why throw everything away and start again just because of one poor run that wasn't turned around as quick as you'd like? He's shown what he is capable of and it's worth seeing if he can show he can still get back to that level.
What's been shown recently is how much difference a few key players can make. We looked a very different team against Rochdale by replacing Bogle with Stockley, using Aneke alongside him rather than as a target man and bringing in Millar. Had a new manager come in and played that team many would be saying what a great start, but that's a team that wasn't possible little over a month ago.
Unless there's a big injury crisis this is why I'm very confident we'll continue to improve and expect us to go on a run and make the play-offs. All the small improvements add up and those fine margins will turn defeats in to draws and draws in to wins. It's not just about the manager, the squad they're allowed to build makes a huge difference. Powell probably wouldn't have won the league if Kermorgant had turned us down, and Bowyer wouldn't have won at Wembley had Taylor chosen Sunderland over us. A few stand out players can be the difference between someone being seen as a good manager or a poor one.
If we don't improve as I expect we will over the next month then it's worth TS considering Bowyer's position and the best choice for the longer term. What I don't want to see is us appointing a new manager in May/June and then expecting the squad rebuild to go smoothly in the summer.
In terms of the longer term I'm not looking too far ahead at the moment, I'm not thinking about whether Bowyer can lead us through the Championship and beyond. The right person to do that might be someone we can't attract at the moment. We can deal with that if/when we're back in the Championship and have an idea of how well we're competing.
The whole “where are the Bowyer in/out crowd” type comments quite common on social media after a game are becoming tedious.
I’m not “Bowyer out”, but I’m more along the lines of “I really want it to work under Bowyer, but can’t see it happening long term”. Thankfully it’s not my decision as to whether he stays, goes, who replaces him etc.
What I will say though is that a 2-0 win away at Rochdale doesn’t change my view on Bowyer for better or worse, because quite frankly, that’s a result we should be getting.
Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
If he gets to the end of the season, then so be it, it’s not as if the club is going to fold if we stay in League One for another season and we don’t go up.
But if we take the rose-tinted glasses off and stop talking about loyalty and the excuses - he hasn’t been good enough for about 12 months. Again - a win away at Rochdale doesn’t change that all of a sudden
But now you have just contributed to what you are finding tedious.
We have won and you come on a thread about him to basically say you aren't impressed by him, your post is certainly more anti-Bowyer than pro Bowyer..
Anyway he clearly hasn't lost it, never did. In the famous words of Gattuso ''Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit''. That is football unless you are an elite club.
Just how a number of our fans believe Bowyer over thinks his team, I think we overthink bad results
No. What I find tedious are the ‘black and white’ perceptions and finger points that are made by a section of our fans when someone is trying to make a reasoned point about where things are going wrong.
To express frustration with the manager’s continued mistakes and poor results does not automatically put someone in the ‘Bowyer out’ camp.
Yes, my post was more ‘anti-Bowyer’ than pro-Bowyer as you put it. That is allowed isn’t it? I haven’t called him useless or abused the bloke. But this is a discussion forum about Charlton - and I’ve backed up my opinion as to why I think he has underperformed over the past 12 months.
You’re more than entitled to disagree, and I won’t be shouting “where are the Bowyer in crowd?!?!” or anything to that effect the next time we lose a match.
I know you won't, I can tell you aren't trying to point score here. My point was you are saying you are fed up of the Bowyer in and out camp sniping at eachother but your post furthers it is all. It's like saying 'no offense' before you offend someone and then say what would offend them anyway.
Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
This is insane. Even Pep Guardiola would’ve struggled to keep us up.
“Insane”...really? Ok.
In my post I stated that I put some of the responsibility for the relegation on Bowyer. Not all of it. He was dealt a tough hand.
But it was still his decision making which lead to us throwing away points in injury time on many occasions.
Would Pep Guardiola have gone into a must win final game of the season against the champions elect and started an inexperienced Josh Davison up front, instead of Chuks Aneke?
When we were relegated, I did not state that I wanted Bowyer out. He deserved the chance to have a clean slate and start afresh. But now that the same excuses cannot be put in his favour for our poor performances, it does shine bit of a light on how Bowyer’s decision making likely did have an impact on our Championship relegation.
I don't think we would have got anything from Leeds however we played or set up. There were a few games where we went ultra negative which cost us points.
I agree - But the point being that going into a must win game against a top side, why would you still be tinkering with a line up to put in a largely inexperienced player when you have your best available player on the bench? It doesn’t add up.
A bit of revisionism going on here IMO. There were people on this forum calling him 1 goal Chuks up until September even. Davison had played well in cameo appearances and scored as many goals as Chuks had at that point.
Because ever since we left the prem there is a bit of an entitlement in this fan base that we are bigger than what we actually are. Every season we say our squad is good enough to do this and do that. Every season we only have a couple, sometimes a handful of genuinely good players though
I honestly could not recall a time in recent history where we have put out a team and I've thought player to player we look great. It's one of the most frustrating bits about this forum when that debate happens. None of us watch other sides or follow their club etc but we always assume we have better players than the rest of the league, particularly in this league. 'This squad shouldn't be where it is' etc
We done well to even compete last season, we will never know but we probably would have stayed up if Lyle played, one of the few players left on the books that was championship quality, can't say much for the rest of them bar Phillips, Cullen and maybe Lockyer
The whole “where are the Bowyer in/out crowd” type comments quite common on social media after a game are becoming tedious.
I’m not “Bowyer out”, but I’m more along the lines of “I really want it to work under Bowyer, but can’t see it happening long term”. Thankfully it’s not my decision as to whether he stays, goes, who replaces him etc.
What I will say though is that a 2-0 win away at Rochdale doesn’t change my view on Bowyer for better or worse, because quite frankly, that’s a result we should be getting.
Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
If he gets to the end of the season, then so be it, it’s not as if the club is going to fold if we stay in League One for another season and we don’t go up.
But if we take the rose-tinted glasses off and stop talking about loyalty and the excuses - he hasn’t been good enough for about 12 months. Again - a win away at Rochdale doesn’t change that all of a sudden
But now you have just contributed to what you are finding tedious.
We have won and you come on a thread about him to basically say you aren't impressed by him, your post is certainly more anti-Bowyer than pro Bowyer..
Anyway he clearly hasn't lost it, never did. In the famous words of Gattuso ''Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit''. That is football unless you are an elite club.
Just how a number of our fans believe Bowyer over thinks his team, I think we overthink bad results
No. What I find tedious are the ‘black and white’ perceptions and finger points that are made by a section of our fans when someone is trying to make a reasoned point about where things are going wrong.
To express frustration with the manager’s continued mistakes and poor results does not automatically put someone in the ‘Bowyer out’ camp.
Yes, my post was more ‘anti-Bowyer’ than pro-Bowyer as you put it. That is allowed isn’t it? I haven’t called him useless or abused the bloke. But this is a discussion forum about Charlton - and I’ve backed up my opinion as to why I think he has underperformed over the past 12 months.
You’re more than entitled to disagree, and I won’t be shouting “where are the Bowyer in crowd?!?!” or anything to that effect the next time we lose a match.
I know you won't, I can tell you aren't trying to point score here. My point was you are saying you are fed up of the Bowyer in and out camp sniping at eachother but your post furthers it is all. It's like saying 'no offense' before you offend someone and then say what would offend them anyway.
Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
This is insane. Even Pep Guardiola would’ve struggled to keep us up.
“Insane”...really? Ok.
In my post I stated that I put some of the responsibility for the relegation on Bowyer. Not all of it. He was dealt a tough hand.
But it was still his decision making which lead to us throwing away points in injury time on many occasions.
Would Pep Guardiola have gone into a must win final game of the season against the champions elect and started an inexperienced Josh Davison up front, instead of Chuks Aneke?
When we were relegated, I did not state that I wanted Bowyer out. He deserved the chance to have a clean slate and start afresh. But now that the same excuses cannot be put in his favour for our poor performances, it does shine bit of a light on how Bowyer’s decision making likely did have an impact on our Championship relegation.
I don't think we would have got anything from Leeds however we played or set up. There were a few games where we went ultra negative which cost us points.
I agree - But the point being that going into a must win game against a top side, why would you still be tinkering with a line up to put in a largely inexperienced player when you have your best available player on the bench? It doesn’t add up.
A bit of revisionism going on here IMO. There were people on this forum calling him 1 goal Chuks up until September even. Davison had played well in cameo appearances and scored as many goals as Chuks had at that point.
Because ever since we left the prem there is a bit of an entitlement in this fan base that we are bigger than what we actually are. Every season we say our squad is good enough to do this and do that. Every season we only have a couple, sometimes a handful of genuinely good players though
I honestly could not recall a time in recent history where we have put out a team and I've thought player to player we look great. It's one of the most frustrating bits about this forum when that debate happens. None of us watch other sides or follow their club etc but we always assume we have better players than the rest of the league, particularly in this league. 'This squad shouldn't be where it is' etc
We done well to even compete last season, we will never know but we probably would have stayed up if Lyle played, one of the few players left on the books that was championship quality, can't say much for the rest of them bar Phillips, Cullen and maybe Lockyer
I think the self entitlement went a long time ago personally. We expected Robinson to do better, we did when he left. We expected to be competitive the next season and we went up, look at that team in hindsight, only Purrington, Pratley and Parker haven’t gone on to better things of those that started that game. 99% of our fans expected to struggle last season, the big disappointment was that we put ourselves in a great position and shouldn’t really have got relegated if you look at the table in the November.
This season is tricky because we are bouncing back as a club and had to rush around getting a squad. Despite that, we have the players to be competitive and the results over the last couple of months have been unacceptable. I’m not talking walking the league and I don’t disagree with your point about a lack of knowledge of other squads, but it’s undeniable that we’ve been on an awful run. Undoubtedly expectations rose because of our form, I think that was the same last season. Unfortunately when you over achieve the underachieving looks even worse.
The whole “where are the Bowyer in/out crowd” type comments quite common on social media after a game are becoming tedious.
I’m not “Bowyer out”, but I’m more along the lines of “I really want it to work under Bowyer, but can’t see it happening long term”. Thankfully it’s not my decision as to whether he stays, goes, who replaces him etc.
What I will say though is that a 2-0 win away at Rochdale doesn’t change my view on Bowyer for better or worse, because quite frankly, that’s a result we should be getting.
Where I’ll judge Bowyer is over a string of games or a period of time. Over the past year it hasn’t been good enough - and yes, I do put some of the Championship relegation on him.
If he gets to the end of the season, then so be it, it’s not as if the club is going to fold if we stay in League One for another season and we don’t go up.
But if we take the rose-tinted glasses off and stop talking about loyalty and the excuses - he hasn’t been good enough for about 12 months. Again - a win away at Rochdale doesn’t change that all of a sudden
But now you have just contributed to what you are finding tedious.
We have won and you come on a thread about him to basically say you aren't impressed by him, your post is certainly more anti-Bowyer than pro Bowyer..
Anyway he clearly hasn't lost it, never did. In the famous words of Gattuso ''Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit''. That is football unless you are an elite club.
Just how a number of our fans believe Bowyer over thinks his team, I think we overthink bad results
No. What I find tedious are the ‘black and white’ perceptions and finger points that are made by a section of our fans when someone is trying to make a reasoned point about where things are going wrong.
To express frustration with the manager’s continued mistakes and poor results does not automatically put someone in the ‘Bowyer out’ camp.
Yes, my post was more ‘anti-Bowyer’ than pro-Bowyer as you put it. That is allowed isn’t it? I haven’t called him useless or abused the bloke. But this is a discussion forum about Charlton - and I’ve backed up my opinion as to why I think he has underperformed over the past 12 months.
You’re more than entitled to disagree, and I won’t be shouting “where are the Bowyer in crowd?!?!” or anything to that effect the next time we lose a match.
I know you won't, I can tell you aren't trying to point score here. My point was you are saying you are fed up of the Bowyer in and out camp sniping at eachother but your post furthers it is all. It's like saying 'no offense' before you offend someone and then say what would offend them anyway.
You've either missed the point I was making or I need to explain it better.
It is correct that I am tired with the sniping between the 'Bowyer in' and 'Bowyer out' factions.
But you're going to need to explain to me how my post has furthered that? I've not tried to goad, belittle or antagonize those who are Bowyer supporters - I've simply put my opinions across regarding Bowyer's performance as part of the debate that has now run for 63 pages, and done my best to back it up with reasoning. I've no issue with fans debating the manager's performances/ability if its done in a manner that is based on debate rather than merely making digs at those who disagree.
What I've expressed a dislike with, and what I've tried to do are two different things entirely IMO.
It’s every week, you can write the script before a ball is kicked.
Bowyer will moan about worldies being scored against us but the only reasonis because we back off every single time and invite other teams to shoot from just outside the box. That defending for the third today was nothing short of disgraceful.
This team are horrible to watch, we need a change if we are to have any chance of promotion.
We will miss out on top 6 with bowyer in charge and with this team and the standard of the league, it is beyond abysmal.
Comments
That's not blind loyalty, I'm not against replacing him if we continue to be inconsistent for the rest of the season. My expectations are still that we make the play-offs as a minimum.
If you agree you don't blame him for relegation then we're saying his only real bad run in his entire time as manager is across a three months of this season. If that's the case then you're saying your expectations are that a poor run for more than a handful of games at this level is unacceptable.
If the club is ran in that way then we'll be replacing the manager as regularly as Roland did in his first few years as owner.
He needs to prove he's still capable, he can't live off the 18/19 season forever - I completely agree with that. No one would claim the last three months have gone well. I'm sure we'd all agree that to stay in his job Bowyer needs to play more adventurous football than he has done. He needs to find a formation that suits the squad, I believe now has. He needs to stop critisizing players in public - he's clearly calmed down in that area.
Bowyer's blamed for choices such as not playing Oshilaja and Pearce, but maybe that time out of the team made them even more determined to win and keep their place. Some of the mistakes he made were things fans had different opinions on, for example whether Barker should have been thrown in at CB. These were then presented as arguments for replacing Bowyer as if they were obvious choices that were guaranteed to work.
The fact that he's Bowyer isn't important to me. The key thing for me is he's shown he's capable of building a promotion winning squad, playing exciting football, he can develop players and adapt his tactics. Yes he's struggled recently and ideally those problems would have been solved earlier, but no manager is perfect and the improvements recently show it wasn't an impossible situation with a lost dressing room. Why throw everything away and start again just because of one poor run that wasn't turned around as quick as you'd like? He's shown what he is capable of and it's worth seeing if he can show he can still get back to that level.
What's been shown recently is how much difference a few key players can make. We looked a very different team against Rochdale by replacing Bogle with Stockley, using Aneke alongside him rather than as a target man and bringing in Millar. Had a new manager come in and played that team many would be saying what a great start, but that's a team that wasn't possible little over a month ago.
Unless there's a big injury crisis this is why I'm very confident we'll continue to improve and expect us to go on a run and make the play-offs. All the small improvements add up and those fine margins will turn defeats in to draws and draws in to wins. It's not just about the manager, the squad they're allowed to build makes a huge difference. Powell probably wouldn't have won the league if Kermorgant had turned us down, and Bowyer wouldn't have won at Wembley had Taylor chosen Sunderland over us. A few stand out players can be the difference between someone being seen as a good manager or a poor one.
If we don't improve as I expect we will over the next month then it's worth TS considering Bowyer's position and the best choice for the longer term. What I don't want to see is us appointing a new manager in May/June and then expecting the squad rebuild to go smoothly in the summer.
In terms of the longer term I'm not looking too far ahead at the moment, I'm not thinking about whether Bowyer can lead us through the Championship and beyond. The right person to do that might be someone we can't attract at the moment. We can deal with that if/when we're back in the Championship and have an idea of how well we're competing.
Because ever since we left the prem there is a bit of an entitlement in this fan base that we are bigger than what we actually are. Every season we say our squad is good enough to do this and do that. Every season we only have a couple, sometimes a handful of genuinely good players though
I honestly could not recall a time in recent history where we have put out a team and I've thought player to player we look great. It's one of the most frustrating bits about this forum when that debate happens. None of us watch other sides or follow their club etc but we always assume we have better players than the rest of the league, particularly in this league. 'This squad shouldn't be where it is' etc
We done well to even compete last season, we will never know but we probably would have stayed up if Lyle played, one of the few players left on the books that was championship quality, can't say much for the rest of them bar Phillips, Cullen and maybe Lockyer
It is correct that I am tired with the sniping between the 'Bowyer in' and 'Bowyer out' factions.
But you're going to need to explain to me how my post has furthered that? I've not tried to goad, belittle or antagonize those who are Bowyer supporters - I've simply put my opinions across regarding Bowyer's performance as part of the debate that has now run for 63 pages, and done my best to back it up with reasoning. I've no issue with fans debating the manager's performances/ability if its done in a manner that is based on debate rather than merely making digs at those who disagree.
What I've expressed a dislike with, and what I've tried to do are two different things entirely IMO.
tough tough league
Bowyer will moan about worldies being scored against us but the only reasonis because we back off every single time and invite other teams to shoot from just outside the box. That defending for the third today was nothing short of disgraceful.
This team are horrible to watch, we need a change if we are to have any chance of promotion.
We are clearly missing crowds at home.
Save yourself the embarrassment today lads
We never seem to be able to close players down.
When the play changes from us attacking to defending we look all over the place defensively.
We rarely win the second ball.
Our defensive/midfield headers never seem to go to a Charlton shirt.
Because that's something seriously wrong at the moment.
You want to get me started don't you!
I just think Bowyer is a shit coach, a Charlton legend BUT a shit coach.
May come to him with more experience but it will keep us in L1, along with shit refs and pub teams of course!