I am going to say it!! Yes I am, Nathan Jones......................

Dave Rudd · October 26

NabySarr said:

Dave Rudd said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

I don't hugely disagree but these comments from Clement on Cawley's (free) substack post this morning directly contradict that and highlight how his changes forced Norwich to change. The issue comes after that, we didn't adapt to whatever Norwich changed.
“We didn’t start the game well. Charlton pressed in a different way than they had been doing for weeks. So the team had difficulty to recognise that.
“It is a big working point for us to get experience on those things and speak on the pitch about what the solutions are. It took 15-20 minutes to get in contact with them. After, when they understood, we started to play our football."
People (in general, not you specifically Paul) often talk about NJ being stubborn or not changing but I just don't think that's the case. I think he changes plenty but gets the same results. I sometimes think he actually changes too much and that throws off the players. We haven't stuck with one formation in a match for weeks and weeks now, it must be so confusing for the players on the pitch.

I think you're clutching at straws there. Saying somebody is incredibly tactically inflexible does not mean they never make a single change; the fact we started one match with a slightly higher pressing system is not evidence of a tactically flexible manager.

We have started many matches well this season but then it's fallen apart and Jones rarely seems able to alter the tide / wrestle control of a match back. Last season we pretty much exclusively, I think, played the 532 and I think never managed to come from behind to win, and again, I can't really think of a match where we were on the backfoot and managed to wrestle control of the game, something which happens frequently to us.

I just don't think it's even a discussion point that he is very rigid tactically.

But we did this all the time in league 1. Lots of changes he made that forced late winners for us

It’s a lot harder to do that when your players and your subs are worse than your opponents, which is the case for Jones nearly every game. In league 1 when he had a better squad for the level we did these things, now we’re in the championship with a poor squad we don’t do them

You say the manager is incapable of it, but we did it plenty in league 1. I'd say our squad is incapable of doing it. Norwich bring on Kenny McLean when they want more control in midfield. We bring on a teenager from the academy

Jones doesn't need to become more flexible imo. In all of our best periods under him we've had pretty much the same starting 11 every game, and the same subs coming on every game depending on game state. At the moment he is trying to find the right combination so that he can stick to it, we've seen him try that before and land on something. He desperately needs to land on something soon that works, and stick with it

I think this 'tactical flexibility' debate has become a bit confused.

Like all managers, Jones will make changes. That's obvious.

I think what people are highlighting is that Jones defaults to his preferred approach too readily. And he does this both in games and in general. This is why we have seen a succession of ex-Luton players since Jones has been in charge. It worked before, so it will work again, won't it?

He unfailingly tries to protect a one-goal lead, rather than trying to get a second goal.

His successes are built on clean sheets. This is why we will go to Middlesbrough at the weekend looking for a goalless draw. If the required players are fit, you'll see a line-up that reflects that. I doubt that we will cross the halfway line.

Formations are one thing. But Jones is inflexible in what he believes will bring success.

It's a rigid philosophy ... we should be front-footed, difficult to beat, the best version of ourselves ... and stuff.

And that only gets you so far.

If we went to Middlesbrough and tried to do anything else we would get absolutely thrashed. The squad we have is not capable of more than that. Bolton tried it last week and look what happened

That may well be true, but I suspect we'd still see the same approach from Jones if we were playing away at Preston this coming weekend.

When the pressure is on, we all revert to type. And there's nothing wrong with having a preferred and trusted approach.

But it has to be part of a more varied strategy. Jones doesn't seem to have that ... which is why I suggest that he is limited and why his career ceiling is not as high as it could have been.

king addick · October 26

aliwibble said:

king addick said:

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/six-nathan-jones-replacements-charlton-athletic-could-line-up/

Just see it.

Urgh. Football League World - posts are either a load of old shit, nicked from somewhere else or a load of old shit nicked from somewhere else. I'd give more credence to something in the Sunday Sport.

Oh fully agree and at least 3 of the names mentioned in Hernandez, Heckingbottom and Parker are ludicrous.. Heckingbottom suggestion gave me a mini heart attack!

It's food for thought. I forgot Challinor wasn't in work and if Jones does go, I could 100% see the board heading to him as a cheap replacement in wages and no compensation to be paid.

ForeverAddickted · October 26

Was it the current ownership that tried to sign Challinor when we were in League One?

fenaddick · October 26

ForeverAddickted said:

Was it the current ownership that tried to sign Challinor when we were in League One?

Think you’re right and he turned them down

arny23394 · October 26

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

They both offered something going forward - Bree scored 2 and set up 3. Clarke had a good long throw which set up a couple of goals, he also got into goal scoring positions on quite a few occasions, but somehow never actually scored.

NabySarr · October 26

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

NabySarr · October 26

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

I don't hugely disagree but these comments from Clement on Cawley's (free) substack post this morning directly contradict that and highlight how his changes forced Norwich to change. The issue comes after that, we didn't adapt to whatever Norwich changed.
“We didn’t start the game well. Charlton pressed in a different way than they had been doing for weeks. So the team had difficulty to recognise that.
“It is a big working point for us to get experience on those things and speak on the pitch about what the solutions are. It took 15-20 minutes to get in contact with them. After, when they understood, we started to play our football."
People (in general, not you specifically Paul) often talk about NJ being stubborn or not changing but I just don't think that's the case. I think he changes plenty but gets the same results. I sometimes think he actually changes too much and that throws off the players. We haven't stuck with one formation in a match for weeks and weeks now, it must be so confusing for the players on the pitch.

I think you're clutching at straws there. Saying somebody is incredibly tactically inflexible does not mean they never make a single change; the fact we started one match with a slightly higher pressing system is not evidence of a tactically flexible manager.

We have started many matches well this season but then it's fallen apart and Jones rarely seems able to alter the tide / wrestle control of a match back. Last season we pretty much exclusively, I think, played the 532 and I think never managed to come from behind to win, and again, I can't really think of a match where we were on the backfoot and managed to wrestle control of the game, something which happens frequently to us.

I just don't think it's even a discussion point that he is very rigid tactically.

But we did this all the time in league 1. Lots of changes he made that forced late winners for us

It’s a lot harder to do that when your players and your subs are worse than your opponents, which is the case for Jones nearly every game. In league 1 when he had a better squad for the level we did these things, now we’re in the championship with a poor squad we don’t do them

You say the manager is incapable of it, but we did it plenty in league 1. I'd say our squad is incapable of doing it. Norwich bring on Kenny McLean when they want more control in midfield. We bring on a teenager from the academy

Jones doesn't need to become more flexible imo. In all of our best periods under him we've had pretty much the same starting 11 every game, and the same subs coming on every game depending on game state. At the moment he is trying to find the right combination so that he can stick to it, we've seen him try that before and land on something. He desperately needs to land on something soon that works, and stick with it

I don't think we did do it even in L1. In league 1 on our promotion surge it was based on a very well drilled side that hardly conceded and we got through match after match in that way grafting our way through, other than the 2 x corner smash and grab at Orient, I don't think we made any major tactical switches to transform a game or to approach different opponents in particularly different ways.

Posh away in the promotion season got ahead of us and we didn't have a clue how to come back into it.

Conversely there have been several occasions where even other Championship sides including weaker ones have been able to out think us / or change patterns of games against us and we/Jones are left looking confused and at a loss what to do.

I agree with the concerns about who better we will get in; but I do not think Jones' is the level we ideally need either. If we persist with him, frankly I think we need to just go back to full basics, shut up shop, get the defence well drilled and try and burgle our way to enough points. I wouldn't back it, and I don't think it's sustainable; but I think that is the only way of managing / coaching that Jones' is actually capable of.

If you don't think we regularly changed things up to win a game in league 1 then I'm not sure what you were watching. It doesn't have to be a comeback win for that to have happened. So many games we turned from draws into wins by making the right tweaks and subs to win the game with a late goal.

If you still don't believe it then here are the stats. In our league 1 promotion season, Jones was joint first in the league for goals from subs, and outright first for goals+assists from subs. Last season in the championship, Jones was the second best manager in the league in terms of goals from substitutes. And that's with us being a team that scored less goals than most so I'd imagine the share of our goals scored by subs was probably the highest in the league. To say that he isn't able to make the right changes to change a game is just bollocks

wmcf123 · October 26

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

Bree did initially . Not sure Clarke was any great shakes offensively. I’d be spending this week seeing if Nkeng or Alli can play right wing back and we play a lop sided 352 like we did quite well under Jacko and under Jones when we went up

NabySarr · October 26

wmcf123 said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

Bree did initially . Not sure Clarke was any great shakes offensively. I’d be spending this week seeing if Nkeng or Alli can play right wing back and we play a lop sided 352 like we did quite well under Jacko and under Jones when we went up

I'm not saying he was great but he offered a lot lot more than McNamara does in that role. I think if we play 3-5-2 then Alli or Nkeng are not the answer. Neither of them are anywhere near good enough defensively to be an option there to start games

I'd play the back 5 at Boro but I'd have Ramsay at RWB. But ongoing I'd play the back 4 because we suit it better even if we don't have a good right winger we at least have Grant/Alli/TC that can play there

Danny Addick · October 26

Personally, I'd revert to a boring old 3-5-2 with 3 actual centre mids to stifle rather than worry about a 10. Maybe Mwamba, Coventry and Skipp. I dunno, we'll probably get beat whatever. I'd love us to nick a 0-0

ElfsborgAddick · October 26

WillmoreTheRed said:

Some of the names being batted around as a replacement for Jones are crazy, we have no budget - I agree we are set to go down but I don't think the managers we could realistically get will do any better with the squad we have, it'll be even worse with a new manager who has no idea of his squad.

A lot of this has to be pointed towards the owners trying to do things on a budget that was just never going to work.

We should be grateful we do not follow Bromley, apparantly they are in talks with Ashley Cole! I kid you not.

fenaddick · October 26

Corberan and Edwards being interviewed for the Burnley job, for those hoping they were somehow in our price range

CaptainRobbo · October 26

jonseventyfive said:

Is redemption for Parker possible? , big if but if he did come and prove successful by our standards, could he become accepted .

Only if he can get us promoted and sort the catering issues.

ElfsborgAddick · October 26

fenaddick said:

ForeverAddickted said:

Was it the current ownership that tried to sign Challinor when we were in League One?

Think you’re right and he turned them down

Amounts to the same thing, but I think he did not even want to talk to us.

paulsturgess · October 26

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

I don't hugely disagree but these comments from Clement on Cawley's (free) substack post this morning directly contradict that and highlight how his changes forced Norwich to change. The issue comes after that, we didn't adapt to whatever Norwich changed.
“We didn’t start the game well. Charlton pressed in a different way than they had been doing for weeks. So the team had difficulty to recognise that.
“It is a big working point for us to get experience on those things and speak on the pitch about what the solutions are. It took 15-20 minutes to get in contact with them. After, when they understood, we started to play our football."
People (in general, not you specifically Paul) often talk about NJ being stubborn or not changing but I just don't think that's the case. I think he changes plenty but gets the same results. I sometimes think he actually changes too much and that throws off the players. We haven't stuck with one formation in a match for weeks and weeks now, it must be so confusing for the players on the pitch.

I think you're clutching at straws there. Saying somebody is incredibly tactically inflexible does not mean they never make a single change; the fact we started one match with a slightly higher pressing system is not evidence of a tactically flexible manager.

We have started many matches well this season but then it's fallen apart and Jones rarely seems able to alter the tide / wrestle control of a match back. Last season we pretty much exclusively, I think, played the 532 and I think never managed to come from behind to win, and again, I can't really think of a match where we were on the backfoot and managed to wrestle control of the game, something which happens frequently to us.

I just don't think it's even a discussion point that he is very rigid tactically.

But we did this all the time in league 1. Lots of changes he made that forced late winners for us

It’s a lot harder to do that when your players and your subs are worse than your opponents, which is the case for Jones nearly every game. In league 1 when he had a better squad for the level we did these things, now we’re in the championship with a poor squad we don’t do them

You say the manager is incapable of it, but we did it plenty in league 1. I'd say our squad is incapable of doing it. Norwich bring on Kenny McLean when they want more control in midfield. We bring on a teenager from the academy

Jones doesn't need to become more flexible imo. In all of our best periods under him we've had pretty much the same starting 11 every game, and the same subs coming on every game depending on game state. At the moment he is trying to find the right combination so that he can stick to it, we've seen him try that before and land on something. He desperately needs to land on something soon that works, and stick with it

I don't think we did do it even in L1. In league 1 on our promotion surge it was based on a very well drilled side that hardly conceded and we got through match after match in that way grafting our way through, other than the 2 x corner smash and grab at Orient, I don't think we made any major tactical switches to transform a game or to approach different opponents in particularly different ways.

Posh away in the promotion season got ahead of us and we didn't have a clue how to come back into it.

Conversely there have been several occasions where even other Championship sides including weaker ones have been able to out think us / or change patterns of games against us and we/Jones are left looking confused and at a loss what to do.

I agree with the concerns about who better we will get in; but I do not think Jones' is the level we ideally need either. If we persist with him, frankly I think we need to just go back to full basics, shut up shop, get the defence well drilled and try and burgle our way to enough points. I wouldn't back it, and I don't think it's sustainable; but I think that is the only way of managing / coaching that Jones' is actually capable of.

If you don't think we regularly changed things up to win a game in league 1 then I'm not sure what you were watching. It doesn't have to be a comeback win for that to have happened. So many games we turned from draws into wins by making the right tweaks and subs to win the game with a late goal.

If you still don't believe it then here are the stats. In our league 1 promotion season, Jones was joint first in the league for goals from subs, and outright first for goals+assists from subs. Last season in the championship, Jones was the second best manager in the league in terms of goals from substitutes. And that's with us being a team that scored less goals than most so I'd imagine the share of our goals scored by subs was probably the highest in the league. To say that he isn't able to make the right changes to change a game is just bollocks

To say that Jones is an adept tactician or tactically flexible manager is just bollocks

you sound like Jones with his chip on his shoulder arguing for the sake of it

Every single team makes subs every single match of football and have done for about 25 years

Swapping Alex Gilbert for Luke berry for some fresh legs is not the same as a major tactical switch to change the pattern of a game

Jones plays and continues to play to a very rigid system style and tactics Vs I would say the majority of managers certainly in the top 2 leagues

The evidence is a very consistent and quite longstanding pattern of games where we’ve lost control of matches we had control of and Jones unable to adjust it, and often doesn’t even make any changes or until very late on

paulsturgess · October 26

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

I don't hugely disagree but these comments from Clement on Cawley's (free) substack post this morning directly contradict that and highlight how his changes forced Norwich to change. The issue comes after that, we didn't adapt to whatever Norwich changed.
“We didn’t start the game well. Charlton pressed in a different way than they had been doing for weeks. So the team had difficulty to recognise that.
“It is a big working point for us to get experience on those things and speak on the pitch about what the solutions are. It took 15-20 minutes to get in contact with them. After, when they understood, we started to play our football."
People (in general, not you specifically Paul) often talk about NJ being stubborn or not changing but I just don't think that's the case. I think he changes plenty but gets the same results. I sometimes think he actually changes too much and that throws off the players. We haven't stuck with one formation in a match for weeks and weeks now, it must be so confusing for the players on the pitch.

I think you're clutching at straws there. Saying somebody is incredibly tactically inflexible does not mean they never make a single change; the fact we started one match with a slightly higher pressing system is not evidence of a tactically flexible manager.

We have started many matches well this season but then it's fallen apart and Jones rarely seems able to alter the tide / wrestle control of a match back. Last season we pretty much exclusively, I think, played the 532 and I think never managed to come from behind to win, and again, I can't really think of a match where we were on the backfoot and managed to wrestle control of the game, something which happens frequently to us.

I just don't think it's even a discussion point that he is very rigid tactically.

But we did this all the time in league 1. Lots of changes he made that forced late winners for us

It’s a lot harder to do that when your players and your subs are worse than your opponents, which is the case for Jones nearly every game. In league 1 when he had a better squad for the level we did these things, now we’re in the championship with a poor squad we don’t do them

You say the manager is incapable of it, but we did it plenty in league 1. I'd say our squad is incapable of doing it. Norwich bring on Kenny McLean when they want more control in midfield. We bring on a teenager from the academy

Jones doesn't need to become more flexible imo. In all of our best periods under him we've had pretty much the same starting 11 every game, and the same subs coming on every game depending on game state. At the moment he is trying to find the right combination so that he can stick to it, we've seen him try that before and land on something. He desperately needs to land on something soon that works, and stick with it

I don't think we did do it even in L1. In league 1 on our promotion surge it was based on a very well drilled side that hardly conceded and we got through match after match in that way grafting our way through, other than the 2 x corner smash and grab at Orient, I don't think we made any major tactical switches to transform a game or to approach different opponents in particularly different ways.

Posh away in the promotion season got ahead of us and we didn't have a clue how to come back into it.

Conversely there have been several occasions where even other Championship sides including weaker ones have been able to out think us / or change patterns of games against us and we/Jones are left looking confused and at a loss what to do.

I agree with the concerns about who better we will get in; but I do not think Jones' is the level we ideally need either. If we persist with him, frankly I think we need to just go back to full basics, shut up shop, get the defence well drilled and try and burgle our way to enough points. I wouldn't back it, and I don't think it's sustainable; but I think that is the only way of managing / coaching that Jones' is actually capable of.

If you don't think we regularly changed things up to win a game in league 1 then I'm not sure what you were watching. It doesn't have to be a comeback win for that to have happened. So many games we turned from draws into wins by making the right tweaks and subs to win the game with a late goal.

If you still don't believe it then here are the stats. In our league 1 promotion season, Jones was joint first in the league for goals from subs, and outright first for goals+assists from subs. Last season in the championship, Jones was the second best manager in the league in terms of goals from substitutes. And that's with us being a team that scored less goals than most so I'd imagine the share of our goals scored by subs was probably the highest in the league. To say that he isn't able to make the right changes to change a game is just bollocks

To say that Jones is an adept tactician or tactically flexible manager is just bollocks

you sound like Jones with his chip on his shoulder arguing for the sake of it

Every single team makes subs every single match of football and have done for about 25 years

Swapping Alex Gilbert for Luke berry for some fresh legs is not the same as a major tactical switch to change the pattern of a game

Jones plays and continues to play to a very rigid system style and tactics Vs I would say the majority of managers certainly in the top 2 leagues

The evidence is a very consistent and quite longstanding pattern of games where we’ve lost control of matches we had control of and Jones unable to adjust it, and often doesn’t even make any changes or until very late on

And by the way all the jones disciples taking this as a personal affront. This is arguably his strength as well as his weakness.

cabbles · October 26

You can of course spin this both ways, but because the league table is so tight and we’re so early on in the season, he does have time on his side. We’re currently 6 points off 3rd from bottom. The run is terrible, but we’re fortunate enough to have a little cushion.

I understand for a few on here his time is up, but I’m going to get behind him and want to see him turn it around. For me, he’s done a solid job and despite how bad it’s been over the last 9 games, I’m choosing to believe he can get us out of this mess. I think he may only have until the intl break to do that, but I’d love to see him pick up the wins needed

paulsturgess · October 26

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

How many goals and assists did Josh Edwards get in a promotion winning wing back season? They’re just different types of wingback.

fenaddick · October 26

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

How many goals and assists did Josh Edwards get in a promotion winning wing back season? They’re just different types of wingback.

Edwards was the designated defensive wingback though with an ultra attacking Thierry Small on the other side. I'd argue he got forward more than Danny Mac does at wingback but they're performing different roles

paulsturgess · October 26

*Also to correct myself - adept tactician you could argue he is because his rigid tactics bring some success certainly in lower leagues. But he's not adaptable or flexible tactically.

NabySarr · October 26

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

I don't hugely disagree but these comments from Clement on Cawley's (free) substack post this morning directly contradict that and highlight how his changes forced Norwich to change. The issue comes after that, we didn't adapt to whatever Norwich changed.
“We didn’t start the game well. Charlton pressed in a different way than they had been doing for weeks. So the team had difficulty to recognise that.
“It is a big working point for us to get experience on those things and speak on the pitch about what the solutions are. It took 15-20 minutes to get in contact with them. After, when they understood, we started to play our football."
People (in general, not you specifically Paul) often talk about NJ being stubborn or not changing but I just don't think that's the case. I think he changes plenty but gets the same results. I sometimes think he actually changes too much and that throws off the players. We haven't stuck with one formation in a match for weeks and weeks now, it must be so confusing for the players on the pitch.

I think you're clutching at straws there. Saying somebody is incredibly tactically inflexible does not mean they never make a single change; the fact we started one match with a slightly higher pressing system is not evidence of a tactically flexible manager.

We have started many matches well this season but then it's fallen apart and Jones rarely seems able to alter the tide / wrestle control of a match back. Last season we pretty much exclusively, I think, played the 532 and I think never managed to come from behind to win, and again, I can't really think of a match where we were on the backfoot and managed to wrestle control of the game, something which happens frequently to us.

I just don't think it's even a discussion point that he is very rigid tactically.

But we did this all the time in league 1. Lots of changes he made that forced late winners for us

It’s a lot harder to do that when your players and your subs are worse than your opponents, which is the case for Jones nearly every game. In league 1 when he had a better squad for the level we did these things, now we’re in the championship with a poor squad we don’t do them

You say the manager is incapable of it, but we did it plenty in league 1. I'd say our squad is incapable of doing it. Norwich bring on Kenny McLean when they want more control in midfield. We bring on a teenager from the academy

Jones doesn't need to become more flexible imo. In all of our best periods under him we've had pretty much the same starting 11 every game, and the same subs coming on every game depending on game state. At the moment he is trying to find the right combination so that he can stick to it, we've seen him try that before and land on something. He desperately needs to land on something soon that works, and stick with it

I don't think we did do it even in L1. In league 1 on our promotion surge it was based on a very well drilled side that hardly conceded and we got through match after match in that way grafting our way through, other than the 2 x corner smash and grab at Orient, I don't think we made any major tactical switches to transform a game or to approach different opponents in particularly different ways.

Posh away in the promotion season got ahead of us and we didn't have a clue how to come back into it.

Conversely there have been several occasions where even other Championship sides including weaker ones have been able to out think us / or change patterns of games against us and we/Jones are left looking confused and at a loss what to do.

I agree with the concerns about who better we will get in; but I do not think Jones' is the level we ideally need either. If we persist with him, frankly I think we need to just go back to full basics, shut up shop, get the defence well drilled and try and burgle our way to enough points. I wouldn't back it, and I don't think it's sustainable; but I think that is the only way of managing / coaching that Jones' is actually capable of.

If you don't think we regularly changed things up to win a game in league 1 then I'm not sure what you were watching. It doesn't have to be a comeback win for that to have happened. So many games we turned from draws into wins by making the right tweaks and subs to win the game with a late goal.

If you still don't believe it then here are the stats. In our league 1 promotion season, Jones was joint first in the league for goals from subs, and outright first for goals+assists from subs. Last season in the championship, Jones was the second best manager in the league in terms of goals from substitutes. And that's with us being a team that scored less goals than most so I'd imagine the share of our goals scored by subs was probably the highest in the league. To say that he isn't able to make the right changes to change a game is just bollocks

To say that Jones is an adept tactician or tactically flexible manager is just bollocks

you sound like Jones with his chip on his shoulder arguing for the sake of it

Every single team makes subs every single match of football and have done for about 25 years

Swapping Alex Gilbert for Luke berry for some fresh legs is not the same as a major tactical switch to change the pattern of a game

Jones plays and continues to play to a very rigid system style and tactics Vs I would say the majority of managers certainly in the top 2 leagues

The evidence is a very consistent and quite longstanding pattern of games where we’ve lost control of matches we had control of and Jones unable to adjust it, and often doesn’t even make any changes or until very late on

Alex Gilbert for Luke Berry is a poor example here as they are completely different players so swapping one for the other is quite a change to how you are playing. A lot of the time it was Aneke coming on for Godden, or coming on for Small and moving TC to wing back. Again the formation stays the same but the way you are playing it is totally different.

Your claim that Jones is unable to make a major tactical switch to approach a different opponent is completely wrong too, one our best wins of his time here was him doing exactly that to Birmingham in league 1 and it was widely praised as a masterclass in tactics from a manager with only a few days to prepare such a plan

Not The Top 20 Pod on X: "An impressive managerial performance from Nathan Jones at the weekend. His Charlton side beat Birmingham 1-0 💪 🆕 Full pod: https://t.co/Dm82NNSDqZ #CAFC https://t.co/czZhx93Bv4" / X here is a neutral making the same point

Every manager has principles of play that are central to however they set a team up. Jones has these and they are very consistent like with nearly every other manager in the game these won't change.To say he plays to a rigid system and tactics is wrong though. Even just in his time with us we have had 3 different formations being our main formation. And even within that there has been variety within those formations, his 3-5-2 when he started vs our promotion in league 1 vs the end of last season were all the same system but played very differently. He's more flexible than a lot of managers we have had previously that we only saw one formation and style from ever.

If you look at the 2 promotions he's won in his career. One was with Luton where they had the highest possession in the league and scored the most goals. One was with us which was a much more direct style and built on clean sheets. Surely a manager capable of pulling both of those off isn't inflexible?

We won promotion with a hybrid 3-5-2/4-2-3-1 setup. To suggest Jones isn't an adept tactician after pulling off a promotion with a hybrid formation is just wrong. It was a clever system that got the best out of the players he had available. He is one of the best out of possession tacticians in the football league in terms of setting up a team to press high, knowing when to trigger etc. And also defensive shape, as we've seen his teams are usually able to absorb pressure and be difficult to break down. You might ignore them because they are defensive but that's still tactics

There are plenty of valid reasons to criticise Jones and want him sacked. But for me throwing out that he's tactically inept is a lazy criticism up there with "he's lost the dressing room" that you hear from fans when things are going badly

usetobunkin · October 26

The club can have my season ticket back if Parker had anything to do with us.

Even if he did turn us around as soon as a Chelsea or their ilk expressed an interest he would be off like the rat up a drain pipe.

He a cheque book merchant anyway.

NabySarr · October 26

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

How many goals and assists did Josh Edwards get in a promotion winning wing back season? They’re just different types of wingback.

Offering something going forward is not as simple as goals/assists, that's a massive simplification of the role. If you think Edwards and McNamara at wing back is similar then wow

queensland_addick · October 26

We have to try to find solutions prior to January, and so any solution will have to come from within the squad.
As much as I love Edwards at his best, he should never have started, or at least be subbed off at HT.
That mistake alone from Jones may have costed us a draw or possibly a win.

Persevering with Grant was another big mistake.

We cannot afford two passengers in the team.
I would rather have Mac at RB and push Ramsay into midfield. He can tackle, carry the ball, can glide past opponents, make good forward passes, and can press also, as we saw.

We converted Paul Mortimer from fullback into a classy midfielder, and Kishishev also from fullback into an excellent midfielder.
Ramsay has all the attributes and couldn't possibly do worse than the totally ineffective Grant.
We need to start getting more out of certain talented players, Leaburn being another.

NabySarr · October 26

“One thing is tactical systems, another thing is principles of play. Principles of play have to be permanent.” - Jose Mourinho

Quote from Mourinho explaining the difference. Jones has his principles of play that are permanent, so you could say are rigid. But so does every other manager in the game.

Tactical systems is where there is flexibility. In our time with Jones we have probably seen every formation that exists at some point during a game. Sometimes even 3 during the same game. That is tactical flexibility

And we’ve had different starting formations too. We started with a a traditional 3-5-2 when he first took over. We took that into the 2024/25 season but a few months in we switched to a 4-2-2-2 box midfield. We then had the famous switch to the 3-5-2/4-2-3-1 hybrid which bought promotion and did well in the championship. After a period of struggle we switched back to a traditional 3-5-2 to stay up last season, and then this season we have played 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2 and 3-4-2-1 from the start of games and switched to them in-game as well as 4-4-2 when chasing games

If you’ve watched all of that and still think Jones isn’t flexible then I’m not sure how you’ve come to that conclusion

arny23394 · October 26

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

arny23394 said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

McNamara is many things, a RWB is not one of them.

well, i assume that you're saying that in a disparaging/ similar way to "oliver skipp is a not a centre midfielder", because Macnamara has played a lot of championship football as a RWB.

He’s not good going forward, if we are playing with wingbacks, we need someone who offers a threat down the right - he doesn’t offer that at all.

I agree with that entirely. But we played the entirety of last season on this basis with Bree and then Clarke.

Who both offered significantly more going forward than McNamara does

How many goals and assists did Josh Edwards get in a promotion winning wing back season? They’re just different types of wingback.

That wasn’t his job? He would stay deep and we would essentially be playing 4-3-3 with small and TC as the wingers + him and Ramsay as the fullbacks.

And to answer your question, 1 goal and 5 assists - McNamara has 0 goals & 1 assist in the last 5 seasons (114 appearances).

Kindoncasella · October 26

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

Your making football management seem like rocket science. Do you not think Jones has a a look at other options in training? The squad isn't good enough regardless of who the manager is.

FirenzeAddick · October 26

Kindoncasella said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

Your making football management seem like rocket science. Do you not think Jones has a a look at other options in training? The squad isn't good enough regardless of who the manager is.

Jeez, I'm really not.

Put Pep Guardiola, Frank Lampard, Steve Evans and Gareth Southgate on the same sideline watching the same thing and ask them all for their analysis..... you'll get different answers.

Just as you would in many aspects of life, different people see the game in different ways.

Melrose · October 26

Kindon Casella. Jones is a ' busted flush'. Who do you think's responsible for bringing in most of this guff! The owners are not averse of blame and we have a limited budget, but my god the recruitment has been imbalanced and dire. He then starts freezing players out and making stupid tactical decisions. I think the players have had enough of him and so have many of the fans.

elbiglad · October 26

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

fenaddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

FirenzeAddick said:

SouthLincsAddick said:

king addick said:

Braziliance said:

I wouldn't mind him leaving as I think his football is terrible most of the time.

The issue is, we can't attract any decent coaches/managers cause our ownership don't have the funds for a truly ambitious manager.

Come to the realisation that we need Nathan Jones as much as he needs us for now. Ffs.

Minus the tonking they just took, no one heard of Vitor Matos when he took over at Swansea and he has done a pretty decent job. Yes they have more money but still competing against the leagues big hitters.

At the moment we are being put to shame by Lincoln!

This is the reality our supporters struggle to accept, as it offers little hope for the future. Swansea is an established Championship club and the sole team in a major city. Their revenue, and thus their player budget, far exceeds ours. Consequently, a relatively unknown manager might buy their way to competitiveness. Supporters criticise our recruitment, yet I would bet only a few signings over the past two years were genuine first choices, the remainder were scraps and leftovers. We are blaming the wrong person, please name a manager who would perform better with our available funds.

I don't disagree with any of that. However, this idea that Jones is the only answer just feels so unambitious.

He is a defensive coach (surrounded by defensive coaches) with an abrasive personality - when he is full of energy and has his 'edge' he builds a very competitive and physical side, however he has lost his edge and you can see that in his interviews and post match comments. I don't blame him at all for that, but without that energy it takes away what makes him a great manager a this level.

A new coach with a fresh pair of eyes and renewed energy could come in, look at the players available, see a shape and structure that could benefit them and start to build.

Just because Jones isn't able to do that, doesn't mean that no coach out there is able to do so.

There are managers out there like Ryan Lowe, Liam Manning, Richie Wellens, Dean Brennan even Johnnie Jackson who would all be in the conversation around whether they could get this group going.

What shape and structure would that be? We don’t have a right winger or right wing back so that pretty much rules out every shape or structure from working

This sort of comment is so ridiculously passive aggressive.

suggestion of a perfectly reasonable possibility that a theoretical new manager could conceivably have a view on a new / alternative system and then the person making that perfectly logical suggestion is supposed to pre empt for Charlton life what ideas this theoretical new manager who’s yet to be appointed or see the squad might have in their mind

macnamara is a RWB, and for what it’s worth managers often come up with new systems / positions / styles. Radostin kishishev was signed as a right back and curbs converted him into an effective premier league DMC. Did any ITK charlton lifers tip curbs off about that? Perhaps somebody even suggested before we’d signed him that we should sign a right back and try and play them in centre mid

One of my biggest criticisms of Jones is he appears to be incredibly tactically inflexible. He is quite backward in only really seeming to be able to come up with a system drill the squad to the nth degree how to play that and then that’s it. Modern football is much more fluid than that.

I don't hugely disagree but these comments from Clement on Cawley's (free) substack post this morning directly contradict that and highlight how his changes forced Norwich to change. The issue comes after that, we didn't adapt to whatever Norwich changed.
“We didn’t start the game well. Charlton pressed in a different way than they had been doing for weeks. So the team had difficulty to recognise that.
“It is a big working point for us to get experience on those things and speak on the pitch about what the solutions are. It took 15-20 minutes to get in contact with them. After, when they understood, we started to play our football."
People (in general, not you specifically Paul) often talk about NJ being stubborn or not changing but I just don't think that's the case. I think he changes plenty but gets the same results. I sometimes think he actually changes too much and that throws off the players. We haven't stuck with one formation in a match for weeks and weeks now, it must be so confusing for the players on the pitch.

I think you're clutching at straws there. Saying somebody is incredibly tactically inflexible does not mean they never make a single change; the fact we started one match with a slightly higher pressing system is not evidence of a tactically flexible manager.

We have started many matches well this season but then it's fallen apart and Jones rarely seems able to alter the tide / wrestle control of a match back. Last season we pretty much exclusively, I think, played the 532 and I think never managed to come from behind to win, and again, I can't really think of a match where we were on the backfoot and managed to wrestle control of the game, something which happens frequently to us.

I just don't think it's even a discussion point that he is very rigid tactically.

But we did this all the time in league 1. Lots of changes he made that forced late winners for us

It’s a lot harder to do that when your players and your subs are worse than your opponents, which is the case for Jones nearly every game. In league 1 when he had a better squad for the level we did these things, now we’re in the championship with a poor squad we don’t do them

You say the manager is incapable of it, but we did it plenty in league 1. I'd say our squad is incapable of doing it. Norwich bring on Kenny McLean when they want more control in midfield. We bring on a teenager from the academy

Jones doesn't need to become more flexible imo. In all of our best periods under him we've had pretty much the same starting 11 every game, and the same subs coming on every game depending on game state. At the moment he is trying to find the right combination so that he can stick to it, we've seen him try that before and land on something. He desperately needs to land on something soon that works, and stick with it

I don't think we did do it even in L1. In league 1 on our promotion surge it was based on a very well drilled side that hardly conceded and we got through match after match in that way grafting our way through, other than the 2 x corner smash and grab at Orient, I don't think we made any major tactical switches to transform a game or to approach different opponents in particularly different ways.

Posh away in the promotion season got ahead of us and we didn't have a clue how to come back into it.

Conversely there have been several occasions where even other Championship sides including weaker ones have been able to out think us / or change patterns of games against us and we/Jones are left looking confused and at a loss what to do.

I agree with the concerns about who better we will get in; but I do not think Jones' is the level we ideally need either. If we persist with him, frankly I think we need to just go back to full basics, shut up shop, get the defence well drilled and try and burgle our way to enough points. I wouldn't back it, and I don't think it's sustainable; but I think that is the only way of managing / coaching that Jones' is actually capable of.

If you don't think we regularly changed things up to win a game in league 1 then I'm not sure what you were watching. It doesn't have to be a comeback win for that to have happened. So many games we turned from draws into wins by making the right tweaks and subs to win the game with a late goal.

If you still don't believe it then here are the stats. In our league 1 promotion season, Jones was joint first in the league for goals from subs, and outright first for goals+assists from subs. Last season in the championship, Jones was the second best manager in the league in terms of goals from substitutes. And that's with us being a team that scored less goals than most so I'd imagine the share of our goals scored by subs was probably the highest in the league. To say that he isn't able to make the right changes to change a game is just bollocks

To say that Jones is an adept tactician or tactically flexible manager is just bollocks

you sound like Jones with his chip on his shoulder arguing for the sake of it

Every single team makes subs every single match of football and have done for about 25 years

Swapping Alex Gilbert for Luke berry for some fresh legs is not the same as a major tactical switch to change the pattern of a game

Jones plays and continues to play to a very rigid system style and tactics Vs I would say the majority of managers certainly in the top 2 leagues

The evidence is a very consistent and quite longstanding pattern of games where we’ve lost control of matches we had control of and Jones unable to adjust it, and often doesn’t even make any changes or until very late on

Alex Gilbert for Luke Berry is a poor example here as they are completely different players so swapping one for the other is quite a change to how you are playing. A lot of the time it was Aneke coming on for Godden, or coming on for Small and moving TC to wing back. Again the formation stays the same but the way you are playing it is totally different.

Your claim that Jones is unable to make a major tactical switch to approach a different opponent is completely wrong too, one our best wins of his time here was him doing exactly that to Birmingham in league 1 and it was widely praised as a masterclass in tactics from a manager with only a few days to prepare such a plan

Not The Top 20 Pod on X: "An impressive managerial performance from Nathan Jones at the weekend. His Charlton side beat Birmingham 1-0 💪 🆕 Full pod: https://t.co/Dm82NNSDqZ #CAFC https://t.co/czZhx93Bv4" / X here is a neutral making the same point

Every manager has principles of play that are central to however they set a team up. Jones has these and they are very consistent like with nearly every other manager in the game these won't change.To say he plays to a rigid system and tactics is wrong though. Even just in his time with us we have had 3 different formations being our main formation. And even within that there has been variety within those formations, his 3-5-2 when he started vs our promotion in league 1 vs the end of last season were all the same system but played very differently. He's more flexible than a lot of managers we have had previously that we only saw one formation and style from ever.

If you look at the 2 promotions he's won in his career. One was with Luton where they had the highest possession in the league and scored the most goals. One was with us which was a much more direct style and built on clean sheets. Surely a manager capable of pulling both of those off isn't inflexible?

We won promotion with a hybrid 3-5-2/4-2-3-1 setup. To suggest Jones isn't an adept tactician after pulling off a promotion with a hybrid formation is just wrong. It was a clever system that got the best out of the players he had available. He is one of the best out of possession tacticians in the football league in terms of setting up a team to press high, knowing when to trigger etc. And also defensive shape, as we've seen his teams are usually able to absorb pressure and be difficult to break down. You might ignore them because they are defensive but that's still tactics

There are plenty of valid reasons to criticise Jones and want him sacked. But for me throwing out that he's tactically inept is a lazy criticism up there with "he's lost the dressing room" that you hear from fans when things are going badly

I agree with pretty much all of this, and am on your side in the debate.

However, it seems that whichever formation we play this year it’s not working. The principles that you go on to reference appear to have been lost. There are explanations: the squad isn’t very good and we under invested. But this doesn’t look like a Nathan Jones team any more.

That is a coaching issue. Jones keeps telling us the players are not carrying out instructions or performing in the way they are told. Why is that? Why did we fail to respond to Norwich’s adjustments on Saturday? Why didn’t we attack Watford from the off?

To me the debate isn’t about how adaptable Jones is, it’s about whether he’s still able to get his message across to this squad. In his time with us Jones has had a core group of players that support him; hence why so many Luton disciples follow him around. Who is that in this current squad? Did we properly replace Doc as a leader? Jones has taken that role and his performances have dropped, though this may be due to the formation.

I’m not saying he’s ’lost the dressing room’, but I do worry that this squad isn’t responding to him anymore. I don’t like the sound of any potential replacement and am still a believer in Jones, but I think there are deeper issues than whether he is adaptable.

This was always the worry for many on here (including you NabySarr) when the signings indicated we wanted to ‘evolve’ to play four at the back. We didn’t buy well enough for it to work and are now stuck in limbo, without the players to play expansively and seemingly without the structure and solidity we once had. Chopping and changing between formations; the worst of both worlds.

We can all accept poor performances if the results are there. We can accept poor results if we play well. At the moment we have nothing to cheer for.

I am going to say it!! Yes I am, Nathan Jones......................

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