So what is the single most significant change that’s brought about this remarkable change in form?
Is it team selection, is it a change in routine/weekly schedule on the training pitch, is it the rooting out of a few bad apples, is it a streamlined squad? Or was it just time or something else?
Yes likely a combination but I wonder if there is something that has been most important that means it’s all ‘clicked’ into place.
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We are able to press teams high and maintain it for all 90 minutes, some of our players (Edwards, Coventry, Ramsay for instance) look like they could play another 90 minutes straight afterwards, and that shows in the games where we've won so many of them late on
Jones and Ramsay returning has been huge.
Using Small and TC to give us width.
Docherty showing us the player he is.
The lack of injuries and general fitness meaning lots of late goals and being able to see games out.
Leaburn returning.
The slim lined squad meaning nearly all the players bar Gassen are in the mix.
Macca cutting out the errors and adding some goals.
Gilbert's corners.
Losing A Campbell and Potts so perhaps the feeling that player are only here because they knew the gaffer has gone.
Godden starting on a regular basis.
Time allowing NJ's philosophy and way of playing to imbed
Some luck
Other teams having a wobble or their own injuries or problems
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Some will guess what this list represents; and those who do will understand why the first and ninth are highlighted.
Everyone knows it takes time to harvest, harden, hone and hoist a squad, over a season. In the last decade and a half, we've taken twelve opportunities to fail to do exactly that. This season, we've stuck with slow, gradual success. And it's paying off.
Season after season, Charlton have pulled the trigger on a manager before he's had the chance to succeed or fail. What's changed over the last few weeks is - in my view - we haven't sacked the manager. And that's what has caused the successes we're seeing now.
Big squads and chopping and changing the line ups every fucking match is counterproductive, and long may our opponents not work that one out.
Giving players a run in the team
Team spirit
Fitness
I still don’t think this a great team, certainly not on a par with the 2019 playoff winning team, but the league is poor enough that being decent might just be enough to get us up this season.
Luton fans said at the beginning, that Jones would have a style and he'd stick by it until players got accustomed to it, that he'd make decisions we wouldnt like (Selling May), but we'd learn to accept... Think we're slowly seeing that persistence pay off.
Obviously many factors have helped, players returning, a lack of injuries, playing a settled side, but for me things mainly started to change when we stopped lumping it.
Small finding some form has really helped us (He's back to the player we had last season, rather than a player that showed why he hadn't settled anywhere at the start) is helpful - But its worth remembering, he's still simply playing the Ramsay role from the start of the season, and is probably a bit more of an attacking full-back compared to Kayne. Its effectively two players out of position, on paper it doesn't look like it should work, but really does.
I know it's frustrating when you expect a discussion to pan out a certain way, and someone takes it in a different direction, but that's life. It's been marginal gains right across the team, rather than just one thing that have made the difference.
So we had seven players that made more than 40 appearances. Last season, the only two that did so were Dobson and May. If we then look at how the personnel has evolved, both in terms of recruitment and individual improvement, then we see that those players that are now on our team sheet from the off, actually started, as a group, very few matches by comparison - Jones (30), Coventry (16), Small (14), Gillesphey (14), TC (12), Ramsay (3), Godden (0), Edwards (0), Berry (0) Docherty (0).
Consistency of performance and selection, allied to strong back up players, is the key. Without wishing to knock any of the players currently in the side, if we had a top class keeper, a Keillor-Dunn and a Stansfield/Kone then we would, at worst be second and at best rivalling our achievements of 2011-12 and holding our own in the Championship next season too.
Since playing this way only Birmingham have been able to handle both, nobody else has come close. Lose either to injury and then teams can double up and make it easier to go after the other.
Many factors have contributed to the change but for me lose TC or Small you lose the width and the way we’re playing. It’s still largely the same squad that was bumbling about in mid table just a few months ago.
The dreadful Crawley game was the last time we saw Taylor and Coventry in the same team. Now, I am not saying Taylor is a bad player, far from it. I quite like him. But as soon as he was substituted, Coventry looked a different player.
After that, Taylor was on the bench, and Coventry began to really show how good he is.
That meant that Berry came in, as it was recognised that we needed a midfielder that could deliver in dead balls, whether from corners or free kicks.
It also meant that Docherty was relieved of the no. 10 position, that was stopping him showing how good he could be, playing as the "box to box" midfielder.
Then Godden had to be selected, as it was recognised that the striker could no longer be just a big lump, and had to work harder in the press, and bring others into play.
And, most importantly, accept that a "team" may be better than a sum of all its parts.
Which is why I won't join in the clamour to replace Berry with Gilbert. NJ sees them in training every day. Not just on match days like the fans. (And in Gilbert's case, maybe only for 20 minutes, when it's easy to look good against a tiring opposition!)
All those little things, that needed to coincide, that have turned our season around.
Yes, I am saying NJ may have been lucky. But the quote above was from Napoleon Bonaparte. And he was pretty damned good at his job...
Dr Will Abbott could turn out to be the best signing of this ownership groups tenure.
I think there's something to be said for doing the basics right. Passing quality. Moving off the ball. Ball retention. They're are all the sort of things we were getting so badly wrong and manager after manager seemed to overlook problem.
So pleased NJ had gone through it and ironed it out.
In honesty, he probably has had a calming influence behind the scenes - for example not responding to all the calls to sack NJ.
2 Scott being frozen out.
3 Me growing a lucky beard.