Special sauce
I love that Alan Curbishley still calls Robert Lee ‘Robert.’ Over the years I have spent a fair bit of time with Rob(ert), I am good friends with his brother and absolutely everyone calls him Rob, accept Curbs and Addicks’ fans of a certain generation.
The turnstile operator, the 17-year old on the back of the programme, the lost contact lense, that was always Robert, but not to anyone else including his Dad who was born in Woolwich.
Anyway there are a couple of points to this. How good is the banter between Scott Minto, Curbs and the various players that have guested so far on Valley Live. Moreover how good and inspiring still is their kinship?
While Curbs, Minto, Brownie and a host of others talk sense and systems and methods, behind all that is a deep bond of feeling for the club. Without exception they all say “us” when talking about Charlton, and it has never felt forced or stiff.
My second point.. what we would give for a team, a squad that had that kindred spirit now.
This must be the most disconnected group of players we’ve seen since that Parky team, or the revolving door of mercenaries at the end of the Powell reign. I don’t sense any real lack of effort amongst this group, but what a startlingly bad transfer window has given us is a terrible hodgepodge of individuals.
There are a lot of ingredients in this squad, probably too many, but where is the recipe. Where is the special sauce? It ain’t there and this season sadly looks like petering away.
Whether Bowyer, and let’s not forget Gallen and Jackson, are trusted to build a promotion team in the summer only Thomas Sandgaard has that decision making power.
Yet Thomas is a little bit culpable. We haven’t heard from him for a while, but he will know that he needs to make better and more judicious decisions in the summer.
9 points to play for starting tomorrow evening.
Chicago Addick 
Very well put. The view from Thomas and others is that we have individual players as good as any team in the league, and that might be true, but the whole team is not cohesive, there is no sense of a style of play.
One point on the January transfers, they did include the Millar loan, and he is an skilful and committed player.
And Stockley and both have been a big upgrade.
I don’t think we should put too much pressure on Thomas – he’s said and done a lot already, at a time like this owners can be goaded into giving votes of confidence, and we know what happens next, or they risk stepping in and undermining the management with mixed messaging. Or maybe he’s keeping a diplomatically low profile – and he’s made his mind up to see the season out under the current coaching team. It could also be that his daytime business is soaking up his time.
Yes this is a team that lacks a talisman or two and is in continual search of that mysterious alchemy. A definition of a team is where the whole is more than the sum of the parts – and we clearly don’t have that but it’s a crazy league this year – despite our poor form (no home wins in three months for example) we sit just a few points off the play-offs. As long as they keep fighting…I’ll keep supporting and maybe I’m being naive, but I’ll keep believing.
Mid-term, i.e. in the close season there will be a lot of players with contracts up for renewal, pretty much most of the first team squad from what I can see. Bow – or whoever is in charge – will have to construct yet another team and yet another squad. It might be that TS will decide on a new manager to build that new squad, who knows? Even if we do do get a miracle promotion there’s going to be a lot of players coming in and others saying goodbye. I hope we get our work done early and maybe the reason why we aren’t hearing much from some quarters
Agree with all of that SP.
I agree CA. I also think that it was not a particularly wise move for TS to put a specific timeframe on promotion to the Championshio and Premier League. It puts unnecessary pressure on the team and management and, raises the expectation levels of the fans which in itself brings pressure. I admire TS’ ambition and l’m sure he will reach his goal success takes time, as we all know. For this season, now that promotion hopes look over, l would settle for seeing some progress made in respect of a playing style and blooding some younger players.
Norfolk – I think the majority of us cringed when TS talked of Europe. Yet if he had said stabilize in League One he would have got pelters too. His business background shows signs of a slow and steady build.. think we would all be content with that.
Well it was all a bit last minute, trying to grab whatever players were available to strengthen a severely depleted squad. The salary cap didn’t help.
There wasn’t the time for planning. I can’t see us reaching the play offs this season so I think they need to plan for the summer transfer window and make sure they judiciously spend the required to time to build a cohesive team. A few player will need to go for sure, but some will surely fit into the team for next season.
I don’t think you can blame Thomas Saangaard, he made the funds available and I think Bowyer and Gallen were also in a fairly difficult position given the limitations.