Appleton’s press conference
Michael Appleton’s press conference was a tough watch yesterday. It made for uncomfortable viewing as he was grilled for the majority of the 18 minutes about his future hardly touching on the game tonight and spoke more about Northampton’s threat’s than any of our own.
To be fair to him he remained relatively calm and spoke honestly and candidly and did not shy away from the position he has put us in.
From a human element I don’t like the personal insults towards him, but he came across so detached and I watched feeling that there isn’t one inch of connectivity or common ground between him and vast majority of the fanbase.
I was left feeling a little wretched about the whole thing after, but Appleton is a master at getting a pay-off beginning when he won £1.5m in a lawsuit against the surgeon that he accused of ruining his playing career.
It is not Appleton who I have acrimony towards, it is with the men that appointed him in the first place.
I have said this so many times, but I don’t need an oil baron or a tech billionaire to own our football club or a whatever Andy Scott propounds to be who eats corporate bullshit books for breakfast, I just want someone who understands it.
Michael Appleton was never a Charlton manager, whether he sticks his hands in his pockets or performs like a seal on the touchline. I don’t care. He was never going to be a durable or popular leader.
What the club needed and still need more than ever is a talisman, someone that can pull this car crash of a club together soup to nuts. And pick a manager or head coach that is capable, can improve and inspire players, be a little bit competent tactically, and be able to win some bloody football matches.
That has been too much to ask for a painfully incredibly long time now.
Oh well, tonight should be fun.
Perhaps the best we might hope for is (yet) another journeyman manager who might just be able to meld our hotch-potch of mercenary and misfit players into something approaching a team…
I rather liked Nigel Adkins and Dean Holden but find little to like about Michael Appleton. In fact Dean Holden might just have been the best of a largely incompetent bunch from recent history. Oh dear, how might it just get better??
Well said ! If he still doesn’t believe that we are in a relegation battle then not only is he incompetent he is also delusional ! But like you I think more questions need to be asked of Andy Scott and his ability or Lack of for bringing in talent !
We need to be tight at the back stop backing off the opposition forwards a trait that has cost us many goals our midfield needs to be strong and boss that area movement is the key too many standing square on what ever happened movement off the ball creating space, football is game of movement if you don’t create spaces to run into you’re knackered forwards need to be making runs and the midfield looking up and picking out passes and lastly losing possession how many times do our players hang on to the ball when a simple pass dose the job….saints preserve us !
P.S I’d take the job but I’m a 62 year school keeper 🙂
Dave – if your school keepers coat has pockets then you are IN!
Looks like there’s a vacancy in the morning!
He’s a mercenary – he came in to do a job and to an extent some of the issues we’ve faced notably a lengthy injury record and lack of squad depth which was highlighted by the injuries would have taxed far better managers.
But having signed two experienced defenders we need to start at least one of them tonight and he needs to go to the subs bench much earlier if Plan A isn’t working.
Above all I want to see a few signs that there’s a strategy at work with players knowing their job and being determined to impose themselves on the opposition regardless of setbacks.
It’s his job to get the tactics and strategy right and win a few games. At Charlton he’s pretty much in the last chance saloon.
If Appleton stays in charge we are doomed. But the board hand picked him so for them to get rid of him will be a kick in the teeth and they will have to admit they got it wrong. I doubt they will do that. It will only change once we’re in the relegation bottom four for them to realise. Sadly it will all be too late. I fear for this great club.
Totally agree with you CA !
The new management have all to answer for in appointing Appleton in the first instance and it was obvious to fans he was not the right fit
It’s also clear that there is an ever widening gulf between fans and the club.
Results are embarrassing and we are a soft touch for all clubs in our league.It was evident in November that nothing was done on the pitch to stop late goals being conceeded…why ?
Why are loan players sitting on the bench when it’s obvious they need to start. Eskimo Watson is a case in point.
I don’t like to see,read and here any personal abuse towards Appleton as its clear he’s out of his depth tactically
I will be at the game tonight and vultures will be overhead waiting for a defeat.
Great qualification Dave….apply just in case
Cliff they couldn’t afford my wages saying that I could probably do part time to help them out….
Go for just Saturdays 12-6pm
Agree, it’s the decision makers above the manager.
It was the same with Jiminez and Slater, Duchebag, Sandgaard the electric warrior, can’t really include ESI and now this mob!
I’d love to know how Scott, Rodwell and Methane are explaining their incompetence to the investors?
Maybe they should explain their poor performance though the silent art of mime!
More like the medium of dance! Think of old people at a wedding reception or disco dancing, very badly.
Maybe copy the ‘whirling dervishes’ style….spinning around and getting nowhere?
Absolutely right. I just wish there was transparency at our lovely club. I have been a supporter for 56 years now through thick and thin. I cannot remember a time with so much mistrust and apparent dishonesty. This is certainly not the club I watched as a kid and it has grown to mirror society’s values of ‘I’ll see you in court’ and mindless tittle tattle amongst people running the club who have absolutely no investment into it in terms of pride and love.
There was a time when we would do things in the “Charlton way”, do what was right fair and ethically correct. That is the Charlton I want to support, that is the organisation that I want to associate myself with.
I watched the interview in horror, that is not what I go to football for and I regret that this man (Mr. Appleton) has been put through that.
Only when we get back to a position of supporting our team and its leader through good times and bad, back to “the Charlton way”, will we get and deserve success.
If the board are supporting Michael Appleton then lets see them put themselves into that firing line and explain their reasons. Lets see them front and centre supporting their man. It is not good enough to hide behind him and expect that he take all the abuse that is coming from our own supporters. On that note, I’d like to think that that abuse is totally uncharacteristic of “us” as a whole and I would ask those that are making nasty remarks to stop.
Only when we stand together will we succeed, if the fans are allowed to protest a manager out then our poor position will continue and this situation will repeat itself ad Infinium.
I realise that I am in a monitory with regard to the position of our manager, I want the best for our club the same as everyone that supports it does. However, it seems that I see a very different route to its success than others.
Well said Christopher I echo your measured comment.
Me too Christopher.
I don’t understand what people mean when they say ‘never a Charlton manager’. I don’t have a platonic ideal of how a Charlton manager should look or sound. People show commitment and dedication in different ways. They’re all Charlton managers as far as I’m concerned. I warmed more to Holden than I do to Apples but as long as he works hard, i’m really not bothered. ‘Never going to be popular’ is such a self-fulfilling statement.