Posts from the ‘Michael Slater’ Category

Mar 24

Saints alive

Charlton Athletic 1 Southampton 1
I’m a bit late with this as this week has been ridiculous at work but from what I have read it sounded a vast improvement and coupled with Michael Slater’s comments the same day I sense a bit more forbearance and less angst amongst Addicks. Am I right?

Whether Southampton came to win the game and therefore allowed us to play helped or the fact that probably everyone bar the most pessimistic Saints fan in the ground expected a complete thrashing distilled the general feeling of oncoming doom, I don’t know.

Maybe it was an excellent few days on the training field. Maybe it was an impassioned pre-match team talk. Maybe it was a more better balanced team line up with timely substitutions. Maybe we had reached the bottom. Or maybe Tuesday was all a blip.
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Mar 22

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A letter to supporters

For those of you that have not seen this, the below is a transcript of a letter sent this week to season ticket holders and others from Michael Slater. I understand something along the same lines will feature in tonight’s programme.

Dear

I am writing to thank you for your continuing support as a season ticket holder this year and to let you know that all of us on the board share the disappointment and frustration that I’m sure you are feeling about our recent run of results.

There’s no point in me trying to disguise the fact that I’m also writing to try and encourage you to continue your support by buying a season ticket for next season.

We are conscious that until very recently the club was locked in a spiral of decline following relegation from the Premier League in 2007 and fans like you have shown extraordinary loyalty over that period. I can well understand if your patience is stretched to breaking point.

Supporting Charlton at the moment isn’t easy. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but please don’t give up on your team.

When Tony Jimenez and I assumed control of the club at the turn of the year, we were well aware of the many issues that had to be addressed on and off the pitch to take the club forward again. We also felt that the squad had to be improved in order to gain promotion. We have taken steps to improve that situation, with some changes of personnel and the appointment of Chris Powell as manager. After four straight wins perhaps we all started to think that Chris might have a magic wand but recent results have confirmed what we and Chris believe – the squad must be strengthened.

I want to assure that change is coming. Nobody can guarantee success, but we did not come to Charlton to run it as a League One club. It is not a viable business in this division.

The board recognises that the only way out of this situation is to invest in the playing squad without making the mistake that so many other clubs make by panic buying in January. A better squad means better performances which will attract more fans and generate greater revenues for the club to invest.

We are not going to spend recklessly or hastily and nothing will be done without Chris’s say so, but I want to assure you that we know what needs to be done and over the coming months you will see significant investment to that end.

If you have already renewed your season ticket for 2011/12, I thank you and hope what I have said gives you cause for optimism. If you haven’t, I trust it will encourage you to do so by the deadline of April 4th to take advantage of reduced prices.

I’m confident the next season will be better than this one and that in years to come you’ll look back with pride in the knowledge that you stuck with the club through thick and thin.

On a personal note, I would like to thank you for the warm welcome Tony and I have received over the past few months. We are absolutely determined to repay that reception with success on the pitch, and sooner rather than later.

Onwards and upwards.

Michael Slater
Chairman

Mar 19

2 Comments

Fatally wounded by Daggers?

Dagenham & Redbridge 2 Charlton Athletic 1
Another horrible performance from the Addicks today. Paul Benson failed a late fitness test and was replaced as match summariser by the helplessly optimistic Liam Happe but it was desperate listening and the 1,156 Addicks in the away end voiced their opinions loudly at the end of each half and particularly when Wagstaff, seemingly our best player, was replaced by Reid just after the hour when we were already two-down.

There is a view that Chris Powell should be given time to build his own team, and I understand that. There is also a notion that we should write this season off, Peter Varney has allegedly already said as much. Powell denied that tonight but the players have clearly given up the ghost and by their lack of effort look to have given up on Powell. Question is should we?
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Jan 9

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A proud defeat, but what’s next?

Tottenham Hotspur 3 Charlton Athletic 0
Well much better than we’d all dreamt of this week. My son was expecting 10, I was more like half of that. It was three in the end but it was the performance and belief with which the team played for Keith Peacock, Damian Matthew and the noisy travelling Addicks that gave us back some pride following a week when that word was very scarce indeed.

We played excellently in the first first half and came closest to scoring and it was a joy to hear Charlton songs blasting out on the radio. The BBC Radio commentary team were very complimentary. However within a 20-minute spell at the beginning of the 2nd period we were dead and buried as substitute Luka Modric turned the screws and that annoying individual Jermain Defoe scored his customary goals against us.

Admittedly Spurs took their foot of the gas but we continued to have some good possession and both Sodje and Doherty came close to beating Cudicini near the end but a late consolation wasn’t forthcoming.

It wasn’t long ago that Spurs was a regular fixture and we nearly always finished above them in the table but ignoring our troubles, under Redknapp Spurs have come on bundles since we left the Premier League and it was the expected defeat, but for anyone disappointed then let me point you to managerless Ipswich, who were hammered 7-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

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Jan 4

5 Comments

New era arrives with a bang

Quite a day. Phil Parkinson was indeed a good bloke, decent and hard working but after yesterday evening the writing was on the wall and the difference between this week and last, is that the board could afford to pay him, Breacker and Kinsella off.

Let’s deal with the backroom staff first. It is sad to see Kinsella go, but as a coach, I don’t think he has anywhere near the qualities he had as a player. Very different skills of course. As for Breacker, well he was a Parkinson appointee and as in 99% of cases a new broom sweeps every corner of the room as it probably should have done two years ago. I wonder how long Phil Chapple will last when a new managerial team come in?

As for Parky, many Addicks will point to our league position, last season’s play-off finish and a 39% win rate, but despite the club’s ongoing financial situation, he’s still had one of League One’s largest budgets and free-reign and support in the transfer market from his chairman.

But for me and a growing band of other Addicks it was the dour style of play (and I mostly only get to listen to it on the radio), lack of ambition in games, especially at The Valley plus more and more glaringly obvious, Parky’s tactical limitations. Sadly too many times he has stood on the side lines and been out-thought by his fellow managers, some or most of whom, have a fraction of the resources that he has had.

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Jan 4

3 Comments

Parky and backroom staff sacked

Sky and the South London Press are reporting that Parky and the whole backroom staff have been sacked by the new board.

Some Addicks will be thrilled by that news. I’m not sure what kind of light this puts the new owners in after backing him just a couple of days ago. Nonetheless football is a cruel game and Parky, Breacker and Kinsella are now all jobless.

Who do you fancy to takeover?

UPDATE: Now official. Michael Slater: “The team has not won in the league since November and recent performances have simply not been good enough. Last night’s defeat convinced us as a board that change is required now we are still in the hunt for promotion, and that we must appoint a new manager to give us every chance of going up.”

Jan 3

4 Comments

Woeful

Charlton Athletic 2 Swindon Town 4
The last time Swindon visited The Valley Addicks fans ended the evening distraught but with at least a sense of pride. There was no pride this evening, just despair.

From start to finish this was a woeful display. For the umpteenth time this season we were lacking in ideas and any kind of creativity. With our first meaningful attack Johnnie Jackson scored again, this time from a lucky deflection and we were fortunate to see the goal stand. TV replays showed a handball and an offiside. But it did and it was a great opportunity to push on.

But we didn’t, Swindon continued to dominate while we just launched long balls forward and the midfield ran around in circles trying to work out Parky’s 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 system and Swindon fully deserved their 41st minute equaliser.

At the break Michael Slater would have been hoping along with 14,000 others that Parky would demonstrate some managerial skills. He didn’t.

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Dec 31

Takeover completed

“As the new owners, we are both football fans and businessmen. Today’s acquisition brings much-needed financial stability to the club. Our plan for Charlton is to run the club on a sensible financial footing and develop a commercial plan to ensure we make progress on and off the pitch to meet the expectations of our fans.

What we won’t do is create unrealistic pie in the sky expectations.”

Comments from new Charlton chairman Michael Slater, who is described as co-owner alongside property developer (those two words always worry me) Tony Jimenez, once of Newcastle ‘fame’. There also appears to be an unnamed 3rd party, whom I wondering maybe the money behind the transaction because I don’t think Jimenez or Slater have the funds themselves. Slater did say that Dennis Wise is not in the new owners’ plans.
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