Relentless
Talking Point 🗣️
What happened and what did they do with our drab-season’s already over Charlton Athletic?
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Feb 14
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CBT & Dobbo
Lots more chatter around the January transfer window yesterday from Andy Scott. I do agree with him that January is a very tough window to trade in, but it will be interesting to see who the club can entice and how much real financial support they get from the new owners.
January will be a tell-tale month in many ways.
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Sandgaard removes Adkins
Just a little over 7 months after Nigel Adkins arrived via a Zoom call and talk of Premier League ambitions, Thomas Sandgaard closed the chapter on Adkins’ Charlton managerial career last night with us sat in a League One relegation place.
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Lincoln City 2 Charlton Athletic 1
Nigel Adkins future must now be untenable.
Enough of the excuses. Twelve games and still no clear system or pattern of play. No energy, horribly unorganized at the back, ponderous going forward and overrun in midfield. 14 days on the training ground and Adkins is patently unable to organize, present a vision or effect how we play. Similarly from the touchline during the games.
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A crunch week for Adkins
Two weeks without a game. I kind of think it has dragged, but Adkins squad go again tomorrow when they travel to Lincoln, four places above us in the table.
This international break has followed the same pattern as the last one. A desperately needed win, followed by a conclusive home victory in the Pizza Trophy and then a wait with promises of plenty of work on the training pitch to come.
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Charlton Athletic 1 Bolton Wanderers 4
No way back for Nigel Adkins now surely.
After Adkins made his 23rd team change in four games we started well. Davison finished clinically from a Leko cross and those two supported by Blackett-Taylor and Lee actually aroused the senses for 30 minutes, but we ran out of legs and ideas and Bolton equalized just before half-time with another long range pot shot with Matthews again culpable.
Half-time and all to play for, but for the love of god what does Adkins say to them during the break?
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Defiance
A pretty defiant press conference from Nigel Adkins yesterday, and who would blame him on the back of the best 45 minutes, by far, we have seen us this season, plus a valuable point.
Question is, is this the start of a journey or are we on the night bus to nowhere. That used to be the N199 🚌, not sure it still is.
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Tuesday is about more than winning
Tomorrow is not even about winning for me, it is about style and substance.
Adkins’ team selection will tell us a lot about his state of mind. Pull up the drawbridge and hang in there for a point or go for a much needed three points. Whatever his ambition, give us a team that are hungry and organized.
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Wycombe Wanderers 2 Charlton Athletic 1
Another defeat, but it wasn’t just that, it was another game where we weren’t even in it. One shot on target and completely outplayed. Devoid of ideas, identity and confidence.
Don’t let the injury time goal from Lavelle turn your head or the couple of scrambles that followed. This was terrible, we deserved nothing.
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Ryan & Ronnie
What a pair. One made of glass the other invisible ink.
Inniss is a real shame. The big fella has real ability and is very capable of playing well above this level, but signing him was always going to be a risk and so it has proven.
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Charlton Athletic 1 Cheltenham Town 2
Well that little boost of optimism lasted all of five minutes, in fact Watson couldn’t even get the opening second right when he kicked off when everyone else took the knee. Watson’s afternoon did not get any better.
Our worst start to a season for 15 years and just out of the League One relegation places on goal difference after Cheltenham Town, on their first ever visit to The Valley, gave us a footballing lesson.
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Sustainable transfer vision
From someone who was asking for some leadership commentary on our transfer strategy through the silence leading up to the deadline, it would be amiss of me if I wasn’t to praise the article yesterday with included insight from Sandgaard, Roddy, Gallen and Adkins.
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No hiding
The one thing about a sloppy start is there is no covering up the misgivings of a skinny inadequate squad.
In past season’s with a similar anemic pre-season but with a much-less caring owner, we have started well against the odds. At Sunderland a couple of season’s back Lee Bowyer carried a half-filled bench, refusing to sing the ‘pathway to the first-team’ crap and just took the players he felt could come on and make a difference.
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Back at The Valley
Good morning Addicks. How are we doing?
What a great feeling it is for Addicks’ fans to be back at The Valley, which other than for the odd Covid trial event, has sat ghost like for the past 17 months. It is been a weird time for everyone but routines will return this afternoon as friends and family gather to wake up this historic football stadium.
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Starting XI
This was the team that started yesterday to round off the pre-season games at Craven Cottage. We lost 1-0 to a team described as a level or two above us, which galls me but that is because of my own unerring enmity of the Fulham 🤷♂️
With Alex Gilbey recovering from Covid and Ronnie Schwartz “still some way of inclusion” then that ladies and gentlemen is that.
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Unrealized expectation
If our What’s App group chat was as busy on transfer incomings and rumours, as it is on how great the new kits are, then we’d all be a little more upbeat about the start of the new season starting a week tomorrow.
I am a patient soul when it comes to Charlton and I want to be careful not to put myself in the bedwetting department, but my expectation, perhaps aspirational, of a summer rebuild has so far been a long way off the mark.
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Charlton squad impacted by Covid rise
Nigel Adkins, several members of staff and players were each impacted by Covid last week meaning they had top self-isolate away front the rest of the squad and missed the pre-season run-out at Dartford.
Cases in the UK are surging as it fully opens tomorrow with the Delta variant spreading across Europe and countries arguing over who and who cannot enter.
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Charlton Athletic 1 Hull City 0
Happy to see us finish the season on a high. It may have been a sloppy own goal that gave us the win, but it was good to see us keep going at the end looking for another goal.
A very decent return this week, but as expected we just miss out on the Play-Off’s by goal difference with Oxford comfortably seeing off Burton 4-0 whilst down on the south coast Pompey choked at home to Accrington.
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Adkins Q&A
I signed up to listen to Nigel Adkins CAST Q&A yesterday. It was a fast paced 90 minutes, better than many our games this season to be fair, and I’d like to thank the Trust team for setting the whole thing up and bringing Nigel from his Hampshire country home into our computers.
Accrington Stanley 1 Charlton Athletic 1
Just the two games left before the curtains can close on this ghastly season. It was an ugly game, which suited the majority of all that had gone before it.
We were terrible, undeserving of a last kick equaliser. A fuddled game plan in which the only plan appeared to play like them and just hoof up into the air at every oppportunity. More upsetting was the lack of determination and mettle to try to win the game, which we had to.
There is abolutely nothing to cling onto with this team. They, all of them, truly give you nothing to believe in.
A statement to ourselves
A simple if expensive, but thoughtful idea for Nigel Adkins and his team to stay down in Devon on Tuesday night. A few chamomile and tea’s, a bit of supper and bed for the boys, even though the skipper had that beer glint in his eyes 👀.
It was a super win on Tuesday and (not for the first time) I lean towards Curbs’ view that this was not a win to send a statement to our rivals, but a win to send a statement to ouirselves.
Jason Euell promoted to first team coach
Happy April 1st, plenty of wind up’s out there but Jason Euell’s promotion is not one of them. Congratulations Jase, well deserved.
During the last few months I wondered if Euell, who has been at the club this time around since 2013, would still be a feature at Sparrows Lane. He applied for the manager’s job at AFC Wimbledon in February before the Dons offered Mark Robinson the job permanently. There were also whispers that he was on Lee Bowyer’s summer wishlist too, that’s if he is allowed to rebuild the coaching infrastructure at St Andrews.
Morning Nige
I don’t know how many of you are on Twitter or have seen Nigel Adkins’ good morning messages, but as part of his raising money for Prostrate UK he is walking 11,000 steps a day and has been chronicling it with a a small video each morning.
For those with a early morning disposition of torpor or grumpiness then they are best avoided because Nigel is as chirpy and upbeat as can be.
Nigel Adkins
Lots of negativity around the selection of Nigel Adkins. Aspirations of Eddie Howe and Chris Wilder were fanciful, and although Thomas has a few bob he is not a Russian oligarch, and last time I looked we are in the 3rd Division.
Sure, I was underwhelmed too, but unless it’s Karel Fraeye, then judging a manager before a ball is kicked is a little premature.
