Thursday 9 December 2010

The irony for two managers

Its Charlton managers day today.  Former player and manager Pardew takes the reigns from Toon favourite Chris Houghton and now manages a club with true potential, but will he be able to reverse decades of under achievement? 

Meanwhile, away from the spotlight of the Premiership, beavering away is Phil Parkinson, who after Charltons 4-0 home hammering by Brighton, galvanised the team to produce an almost flawless November and he has picked up the Manager of the Monthly award.  Well done to Johnny Jackson who has won Player of the Month.

The irony of course is that as Pardew has failed, Parkinson has shown progress and built the fans confidence in his ability to deliver Championship football next season.

Parkie has had a difficult couple of years and the fact that he has survived in the Valley hot seat is almost a miracle and can be put down to Richard Murray, our outgoing Owner and Chair, who has seen someting in Parkinson that at times few others have.

Pardew left a side, after a 5-2 home defeat, disjointed, demoralised, over paid,un balanced and seemingly on course for relegation.  Parkinson failed to save the club and to this day this is held against, but performances improved and foundations laid for the first season in the third division,which eventually resulted in a failed play off campaign.

Over time Parkie has rebuilt the playing foundations of the club and his sort term reward is November Manager of the month.  Hopefully the curse of MOTM will not strike this time and we can say in a week that we continue to be present at the top of the table and are still in the FA and Johnstone paint trophy.

It is ironic that on this day Pardew is made manager of Newcastle, after failure at both Charlton and Southampton, the man that cleared up his mess at Charlton is honoured.  Of course, at Southampton on the surface with a 10 point deduction, just missing out on the play offs was not a bad performance, but taking into account the deduction Saints would still have finished below us with significantly more investment and I am sure every Geordie will be ecstatic that Pardew knows how to win the Johnstone Paint Trophy.

Well done Parkie and hats off to the power of the Pardew bullshit!!

Drinking During the Game: Alan Pardew - you've got to hand it to him

Drinking During the Game: Alan Pardew - you've got to hand it to him

Wednesday 8 December 2010

In the pink for Christmas

This season's goalkeeper kits will (finally) be available in the Superstore from 10am on Sunday, mail order from next week. Shirts 39.99 adults and £29.99 kids.


I'll have five says Robbie
I'm not sure who is going to wear it, but I look forward to seeing them at the Southampton game on the 26th.

A message to the Toon!

Charlton fan here so I talk from experience. Unlike you when we were linked with Pardew we thought he was the messiah, however he was anything but. His previous chairman described him as a disease in the club (West ham) but he was Icelandic and loooked funny so we ignored him. He'd just been 4 minutes from winning the FA Cup and we sympathised as he had two world class players (Tevez and Maschirano) foisted on him. He talked the good talk, we would survive but if we did not he gave us a profile of the types of players he would bring in. We ignored the rumours of him and non footballing players issues!!

He was not the messiah and he was worse than a naughty boy. The players he brought were opposite to the profile he had suggested and were gambles, young untried from the lower leagues or foreign reserves. Luke Varney is the only one who has made his way back to the peak of foorball and it has taken him a long time, no instant solution. Who has heard of our big signings then Moutakill, McCleod, Youga, Semedo and Racon. The first was finally released in the summer not having been picked for most of his three year career and has yet to find a club, the 2nd the same and has a contract with the mighty Barnet, Youga has potential but has only shown it for 1/2 a season and is now long term injured (not pardews fault) and the last two are spearheading our promotion drive from DIVISION 3. All these players were paid over the odds, on salaries that have subsequently crippled us. So his transfer policy was awful. He readily admits to a policy of buying a quantity of players and expecting most of them to fail.

Don't expect him to admit he has been wrong, he won't its the players fault, the fans fault (Don't ever clap a returning player when he is introduced before the match), he may even blame it on the seating arrangements at the ground (I kid you not)the boards fault, never his and when you get round to sacking him because he has run your club into the ground (starting a season with 3 centre backs and a plethora of midfielder) he will have written into his contract a massive payoff to be paid within a month to compensate him for his incompetence (We had to sell Varney to pay for it). We made mistakes having already made the mistake of employing him, I hope you don't. My final word is I hope he tries to tap up Andy Carolls girlfriend, 'cause I would love to see him take on Duncan Fergusons clone child.

Assuming Pardew does go through you will have had him and Dowie in your ranks the architects of our demise, you should have gone for Curbs, dour and boring he would still have done a great job for you.

Good Luck
(First posted on BBC 606)