Friday 28 January 2022

Next Season

Losing to Hartlepool on Tuesday effectively ended our season unless we get drawn into a relegation fight. That can’t be ruled out completely of course!

The optimists amongst us will say we’re only so many points off 6th place (I haven’t looked to see exactly how many as it seems rather futile) but the sheer number of teams ahead of us realistically rules that out.

It’s rather depressing that the January transfer window has not yet closed but we’ve already reached this state of football inertia.

The one silver lining is that it means we can start to focus on next season. It’s a tough task given how our stark failure this season has made the next even more crucial.

A failure to challenge for at least a play-off spot will render that a worse campaign than this. It would be one that tests Sandgaard’s resolve even further.

However difficult the job of turning things around might be, it’ll be an awful lot easy without the meddling hands of Roddy and Adkins’ failure to deliver a remotely organised and motivated team.

The additions to the management team and restructure follow Ged’s removal ought to increase the chances of success.

The fact that Gallen and Jackson ought to be left largely unhindered in terms of recruitment should help prevent a recurrence of the disastrous summer window of 2021!

It was obvious we were at least one striker light but even the biggest pessimist would have been pushed to anticipate just how badly that would impact our season.

Without Stockley we lack a solid goalscorer. The emergence of Burstow and the return of Aneke has been too late.

On balance, one ought to appreciate that it will take a long time to turn around the woeful and toxic ownership of the club over many years. To some extent it’s amazing that we’ve retained anywhere near the level of support we currently have.

That will only last so long of course and at the end of the day the offerings on the pitch are what really determines fans loyalty and patience. Not everyone is a die-hard fan who is prepared to suffer what we have in recent years and stay with it.

Your average Charlton fan wants to see good football and the team challenging at the top end of League One.

I’ve always considered us to be a solid championship (tier 2 team) with top flight aspirations. The longer we’re out of the second league that becomes less true and harder to return.

Jackson has till season’s end to decide upon the formation he wants to employ. Of late he’s show a lack of flexibility in sticking rigidly to his preferred 3-5-2.

That’s fair enough if he has the personnel to make it work. If he hasn’t then he needs to be adaptable. Playing Matthews in the back three on Tuesday for example wasn’t a good idea and he’s not suited to that.

A lot of work to be done before we kick off the 22-23 season in July. It’s vital that we hit the ground running. For now, a good run of performances and results would, at least, see us go into that with some momentum.

Hopefully, we can kick that off with a win at Portsmouth on Monday. As it’s on Sky one is always doubtful but hopefully, we can maintain our recent decent record at Fratton Park.

Given that we're playing I guess that we can assume there won't be any late transfer activity on Monday night. I'll not be staying up until midnight then!

Come On You Reds!

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