What Happens Next?

When a fellow Charlton fan (let's just call him 'C') emailed me in great and eloquent detail with his views on the club, I was glad to suggest they be read by a wider audience. Like me, he does not yet accept relegation as inevitable, but is realistic enough to know that it's now the most probable outcome. I happen to agree with almost everything he says, whilst hoping of course that it ultimately becomes irrelevant. Here are his views:

What happens next?

Charlton Athletic is in good shape, well managed, financially sound and probably has a larger core support than in the pre-Premiership years. Perhaps most importantly, my sense is that the Club is progressive and has a momentum that will continue even with relegation to the Championship.

It is incredibly important to any organisation that it has high quality management that have passion, belief and confidence and who are there not just because they need a job, but instead because they want to make a difference. I believe that Charlton have this in an industry that is still poorly managed, and that should provide some kind of edge.

Mistakes were clearly made with the appointments of Iain Dowie and then Les Reed, and with the well intended, but ill-conceived and executed new structure, but I’m sure some important lessons have been learnt. Indeed this is already evident because Alan Pardew is clearly more empowered than was the intention with Dowie. Most importantly, with the appointment of Pardew the club now has a highly competent and experienced Manager who would appear to be a good cultural fit and in whom the Chairman clearly has a lot of confidence. The question is what happens next and, in particular, what will the summer bring?

As might be expected, Peter Varney has made it clear that if the club are relegated, savings will need to be made because the business will obviously have to be managed on a much lower revenue base. However, the parachute payment removes the need for panic cost cutting, whilst the club’s balance sheet should mean that there is no urgent need to sell players.

Pardew will no doubt be told to reduce the size of the squad and/or to cut the wage bill. Other forces at work will be the desire of some players to move on, for example Denis Rommedahl, and the tug-of-war for Darren Bent, and others perhaps, who may or may not want to move but where the temptation and incentive for both player and club may be overwhelming. Pardew will undoubtedly want to impose his views and style on proceedings and my guess is that he will be more decisive, i.e. will have clearer views, than Alan Curbishley did.

What we don’t really know is what the new manager thinks of the squad he inherited. His focus has clearly been to build confidence and to develop a very strong team spirit, and I suspect this has meant that he has come across as more positive and confident in his players than is really the case. His after match comments yesterday were very interesting. He was strong, thoughtful and very together and, for example, dismissed the blunder by Ambrose which saw him fail to put Rommedahl in for a second goal and which led directly to Stead’s equaliser, by saying ‘yes, these are the incidents in games that you always look back on’ without the apparent disappointment or angst that might have been expected.

Similarly, he had been trying to substitute Hreidarsson for Thatcher for what seemed like minutes prior to the Thatcher error that led to the goal, but once again was very philosophical when dealing with a question about that. Given the importance of the result many managers would have been fuming. With both Hreidarsson and Holland waiting to come on, it is clear that Pardew had seen what was happening and had planned to replace the injured Thatcher and put more fight into the midfield battle, but for no obvious reason had been prevented from doing so.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into his demeanour, but for me there are only two possible explanations. Either Pardew really is an incredibly controlled and impressive individual, capable of saying the right thing, in the right way at the right time despite whatever he may be feeling inside or, alternatively, he decided fairly soon after he arrived that the squad lacked any real quality and that there was very little chance of survival. I’m inclined to think that the latter is at least in part true which would explain why he has been able to be professional and very effective whilst always appearing calm and in control, in contrast to Curbishley at West Ham for example. The point of all of this is that I think it means that we don’t really know what Pardew thinks of what he has, making the summer difficult to predict and, potentially, very interesting.

My guess, for what it is worth, is that he will want to keep Bougherra, Diawara, Gibbs and Andy Reid. He will try to sign Zheng Zhi and Song, even if it’s only on loan. He’ll want to sell Young, who will be no better in the Championship than in the Premiership, and be resigned to selling D Bent because someone will make an offer which is impossible to turn down – I suspect that in any event he’s not Bent’s biggest fan.

He’ll look to offload Faye, Kishishev, Holland, Lisbie, Hasselbaink, Hughes, Fortune, Sam, Weston, Youga and Walker, but may keep two or more of this group as cover depending on whom he is able to sign; Rommedahl meanwhile will almost certainly want out. Ambrose and Thomas I’m not sure about, but I suspect Pardew will want to hang on, at least initially. Thatcher, Hreidarsson, El Karkouri and M Bent may survive, but obviously aren’t going to be in his long-term plans.

Clearly all ill-informed and likely inaccurate speculation, but on the basis of a strategy along these lines, Charlton ought to have a strong, footballing defence next season, have the potential for creativity in midfield, which could also be a strength particularly if Song stays (he clearly isn’t going to be in Arsenal’s first team squad), but it is upfront that will create the biggest headache. Perhaps Chris Dickson will come good? I wouldn’t be surprised to see Marlon Harewood at the Valley. The club will clearly need to sign a goalkeeper and more generally there may well be a lot of ‘comings’ over the summer within what should, overall be a significant pruning of the squad.

What is instructive is the lack of young talent with first team potential, even at Championship level; only Osei Sankofa looks likely to feature next season and something has clearly gone wrong here. Simon Walton might be a bonus (he ought to be at £1m), not least since he can play at the back and in midfield, though I’ve not seen him play.

If I’m right that Pardew hasn’t really felt the pressure this season, that will all change next and we may, therefore, see a different person. Charlton need to aim to bounce back quickly. Logically, the longer it takes the harder it will get so a play-off place ought to be the minimum acceptable outcome. It could be a very interesting summer and, potentially, an exciting 07/08.

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If you have something interesting to say about Charlton or football in general, and want to use my blog as a soap box then email me at newyorkaddick@yahoo.co.uk - if it gets through my exacting 'editorial standards committee' (ESC), I'll be pleased to publish it.