Banana skin avoided. Personally I’m in the camp which couldn’t give a monkey’s about the FA Cup, just not relevant to us at present (different matter when we’re in the Championship but let’s get back there first), but nobody wants an upset and interruption to the positive momentum. After all, JJ is ensuring that TS has no decision to make at the moment, except whether and when he judges that the time is right to either make the position his until the end of the season or on a longer term basis. After all, while the more desperate Premiership clubs may be using the international break to make managerial changes, our decision-making time really comes in advance of the January transfer window.
We are all mightily relieved that two wins and a draw have not just pulled us out of the relegation zone but set us thinking about whether we dare to hope of the play-offs. OK, let’s not kid ourselves, of course we do. Every season we play in this division has to be deemed a failure if we do not get promoted. That’s not to say we have any right to be higher than anyone else, just the yardstick by which we measure our success and failure. There are another 30 games to play, 90 points up for grabs. Right now 11 points and 12 teams stand between us and sixth spot, with nine league games to go before the window opens.
This isn’t about whether we will need reinforcements and in what positions (that poacher in the box to give us another option keeps cropping up in my head). Presumably we will be getting Inniss and Lavelle back before long, while Forster-Caskey will hopefully reappear too. It is about whether as we get towards 2022 we are closer to the top six and have a realistic prospect of going up, despite the disaster of the first 13 games. If the answer is yes, TS surely then (if the decision has not already been taken) has to think whether our chances are maximised by retaining/confirming JJ (and if we are closer to the top the answer would surely be yes, if we are not we could be planning for next season).
With that in mind, a note from a fellow Addick about Charlton always doing better with a former player at the helm set me thinking. I was astonished to realise that it’s now 35 years (leaving aside the maths for the months) since we last won promotion with a manager who was not a former player (Lennie Lawrence). Since then we have had, according to my simple research, 20 managers. Just three of them – Curbs, Sir Chris, Lee Bowyer – have won promotion, so in that sense 17 of them failed (OK, that does include caretakers, while Jose Riga could claim success of a sort, when he took over Powell’s team).
Of course it’s not that simple, many other factors involved, not least the fact that nine of them (give or take a couple) had the crippling limitation of Duchatelet being in charge for their tenures. But looking at it another way, in the past 35 years every former player we have appointed manager has won us promotion (if you really want to split hairs the exceptions here are Keith Peacock and Ben Roberts).
Those looking to spoil the beauty of the argument will no doubt point out that two of the former players (Curbs and Bowyer) also were in charge when we were relegated. But surely if we are arguing that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, history would seem to be on JJ’s side.
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