Piece for the Cardiff City FC match program:
Charlton have had a mixed time on the road this season. An away defeat at Wolverhampton is no great shame but a defeat against Luton is a bit more suspect. These can be offset though by good results against Crystal Palace and, more recently, Bristol City and the Addicks have won their last four matches so confidence is high.
Alan Pardew will be pleased with his side’s place in the league. Charlton lie in third place despite a nasty slip up against QPR and being held to a draw by Colchester and Barnsley.
Reading their results makes you realise how easily Cardiff could have been up there with them. But that’s football, and Charlton are all too familiar with varying degrees of fortune.
In the 1998/99 they succumbed to relegation from the Premiership on the final day after their first year in the top flight. The board kept faith with then manager Alan Curbishley and Charlton bounced straight back up the following year. Curbishley kept them there and the club even flirted with a Champions League place in 2003/04.
After 15 years at the helm, Curbishley parted company with Charlton in 2006. Pardew was appointed after the club failed to fall in love with Ian Dowie and Les Reed in quick succession. Dowie only managed 12 league matches before being given the boot in November 2006 and Reed was removed a month later on Christmas Eve.
Pardew lifted the club’s fortunes, and found some consistency, but relegation was confirmed in the penultimate game of the season.
The Addicks have never been a big club and it is widely recognised that Curbishley worked wonders in getting them to the Premiership. They may have had a centre-back pairing at one point in their recent history of ‘Costa’, ‘Fortune’, but finances were few and far between and Curbishley had to rely on his coaching skills rather than transfer kitties.
Pardew, a former Addicks player, is intent on getting Charlton back to the Premiership and carrying on Curbishley’s good work. To date he is on track but the Christmas period will prove the test of his and his player’s resolve.
Darren Bent, Hermann Hreidarsson, Dennis Rommedahl, Luke Young and Cardiff’s own Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink were all off-loaded over the summer to raise funds and reduce the wage bill. Chris Iwelumo, Chris Powell, Svetoslav Todorov, Nicky Weaver and youngsters Dean Sinclair and Izale McLeod were all brought to the club. Iwelumo's free transfer from Colchester is looking particularly shrewd.
Charlton have had a mixed time on the road this season. An away defeat at Wolverhampton is no great shame but a defeat against Luton is a bit more suspect. These can be offset though by good results against Crystal Palace and, more recently, Bristol City and the Addicks have won their last four matches so confidence is high.
Alan Pardew will be pleased with his side’s place in the league. Charlton lie in third place despite a nasty slip up against QPR and being held to a draw by Colchester and Barnsley.
Reading their results makes you realise how easily Cardiff could have been up there with them. But that’s football, and Charlton are all too familiar with varying degrees of fortune.
In the 1998/99 they succumbed to relegation from the Premiership on the final day after their first year in the top flight. The board kept faith with then manager Alan Curbishley and Charlton bounced straight back up the following year. Curbishley kept them there and the club even flirted with a Champions League place in 2003/04.
After 15 years at the helm, Curbishley parted company with Charlton in 2006. Pardew was appointed after the club failed to fall in love with Ian Dowie and Les Reed in quick succession. Dowie only managed 12 league matches before being given the boot in November 2006 and Reed was removed a month later on Christmas Eve.
Pardew lifted the club’s fortunes, and found some consistency, but relegation was confirmed in the penultimate game of the season.
The Addicks have never been a big club and it is widely recognised that Curbishley worked wonders in getting them to the Premiership. They may have had a centre-back pairing at one point in their recent history of ‘Costa’, ‘Fortune’, but finances were few and far between and Curbishley had to rely on his coaching skills rather than transfer kitties.
Pardew, a former Addicks player, is intent on getting Charlton back to the Premiership and carrying on Curbishley’s good work. To date he is on track but the Christmas period will prove the test of his and his player’s resolve.
Darren Bent, Hermann Hreidarsson, Dennis Rommedahl, Luke Young and Cardiff’s own Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink were all off-loaded over the summer to raise funds and reduce the wage bill. Chris Iwelumo, Chris Powell, Svetoslav Todorov, Nicky Weaver and youngsters Dean Sinclair and Izale McLeod were all brought to the club. Iwelumo's free transfer from Colchester is looking particularly shrewd.
Pardew's biggest outlay was on Chinese midfielder Zheng Zhi, for two million pounds, who has been a regular this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment