Be careful what you wish for...

...lest it comes true. I am reminded of this old cliche today with the "news" in the Sun that Paul Ince wants the soon-to-be-vacancy at the Valley and they think we'll go for him. This comes on the back of Lennie Lawrence being tipped for a return from Bristol Rovers and even of Millwall's Kenny Jackett being poached.

The Valley faithful seem to be coming to a unanimous view that Phil Parkinson is not the man to lead us into 2009, and with the Board's December deadline running out, the forum and message boards are doing overtime as an announcement appears imminent.

I don't believe we'd go for Paul Ince in a million years. He's simply not a Charlton-man. He's arrogant, selfish, inexperienced and would be relatively expensive even if he did accept the big pay cut the Sun believes he's prepared to take. He would also only see a club like Charlton as a stepping stone and he'd be off the minute he'd done anything to warrant a move to a bigger club a la Mark McGhee of yesteryear.

Lennie Lawrence did a fine job of keeping our side alive when the club was in danger of going out of business, so you can see the dots being joined between our current predicament and Mr Lawrence, currently hiding his light under the job of Director of Football at Bristol Rovers. Relative success at Rovers has come from Lawrence working with Paul Trollope as coach and the pair are being touted as a possible double. Again, I can't quite see this. Getting Lawrence with Trollope wouldn't directly solve the managerial issue and I'm not convinced Lennie has the sort of CV we need on his own.

Kenny Jackett is doing a first class job at Millwall. He is an up-and-coming manager and has the experience we will need next season. The question you have to ask is "why would he go for it?" He is on his way to promotion at the Den after a year of rebuilding and he would have to be prepared to exchange places with his old club next season.

Change looks a certainty and we need someone with experience of getting sides promoted in the lower divisions. He needs to be an excellent motivater and to have a touch of humility. Our budget won't be big either, so it's likely to be someone in the Kenny Jackett mould or a bigger named, more experienced manager who has been out of the game for a bit and might take the job on as a challenge to re-establish himself. Aidy Boothroyd might fit the first criteria but I am strugling to find anyone who might take the job. When I think about a candidate for the second criteria, I am reminded again of John Gregory and, er, Alan Curbishley. Whilst I have always said he wouldn't take it, the longer he's out of the game the stronger the chances, especially as his realistic Premier League targets are few and diminishing by the week (Spurs, Newcastle, Sunderland etc).

Curbishley would be low risk and probably the fans favourite which would go some way to shoring up what looks like a severe drop in season ticket revenues next year. He is undoubtedly the best manager we've had since Jimmy Seed and arguably of all time. With the club heading back to the third division, the arguments about his inability to take us to the next level are academic as we are years away from having those worries again. For the record, I was one of those who believe he stayed too long and that Richard Murray did the right thing in making the change when he did. The fact that we got the wrong man in Dowie and spent money we couldn't afford supporting him was simply a decision that proved to be a bad one. Alan Pardew was a good appointment at the time and there was no justifiable reason not to suspect he couldn't repeat his previous successes. With hindsight clearly we would all have encouraged Murray to do everything he could to keep Curbishley but given the same choices all over again, I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same and go for someone else.

So, I'd be prepared to accept Curbs in the hope and knowledge that he could get the most out of whatever we've got, something we've obviously lacked since he left. The big question is, would his ego and ambition allow him to accept a move that he himself would not have countenanced a year ago or even as recently as six months ago. He wouldn't come cheap but maybe like many Charlton fans, he's also having second thoughts.