Charlton Athletic 0 v Scunthorpe United 1

In my last post I mentioned "win your homes games and draw away" as a part justification for the disappointing point at Bristol Rovers. Since then we lost at Wimbledon in a lack-lustre, half-hearted performance in which we didn't muster an effort on target. The players were hurting and all that jazz and they were determined to atone for it today at home to Scunthorpe. Instead we got another lack-lustre, half-hearted performance and another defeat. 

We now sit in eighth place and have used our games in hand. Plymouth, above us in sixth, actually have a match on us now. The Bowyer bounce is clearly over and the difference in performances from his first three and the last three is alarming and would suggest that something in the camp has changed. Bowyer has tonight blamed "tiredness" which sounds very weak to me. If it is tiredness, then it doesn't bode well for Tuesday's match at Shrewsbury or the crunch at Fratton Park next Saturday. Maybe it's just because it's April and it's traditional for us to pack up early?

Now is the time to be realistic and acknowledge that we won't make the play-offs because we aren't good enough and there is a massive amount of work to be done on the first team front which will require supervision and money. Specifically, our squad in August was clearly short of striking options to get the goals so there should be no surprise whatsoever that our short-comings have all been about our lack of goals. Add the sale of our best goalscoring midfielder and, hey presto, we have lots of 'nils' which have cost us any realistic chance of promotion.  Currently, under Duchatelet, we have neither the supervision or the money. The senior management team in SE7 appears to be Addams-family wannabe, Tony Keohane, and a very part-time Richard Murray who clearly isn't going to get his hands dirty. Duchatelet hasn't put a bean into the club but he has trousered a fair bit in transfer fees and it would seem that he isn't yet prepared to face paying off a large chunk of the £70m debt pile he has accumulated in his mismanagement of the club and all it's main revenue streams. That would explain the continued lack of any actual takeover and the strong suspicion is that his determination not to accept a very public defeat means he continues to 'nickel and dime' the would-be investors, with the very obvious risk that they decide enough-is-enough and conclude that an acceptable deal can't be done with a man desperate to save face.

The latest season ticket offer is the most ill-conceived and naively put together offer in our history. How on earth do you think you can get away with blaming price rises on the fact that you have had to comply with the law and pay minimum wage? Zero sympathy from me when the stench of the colossal waste of the last few years is so over-powering. Still no-one prepared to accept responsibility for the negligence and gross mis-management. They even thought they could throw in "higher security and counter-terrorism" as additional costs and maintain a straight-face! The best one though, was their claim that we are still competitive in terms of price with many other EFL clubs and also cheaper than 15 non-league clubs! Yep, they are now setting their sights firmly on our real opposition. As someone who has seen a decent number of Welling matches this season, I should point out that their season ticket was cheaper than Charlton with the early bird offer and is again this coming season. However, price is only one component of the deal. Quality of football is the other, and here we are nowhere near close to most of the clubs in the Third Division and, I would suggest, most of those in Division Four, Five or Six. Welling will likely miss out on their play-offs because they have been too inconsistent and churned too many players. However, the entertainment watching the Wings has been far superior to following Duchatelet's House-of-Horrors over the last three seasons. The jokers also think they can twist arms to buy early by leaving the door open for 'Phase 2' (post early-bird) and 'Phase 3' (promotion, ha ha ha) price increases! Anyone who falls for this or the fear of losing their seat deserves to watch another season of dross in my humble opinion.

So, what will come next? Announcement of a takeover or the appointment of the individuals required to enable the club to function going forward, which would mean the end of any takeover for another season? Personally, I won't be back until Duchatelet has gone and has zero further interest in Charlton Athletic Football Club. If there's no positive news this month, I will be acquiring a season ticket at Park View Road and ending this blog because supporting Charlton Athletic under Roland Duchatelet has become Groundhog Day and I no longer have the same level of interest.