Something rotten in the State of Denmark?

It's a question that all Charlton supporters should now be asking of owner Thomas Sandgaard. In spite of his bold move to rescue the club two years ago and his earnest attempts to get supporters on side and to spark a promotion campaign in League One, we now face the end to the worst season in living memory.

We all know that the disastrous recruitment campaign last Summer left us struggling as the season kicked-off and a refusal to face the facts that Nigel Adkins had lost the dressing room cost us precious points which scuppered any serious notions of a promotion campaign. Johnnie Jackson steadied the ship and we all believed he was the man to lead the club forward after a string of results that bucked Adkins' trend. 

Sadly, however, it looks increasingly like Jackson was enjoying a honeymoon period with this squad of players because they have now reverted infuriatingly to the sort of performances we had to endure under Adkins early on. We have been suffering woeful performance after woeful performance in recent weeks and Jackson appears completely unable to prevent it. Today's humiliating 4-0 thumping at home by Oxford United has underlined that and left us five places and only nine points above the drop zone.

Nine points sounds like loads but when you are unable to get a performance from a side that looks like it doesn't care, you can quickly pass the strugglers as they begin to pick up points as relegation gets real. Momentum really can be a killer as found out two years ago when we fell into League One on the final day of the season.

So you have to look around and wonder what's going on? The increasingly desperate "Fill the Valley" campaign has now become completely counter-productive. The mass blocking of popular home seats to be nominally given away as 'comps' today saw Charlton supporters unable to even buy tickets in areas which had thousands of empty seats. The continued give-aways (many of which don't look like they are even being given away) will also come back to bite the Club when they try to sell season tickets which they will be doing within a couple of months. 

When you try to understand why the club are continuing with this naive policy, you have to wonder if the bigger position is actually much worse than we understand. Thomas Sandgaard's US business, Zynex inc, is under severe share price pressure. Shares that were trading at around 25 dollars two years ago were down at less than seven dollars this week and there was news that Zynex had lost it's largest customer after a mis-selling scandal that could yet lead to legal action and further pressure on the share price.

With that in mind, you have to consider if Thomas Sandgaard is looking for more finance, if not, actively looking to exit stage left. I have no doubt that he bought the club for all the right reasons and with the honest belief he could invest sufficiently and securely to get us out of League One and begin to turn the ship around. That is the only thing that would begin to justify this continued 'Fill The Valley' policy that is patently not working and which isn't going to fool anyone. The published gates may be eye-catching for a struggling League One side but a quick look at the numbers, or even attendance at a home match, would quickly put anyone straight.

Tough times call for strong action and I think Thomas has some explaining to do quickly if he is to keep the fans onside and shore up next season. He shouldn't be fooled by the bonhomie in the Royal Oak after a home win. Our supporters, particularly those who travel home and away, deserve far more than we are getting and action is needed now if a worse fate isn't about to befall us.