Midfield_General

In a poor game they were the better side and deserved the narrow victory. Orient were very disappointing, offered pretty much nothing. Charlton just sat deep for the 1-0 in the second half when it became apparent Orient didn’t have any quality to break them down. Fair enough. Not pretty, but got the job done. Jones has done a decent job there, fair play to him. He’s a classic lower league manager who works well with limited players with low expectations who can be galvanised into being better than the sum of their parts through defensive organisation, fitness and hard work. Better players who have worked with other, better managers don’t take him seriously though because on a basic level he’s just such a gimp. I won’t pretend to be an expert on Still, but based on what we’ve seen and heard of Jones, what we’ve seen and heard of Still so far, and the resources available to both, I’d be amazed if we didn’t beat them home and away next season. Score the first goal and they’re screwed because Jones isn’t good enough to coach intelligent attacking play. He just sets up to be hard to break down, which was enough today after they scored from a free kick the keeper should have saved easily, but won’t be enough against the sides with more quality that they’ll play next season.

@MindtheGab mentioned that Still's MNF appearance was a key factor. I'm very intrigued about that. In this data-driven era, and with a business-critical decision to be made worth hundreds of millions of pounds, surely even SR are more organised than to pick a manager by just watching Sky until they stumble across someone who sounds clever doing a TV interview. Would love to know more about how his MNF appearance influenced or focused the thinking on Still, to the extent it made him our number one target.

Interview ahead of their play-off final today: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/may/24/nathan-jones-charlton-league-one-playoff-final-leyton-orient-football He’s from a small Welsh mining community apparently. Who knew!

Derby fans should be celebrating that one as much as Sunderland are

We were linked with him a couple of weeks back

Well either Sunderland or Sheffield Utd will probably be looking for a new manager in October, he’s probably giving his CV to their chairmen personally today to get ahead of the game

Are you saying that in a critical season our exhaustive global search for a manager, conducted by our crack team of experts, has basically come down to someone watching Sky Sports and going ‘ooh, he sounds clever’?

Aaaand that’s enough of that Fuck this See you next season

Good of TNT to provide a nice balanced view on the game with former Everton stalwart Leon Britten as co commentator. ”It’s such a pity that goal was offside” Fuck off

Sanda? He’s a little rough round the edges Has some Power Bit of a Tool

Everton making pre-planned sub after 18 minutes. They’re treating it like a charity friendly, and they’ll still beat us. Fucking embarassing

It wasn't spontaneous either. It was the last minute and there was a Sky cameraman literally stood next to him pointing a camera at him, so he was very, very aware that he was on camera at that point. He knew that if he put on a show like that then he would immediately be all over Sky and social media for the next 24h. He wanks on about the team being everything, but at that point he made a conscious decision to make it all about him. In doing so, he made himself look like a fucking twat, as usual. You've just scraped past Wycombe in a league one semi mate, not won the fucking World Cup. Everything he says and does is the absolute epitome of 'small time'. And that's why he's destined to only ever manage lower-league teams.

There was still 20 seconds of the game to go at that point. It would have been hilarious if Wycombe had equalised while he was doing that

Yeah. You can’t question his passion but whoever thought he had the temperament to be a premier league manager needs their head examined. How can you expect to keep your players calm and focused when you’re melting down like that over everything

Celebrating like they’ve won the champions league after scraping a semi against wycombe 😂 He’s an absolute fruitcake

Thierry Small looking lively though, Charlton’s best player EDIT: And Jones immediately subs him off

Nathan Jones looking absolutely deranged on the touchline for Charlton.

I was in the front row of the family centre for that game. The foul on Rod Wallace was right in front/ below me. I can remember perfectly watching Wallace sliding along on his front after being taken out by the keeper and it was obviously a pen. Then the unbearable tension of waiting for Ruddock to take it. Then him just smashing it down the middle. Then Ruddock doing his little dance in front of the Milton in the midst of absolute bedlam. Can visualise it all like it was yesterday.

Plenty of those around Southampton to be fair

What year was it at the Dell where everyone invaded the pitch and chanted for the players to come out onto the balcony, and then when they did everyone dug up the turf and pelted them with it? I would have been quite young but the way I remember it, it wasn't just one or two troublemakers, it felt like pretty much the entire crowd did it. It was mental. Pretty sure I remember seeing Tim Flowers throwing some back so must have been late 80s/ early 90s?

That private toilet was spectacular though, worth every penny he paid of someone else’s money

It will be either Leicester or Rangers for him, I think.

I know, I was just making a little joke Overall I agree with your point that bigger, taller, more powerful players are more likely to succeed in the English game. Our squad has been way too lightweight for too long, we need to add more physical presence all over the pitch.

You'd also think that we could offer him and his team a better salary / package than Cov can probably afford.