dune

Did he top it up?

I think that illustrates the disparity between forum views and real world views.

The lethargy and lack of ideas was the biggest worry for me. If plan A doesn't work there is no plan B.

Maybe Ian has topped himself.

I agree. It did norwich no harm and i'm sick of hearing his excuses about us still learning.

Says he thinks we played well in the second half. I admire your blind faith though as I used think like that when I was a teen.

You're as entitled your view as I am to mine, but I can't see us finishing in the top two and based on today I can see us struggling to make the top six.

Looked at the facts - Plymouth were relegated last year and ripe for the taking, we'd had a good run at the end of last season and should have carried that on. Either they've improved or we've got worse - which is it?

I think the Switzerland Jolly was a mistake. The players were treated like royalty by Mr Liebherr and from the performance today they clearly bought into the hype that they just had to turn up and bag the league title. They looked lazy and unfit. Next season get them running like Strachan used to do.

We sat on our arses in pre-season and didn't get into a competitive mindset.

Pardew "It was a lesson for us" WTF, we're the team that's had 12 months of rebuilding and major investment - we should be the ones dishing out lessons. Shut up Pardew and sort yourself out.

We are supposed to be red hot favourites to win the league and I saw nothing to back that up. Very disapointing and nothing positive on show as far as i'm concerned aside from the probability that it can't get any worse.

Well perhaps he needs to realise this isn't a conventional business and should dig into his bottonless pit of gold to deliver some more JPT final moments. If ML wants Saints back in the PL so him and his family have regular top days out he's going to have to consider us more as a hobby than a business.

An excellent post.

That's a fair enough comment if true. We're supposed to have one the richest owners so I am surprised tbh because we need to get in some quality players and not just squad players. Aside from Lallana, Lambert, and Connolly (he's probably past it now even when fit) we're just average.

I can and I have and i'll admit I was wrong if he improves.

Just a few comments from Charlton fans regarding AP's approach to buying players: His strategy at West Ham and here was to buy 7 or 8 players, expect 3 to work out and dump the rest. He wasn't a rubbish manager?- The man was a clueless tosser who acquired players like they were becoming extinct with no overall strategy. By the end of it yes he was rubbish for us, but he went a bit mad buying players we didn't need and didn't fill the right gaps. http://www.charltonlife.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=27435 We have the cash (so long as Mr Liebherr is prepared to keep opening hs chequebook) to splash out on 7 or 8 players in the hope that 3 work out, but I can't see NC being too chuffed to fund a manager who works like this indefinitely. Without wanting to single out any player I can't help but think Dickson is another example of an average squad player that probably won't work out. Histor repeating itself me thinks.

Rubbish, we've spent a season faffing about in preparation for this season and our pre season and opening game have been poor. It's not good enough.

Time will tell but I think that without signing some players to improve us we are a worse team than last season and last season we weren't that good. Yes we were better than average but hardly in a comparitive mould to a man u or a chelsea in the PL.

Precisely. It's alright for NC to **** people of when the teams doing well, but when it isn't (and based on todays performance us not doing well is looking likely) his approach will backfire. Let's see how many people don't mind paying the booking fee or the match day surcharge for a midtable week night match against a northern noddy club.

From what I saw today it better not be won or lost in the first month at least because other teams will soon suss out that we're all hype.

I would have boo'd them and make no apology for it. Not good enough by a country mile and they need to know this in no uncertain terms.

Norwich did alright after sacking Gunn, but it's not ideal i'll grant you that. Hopefully i'll be proved wrong over the next few games and we'll transform from the team I saw today and in pre season.

The error on NC's part is sticking with AP last season against what I think he wanted to do. They've had ll summer including a jolly to switzerland to get their act together and todays performance and result mirrored our pre season. I reckon the next few weeks are going to be very disapointing.

Agree with this. Dickson made some schoolboy errors and I hope he improves or he'll bring nothing to this seasons squad compared to last seasons.