Fear is creeping back in at the Valley. Charlton’s defeat by Bolton on Tuesday night, their fourth on the bounce, was greeted with the cacophony of boos it deserved.
Eleven games without a win and teetering above the Championship relegation zone. A fanbase that has been down this long and treacherous road before, and sure as hell doesn’t want to tread it again.
Certainly not when they thought those dark days were, at last, behind them. Only 10 weeks ago, Charlton sat top of the table after victory over Preston completed a hat-trick of early season wins, including a famous triumph in front of a record Championship attendance of 62,264 at West Ham.
It was a false dawn. For the first time under Nathan Jones, the ship has stalled and, for now, is going backwards.
Charlton looked destined for relegation to League Two for the first time in their history when Jones took over in February 2024. They went 14 games unbeaten and survived. After spending eight of the previous nine seasons in the third tier, he took them up via the play-offs at the next time of asking and, last season, kept them in the Championship.
For a club that had endured so much instability, a period of normality and steady progression was on the cards. Jones is Charlton’s ninth managerial appointment since June 2016. Only now, the wonder is how much longer this can go on before nine becomes 10.
Fear is creeping back in at the Valley with Charlton 11 games without a win and teetering on the brink of the Championship relegation zone
For the first time under Nathan Jones, the ship has stalled and, for now, is going backwards
‘If I hadn’t done what I’ve done at this football club, it would have been an easier decision for them (the owners),’ Jones told South London Sport this week. ‘I have to win football games. Win games or you don’t survive.’
His next chance is against ninth-placed Sheffield United this Saturday afternoon. Jones insists he maintains a strong relationship with the Charlton board. The new chief executive Ben Mansford – formerly of Leeds, Blackpool and Barnsley and who ended the club’s spell of 19 months without one – twice tried to hire Jones at his previous clubs. Jones is understood still to have the backing of his players.
Perhaps it’s not best to let him know that both Alan Pardew and Chris Powell lost their jobs after defeats by the Blades.
‘We’ve spent a lot of time in League One recently and I think there is a kind of head-in-hands worry at the moment: please let’s not go back there again,’ Heather McKinlay, chair of the Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘At the moment, it feels more like duty than fun. I think we have become a little bit worn down because we’ve been through the mill so much with the changes of ownership and the shenanigans over the near 20 years since we were in the Premier League.’
They have been through the mill, much of the difficulties driven by those in charge. Former owner Roland Duchatelet, who still owns the Valley and the training ground, once accused fans of wanting the club to fail. Charlton’s fans responded to his comments and mismanagement by carrying a red coffin to the Valley followed by a crowd of mourners in a mock funeral protest against his ownership.
They lobbed hundreds of plastic pigs on the pitch for one game, beach balls to halt another, and sent a black cab to Belgium as a ’Taxi for Roland’.
Within weeks of Duchatelet selling Charlton to businessmen Tahnoon Nimer and Matt Southall for £1, the two new men were embroiled in a bitter public row. Nimer accused Southall of using club money to fund his own lifestyle, which he denied, including renting a £150,000-a-year flat in London and giving a fleet of Range Rovers to his associates. Charlton fans occupied the boardroom in protest. Thomas Sandgaard, the next owner, was arrested by the FBI this year and charged with fraud. He denies any wrongdoing.
The highly impressive win away to West Ham in August now appears to have been a false dawn
Jones is Charlton’s ninth manager in the last 10 years – but how long can he keep this up?
‘Charlton fans are a proactive lot,’ adds McKinlay. ‘If they feel they can make a difference, they’ll do something. I don’t feel we can do anything right now other than cheer them on. I think the ownership want the club to succeed. The manager wants the club to succeed. The players want the club to succeed. There’s not really a baddie in this.’
As one club insider put it this week, it’s nice, in a strange way, that football is the main issue for once and not what’s going on off the field.
There is still a sense of that, mind. The current ownership group known as Global Football Partners is made up of seven shareholders, each with more than five per cent, but it remains unclear who is the driving force. Sources suggest some are more willing than others to put their money in with murmurings that the club is once again up for sale. Charlton insist they are merely looking for more investment to help drive the club forward.
Poor recruitment has not helped matters either. All the talk in the summer was about ‘evolving’ from a team that could get out of League One, then stay in the Championship, to one that could compete.
The club, however, spent a net total of just £1.5million this summer. They failed to find the right winger they needed, as a deal for Crystal Palace winger Jesurun Rak-Sakyi collapsed late on. Instead they signed teenager Junior Nkeng, who hasn’t played a single minute. A lack of creative midfielder is glaring too.
As for those who did arrive, Millenic Alli infuriated supporters in the defeat by Bolton when he headed the ball blindly into no man’s land during stoppage time with the team desperately searching for an equaliser. Nathaniel Chalobah arrived as a free agent from Sheffield Wednesday with a reputation for being injury prone. He showed his class at the start of the season, got injured, returned and is now injured again.
That’s not to mention the bizarre mystery surrounding midfielder Timothy Ouma. The Kenya international, on loan from Slavia Prague, went off to play for his country during the recent break and has not been seen since. Ouma, who has not featured in a single matchday squad since the break, has previous for this, having also failed to return after international duty while on loan at Lech Poznan.
When Jones was asked about it a few weeks ago, he responded by saying: ‘We will address those rumours when they become relevant. Anything we need to put out, we will put out.’
Kenyan midfielder Timothy Ouma went off to play for his country during the recent break and has not been seen since
Nathaniel Chalobah (right) arrived as a free agent from Sheffield Wednesday with a reputation for being injury prone. He got injured, returned and is now injured again
Charlton remain tight-lipped on whether Ouma is still absent, though one insider admitted they still hadn’t seen him since the players returned from international duty. The Kenyan FA did not respond to requests for clarification.
It makes the decision to part ways with club captain Greg Docherty in the summer look even more misguided, with this a team lacking in leadership. Jones has been left to throw all the pieces up in the air and see where they land with constant changes to the team and the line-up. Selection and formation roulette, as some are calling it.
The Welshman is not everyone’s cup of tea, frequently mocked for his David Brent style, but there’s still a belief, not least from himself, that he can turn things around. ‘He’s a maverick, but he’s our maverick,’ laughs McKinlay.
Time is running out, though, because if Charlton cannot find their way again, the alternative is already too unnerving to think about.
