Shambolic press conference aside, one wonders if there is optimism at Charlton over the appointment of Iain Dowie. He managed to get Crystal Palace to play some entertaining football during their stint in the Premiership, but despite Andy Johnson’s 21 goals they still found themselves relegated.
It’s also difficult to find any neutral who wouldn’t say that Curbishley got Charlton to overachieve based on the size of the transfer budget and quality of players available to him. Darren Bent aside, the side really doesn’t have much more talent on show than Dowie’s Palace side two years ago (who at least had Routledge, AJ, Tom Soares and Ben Watson). So it could be argued that the new boss is now being asked to not only keep the side up, but also surpass the achievements of a predecessor who was already overachieving.
But maybe Dowie will surprise us all and do more than just compete with Martin Jol and Wayne Rooney to see who most resembles Shrek, but it seems like it could be the end for a club that occasionally…wasn’t bad…or something.