Have Charlton Turned A Corner?

Having scored nine goals and taken nine points from the last four games, it is suddenly feeling good to be a Charlton fan again. After a dreadful January that saw us score just one goal and earn two points, the team seems rejuvenated.  The incoming players have fitted in very well and Guy Luzon seems to have the whole team playing with considerable confidence.  So how did February as a month compare to the other months so far in Charlton’s league season?

February was certainly the most polarised month so far.  During Bob Peeters reign, a massive 52% of all games ended in draws. In February there wasn’t one.  The three wins of February are the most in any month this season, but then so are the three defeats.  In terms of points per game (PPG) the healthy 1.5 of February is the third best so far this season.  It’s not as good as those optimistic days at the beginning of the season with our 11 match unbeaten run, but it is head and shoulders above the dark days of winter when we only just scraped half a point per game.  It is particularly pleasing that the club’s league position has risen from 18th to 12th over the course of the month.

It is perhaps to early to say if the corner has been turned yet, but both the performances and the results have been the best for quite a while.  If a similar level performance continued throughout March we might reasonably expect to take around 8 points.  That would bring us up to the 50 point mark and probable Championship safety.

In the table above, Charlton’s monthly performances are ranked by Points Per Game and then Goal Difference.

New Age Movement

 Times They Are A Changing – And The Charlton Squad Is Getting Younger! We were intrigued by an interview with Katrien Meire in CASTrust’s TNT7 in which stated that Roland Duchâtelet is “famous for giving lots of young professionals a chance”.  This was cited as a reason for Bob Peeters being appointed as Head Coach rather than Jose Riga.  This set us thinking, if RD is out to employ bright young managers like Katrien and Bob, would this philosophy of employing youngsters extend to the first team at Charlton? Looking at how the average age of a squad member has changed over the past 11 months, it would certainly seem so.  On the day that RD took over the club the average age of the first team squad was 25 years and 159 days.  By the final day of last season that had dropped to 24 years, 155 days.  Today it stands at 23 years and 182 days.  That’s quite a remarkable change in less than a year.  It has been achieved in two ways.  At the older end of the scale, we had 9 players older than 26, last January.  Of those, only the skipper remains.  The others have been retired, re-leased or re-sold.  Of the new recruits only two are over this age: our double-barrelled centre-back pairing.  At the younger end of the scale our youngest player is now aged 17 years and 122 days.  And with 4 appearances already, young Mr Gomez certainly isn’t there just to make up the numbers.  It certainly seems that the Duchâtelet philosophy of giving young talent a chance has been extended to the Charlton first team.  The only question is, how low can you go? Full Table of Squad Ages Please click to enlarge