Shaking Off The Curbishley Era

Like a dog that has taken an unwanted ducking, we are currently in the process of shaking off the last vestiges of the Curbishley era. The medical team have been overhauled, the coaching staff have been refreshed, the assistant manager role has seen an expert replace a useless lump and most of the Curbishley signings have gone, are on their way or will soon be plying their trade elsewhere if we can find a taker. Tactically, the "Lump It And See" approach of Curbishley has been packaged up in a box marked "return to sender", ready for Charlton's return to the third tier of English football where the crude approach belongs.

On the playing front, Freddie Lungburst and Solano were the first to depart, and now Bellyache and Neill have followed. Surely it is only a matter of time before Downpipe is offloaded, whilst Queasy will probably be on loan to another Fizzy Pop side until his contract runs down to zero. If anybody is stupid enough to bid a reasonable figure for him then Faux Pas will soon be parking his fat arse on a substitute's bench somewhere else too.

So what have we left to show for the Turds Interregnum? Upson, Dyer, Boa-Morte and Parker. Of those, Boa would have gone in January had he been prepared to accept a wage cut and I suspect Dyer would have been offloaded too had we ever managed to get him fit enough to appear in the shop window. I know Pardew signed him, but Bowyer is also a Curbishley man and he will soon be out of the door. All in all, that is quite a turn around in the space of approximately nine months. Women make a fuss about giving birth to one baby in that period of time, Zola and Clarke have given birth to a whole new club!

Or have they? In truth, step one has been nearly completed but now comes the much more difficult part. Cutting out the cancer is relatively easy, but seeing the patient through to a long term recovery is not so simple. We were very badly wounded by Eggert and Turds, almost mortally so, and the road to recovery may yet be challenging. Financially we are in a mess and Dyer, for one, will still be a raw wound in the dressing room because of his absurdly inflated wages. For that reason alone, I would like to see him moved on. And the same holds true for Parker if he is going to continue to break down with injuries. The trouble is, City have now landed Barry so they won't be keen on paying silly money for Parker now.

With all the departures, the squad is now ridiculously thin. We don't have a right back worthy of the name and Ashton and Cole are our only two strikers - and Beano is more a striker in the British Leyland sense given how much time he spends lying on the sofa! Do we have the money to buy replacements after the Turds and Egg extravagances? God help us if we don't!