Charlton's New Manager

I hereby formally link Claudio with the Charlton job; how long before this is reported as a solid fact?

This past weekend I was reading, as usual, the various football websites and a couple of newspaper ones - and guess what. There was not a single mention of Charlton Athletic in any of them. the media had absolutely nothing to report about anything happening down in SE7.

It seems that the old fashioned way of choosing a successor to Alan Curbishley is being adhered to, and this is certainly not the way in which the FA dragged out the whole boring saga of the new England manager. In other words, Charlton placed an advertisement (in the Daily Mail, for some reason - Frankie Valley thinks that probably all the best managers' wives must read it) for a new manager. They set a closing date which has now passed; they plan to conduct a series of interviews, quite properly asking permission of any relevant club board where necessary, and will then announce their choice. Chairman Richard Murray refuses to set a date for this announcement.

So, nothing to do but wait then.

Not good enough for the news media. They decided who might be the next manager; they came up with Mick McCarthy (lives in Bromley, as I said last time); Glen Hoddle (London boy, rumoured to be getting the shove at Wolverhampton, just the man to lead Charlton back into the wilderness where, in the view of said media, they belong).

Then it occurred to them that Charlton might well try to appoint a good manager, though obviously they aren't going to tempt the likes of Big Sam away from Bolton, nor yet the recently-promoted Steve Coppell down at Reading. And seemingly Paul Jewell would rather stay at Wigan. So the media came up with managers who have done well in the lower leagues; Phil Parkinson (Colchester); Adrian Boothroyd (Watford) and Peter Taylor (Hull).

These last three have all been described as having been 'linked' with the vacancy, and have all been described at one time or another as 'favourites' to get the job, too.

However, on account of the non-transparent selection process which is going forward, it is clear that these links and reported favourites are total speculation.

Today's media breaks the silence by rather peevishly stating that Hull haven't heard from Charlton as yet about being allowed to approach Peter Taylor, almost as if Mr Murray had promised to have a new man in place by this week, which he hasn't. Nor is there any evidence that Taylor interests Charlton, anyway. This is a story which is riding on the back of the fact that Andrew Mills, the new General Manager - Football (a discouraging-sounding title from the World of Business) has associations with an agency which represents Taylor.

In any case, if Adrian Boothroyd's name is one of those under consideration, Charlton might well have to wait till after the Championship play-off final, which is obviously going to influence what Boothroyd might wish to do next.

And it may well be that there are other applications from less likely people. Did I not read about six weeks ago that Claudio Ranieri wanted to come back and manage in London? And in fact hasn't Gianluca Vialli's name been put forward, rather like that of Mick McCarthy, on the grounds that despite being Italian, and despite not managing a club at present, he still lives in London?

But whoever it is, I reckon that we might have to wait a bit longer for the announcement; there's no need to rush things, after all. May isn't out yet, and I am sure the Charlton board don't want to be stampeded into a hasty decision just because the media are getting impatient. Hope not, anyway.