The biggest failures of Coca Cola Championship in 2008/09

It is enough to only take a look at the Championship standings bottom, where the three relegated clubs reside. It hasn’t been even five years since Charlton, Southampton and Norwich were in the Premier League. That clearly points out who the biggest disappointments in worlds strongest second league are this year…

The crisis has got the hold of Charlton Athletic, from the moment when they dropped out of both the play-offs race and contention for express return to the elite last year. They knew that there won’t be any money and manager Alan Pardew realised that too. Former successful leader of West Ham got away from the sinking ship in time and his heir Phil Parkinson wanted to save the day but he simply couldn’t. Popular Addicks went through big losing spells, thus breaking their own negative record of even 18 winless matches in a row- since the beginning of October 2008 till the end of January 2009. Injuries and poor form saw Matt Holand, Darren Ambrose, Zheng Zhi and other creators of the play slowed down, while on-loan veterans were mostly unmotivated (Gillespie, Deon Burton, Linvoy Primus,..) and January signings still lived up to the occasion, after a period of adjustment. But it was too late. League One awaits and the kids in red jerseys may need some more time to get back on the winning ways. It is very hard to speak of Charlton’s express return from the very bottom. Still, the way things are now, they will need a season or two.

Southampton also had troubles with the finance this season and the squad was made of young and inexperienced players that played to sell the best they could. Dutch manager Ian Poortvliet, who started the season at St. Mary stadium gave a chance to young lions that played attractive football bravely and offensively, but the results didn’t follow. Dutchman’s attempt to introduce some kind of “total football” in red-white kindergarten was a total failure. He only good thing was that young and talented players (Andrew Surman, Adam Lallana, David McGoldrick, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Simon Gillett, Oliver Lancashire…) caught the eye of major clubs. By the beginning of the second part of the season it seemed that things are looking up and the Saints had serious chances to survive till few rounds before the end, but… The owners went bankrupt, FA deducted ten points from Southampton’s tally and it was all over. Saints too will have to head towards the League One…

Norwich City fought till the very end, but they still failed. Financial problems were the end of popular Canaries too in combination with terrible club policy, bad transfers and the fact that a loser like Glen Roeder stayed on the bench for too long. Roeder was the saviour last season but he wasn’t the only one responsible. Even though he took over the rock bottom team, on five points behind and launched them to the midtable, the end of last season brought problems again. Canaries barely survived but they seem to have kept Roeder out of gratitude. They also signed some good players like experienced defender Dejan Stefanovic and excellent midfielder Wes Hoolahan. With announcements of fighting for play-offs (supported by Roeder, himself) fans got the picture that Norwich are actually a good team. Things soon fell into place and the struggle for survival marked the entire season. In the meantime Roeder was sacked, his heir Brian Gunn failed to save the day and the last match against unmotivated Charlton, which could have kept them a live, was particularly pathetic as they lost 2:4. His speaks enough of the players and the atmosphere in the club from Norfolk this season.

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