Once again, the situation at Charleroi is looking bleak. Fans are, rightly, voicing their frustration, although not always in the best way. However, unlike most clubs in their situation, the fans anger is not at the head coach. For them, Rik De Mil is the latest victim of Mehdi Bayat. The fans feel that Bayat is using the club to enrich himself, selling players for a profit and then failing to reinvest the money. Furthermore, he is using his connection with agents as a means to sign players int he first place.
Now the club has released a statement saying that it has full faith in De Mil and his staff to turn things around. This could certainly be seen as the dreaded vote of confidence, but in reality there are few head coaches who would likely want to step in. The club have a plethora of strikers, but none of them are scoring, a problem that has plagued the side for a few seasons. This points to poor recruitment, something that the fans blame solely on Bayat. As a result, they have called for a 12 minute boycott of the upcoming match with De Mil’s former club Westerlo.
During a run of just one win in eight games the signs on the pitch have been pretty negative. The players don’t look cohesive and in many ways appear to not have much fight in them. They were well beaten by a Cercle Brugge side that have struggled to start the season. Outside of Daan Heymans, no one has really found the net consistently, and even he has been stuck on six goals for some time now.
Charleroi are a club that, only a few years ago, were flirting with European football regularly and had a clear identity on the pitch. There was a clear focus on physicality up front with wingers that could create. There were also clear leaders on the pitch, something that does not seem the case at this moment in time.
If nothing changes, the side look destined to be fighting relegation this season, much like last year. Fans had hoped the disappointment of the 2023/2024 campaign would be a wake up call to the clubs hierarchy, but so far it looks like no lessons were learnt.
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