nla & DP I could not agree more. The abuse people now thrown at young players for me is reaching sickening proportions. Look at the stuff thrown at Harriott after Sheffield and Barnsley. You could argue when you are at the game that you have paid your money so can express your opinion at that time but with modern technology the abuse via modern popular media is almost never ending.
In any other context it is almost akin to bullying.
As regards PP the vast majority of supporters will have never even seen him play.
So why the abuse? Who said anywhere he was ready for the first team? Indeed the reverse is true - there is every indication he was not even supposed to sign until the new season.
The "statistics" show the lad can clearly play at a lower level. De Graafschap fans clearly thought so. It appears that the Polish national coaches see something in him as well.
In all honesty if I were his agent I would be writing the last few months off to experience and seeking a loan back to a Dutch/ Belgian/ Polish side. That is in no way an admission of failure to make the grade. To make the grade as a professional footballer it is a tough enough challenge in the first place. At aged 19 to have to carry the burden of the vitriol aimed at the ownership who brought you to club is neither helpful or healthy. Who needs that? On a 5yr contract he has time to develop his career - he just needs to go and enjoy his football.
As an aside if you go onto the Zone Rouche site for Standard Liege, although I may have lost something in translation, several contributors appear to be looking forward to seeing Adjarevic back in the squad and are hopeful Koc (though Turkish clubs have expressed an interest) will be able to step up along with a number of other Liege academy players.
nla & DP I could not agree more. The abuse people now thrown at young players for me is reaching sickening proportions. Look at the stuff thrown at Harriott after Sheffield and Barnsley. You could argue when you are at the game that you have paid your money so can express your opinion at that time but with modern technology the abuse via modern popular media is almost never ending.
In any other context it is almost akin to bullying.
As regards PP the vast majority of supporters will have never even seen him play.
So why the abuse? Who said anywhere he was ready for the first team? Indeed the reverse is true - there is every indication he was not even supposed to sign until the new season.
The "statistics" show the lad can clearly play at a lower level. De Graafschap fans clearly thought so. It appears that the Polish national coaches see something in him as well.
In all honesty if I were his agent I would be writing the last few months off to experience and seeking a loan back to a Dutch/ Belgian/ Polish side. That is in no way an admission of failure to make the grade. To make the grade as a professional footballer it is a tough enough challenge in the first place. At aged 19 to have to carry the burden of the vitriol aimed at the ownership who brought you to club is neither helpful or healthy. Who needs that? On a 5yr contract he has time to develop his career - he just needs to go and enjoy his football.
As an aside if you go onto the Zone Rouche site for Standard Liege, although I may have lost something in translation, several contributors appear to be looking forward to seeing Adjarevic back in the squad and are hopeful Koc (though Turkish clubs have expressed an interest) will be able to step up along with a number of other Liege academy players.
I don't disagree about some of the criticism of young players, but if there were unreasonable expectations of Piotr it's nobody's fault but the club's. They presented him as ready to go straight into the first team and given the timing a direct replacement for Yann Kermorgant. Indeed, in my opinion he was being used by the owner as part of the justification for selling YK. It's no good people now suggesting he was only ever brought in as a future prospect - if that was the case it should have been reflected in the way the signing was presented.
Come on pa look through any thread on RD or polish peter or yann and you will find pp being used as the stick that cracks across RD and his forehead
600k this
Polish pete that
Followed by RD and his network or this as evidence he is a Cnut
It's there for all to read
Including PP
Dick Plumb
Your icon is the best on here ever
But you are trying to dump everyone into one 'camp' or another which doesn't help a reasonable discussion. No one has spent more time than me on this site arguing the human side of PP's move here, that its bloody difficult for a 20 year old foreign kid on his own to settle in the warm cuddly village atmosphere of South East London. I'm also the only one on here to my knowledge who has actually bothered to talk with de Graafschaap fans.
This hasn't altered my view that the transfer at that particular time was unwise, frankly baffling and a use of quite a lot of money, that might have been better spent on players who could play a role in the fight to stay up. I agree with @Airman Brown.
I think this is harriots biggest cafc season and I freely admit his berformance against Barnsley is one that infuriated me more than any one single performance I had seen in ages
And wrongly I was insulting towards him that night
However since then my voice of concern towards him and that position is one of critique not out right criticism
With pp it's one of derision
The thing is no one on here bar reserves and pos maddad sees more of pp than dick and dick has been one who has highlighted his performances
Yet he hasn't chosen pp as anything other than a player needing improvement and the coaching staff to get the potential from pp by aiding him mentally and technique
Too me Riga was the man to do this and therefore RD and his decision to allow Riga to leave is baffling
But it's not something I will judge RD on
We need to speculate on talent from across the world that is of the age of pp
You only need to find one that could return you 10x the outlay
It's a risk and reward strategy that coincided with yann leaving IMO
Some will work like cp for Riga
Yann for no one in particular
They both worked
It's now as a body of fans we sit back watch and take in the whole game plan
Then decide in 12 to 18 months what we do as fans if anything at all
Yet pp is the stick mentioned by more than any other player bar YT as the measure of RD
Apart from the very brief glimpse v Birmingham I have not seen Piotr play.
The real issue for me is that I don't think anyone can say that they don't find the whole saga surprising. I'm not sure the exact fee that Charlton paid for PP but whatever it was it was the most money we have paid for a player for a long time.
Now unless we were buying huge potential on the scale of the next Christiano Ronaldo or similar it implies to me that we were expecting a player that was good enough to go straight into the first team squad at least and also expecting a player capable of getting better still with a view to selling for a decent profit at some point.
That now looks to be complete nonsense and there are even question marks over whether Piotr will ever cut the mustard at Charltons level. Perhaps he has had problems settling in but he seems a confident young man and has already left Poland to ply his trade in Holland with some success.
Something just doesn't add up and I can't put my finger on what it is. I hope that whoever scouted him is not so poor as to misjudge a players ability to the extent it seems to be or is there something else that I'm not seeing.
Nothing since Roland's takeover is more baffling than this situation in my opinion ang we don't seem any closer to finding out what appears to have gone wrong.
Apart from the very brief glimpse v Birmingham I have not seen Piotr play.
The real issue for me is that I don't think anyone can say that they don't find the whole saga surprising. I'm not sure the exact fee that Charlton paid for PP but whatever it was it was the most money we have paid for a player for a long time.
Now unless we were buying huge potential on the scale of the next Christiano Ronaldo or similar it implies to me that we were expecting a player that was good enough to go straight into the first team squad at least and also expecting a player capable of getting better still with a view to selling for a decent profit at some point.
That now looks to be complete nonsense and there are even question marks over whether Piotr will ever cut the mustard at Charltons level. Perhaps he has had problems settling in but he seems a confident young man and has already left Poland to ply his trade in Holland with some success.
Something just doesn't add up and I can't put my finger on what it is. I hope that whoever scouted him is not so poor as to misjudge a players ability to the extent it seems to be or is there something else that I'm not seeing.
Nothing since Roland's takeover is more baffling than this situation in my opinion ang we don't seem any closer to finding out what appears to have gone wrong.
Excellent summary SHG, and I remember you using that phrase back in Jan. Here is something else that is odd; I was just reflecting how much better for everybody it would have been if he had arrived now, in the close season. I seemed to remember PP saying that we wanted him straight away. Turns out my memory was playing tricks. It was the player who insisted he wanted to come straight away whereas "the club" was happy to wait until the seasons ended. I guess you can admire the lad for his desire to get on with it, but I am surprised that he was allowed to set the agenda in this way. It's just another element that doesn't add up.
It's a risk and reward strategy that coincided with yann leaving IMO
But at the time you said "when PP scores a hat trick tomorrow it will be Yann who?" And you weren't the only one to see him as a better replacement for YK.
Clearly PP hasnt done enough in training or U21 games to impress either CP or JR that he was worthy of even a bench place after his five minutes v Birmingham.
Could be lots of reasons for that. The transistion to a different type of football, settling in England, JR and CP not being able to spot his ability, just not being good enough, illness, injury or something else We don't know yet.
People should give the young man a chance as he might come good but people are also entitled to question the wisdom of his purchase at what for us is large fee (£570k) when we needed to strenghen a relegation threatened squad. That he often couldn't get in the U21 side and didn't impress when he did is at least a cause for concern.
I don't put any weight on Benfica or West Ham being in for him. They didn't sign him, we did so he's our asset/problem. It out teams he has to play for.
You also have to put it into the context of the other signings made since the takeover. If Nego, Thuram, Reza, AA and Koc had all been great successes then it would be fair to say "you can't get them all right but 5 out of 6 ain't bad and he still might come good"
When the reality is that only AA was any sort of success while Reza was inconsistant but did score one winning goal then it quite fair to ask what is going on with the recruitment, who is making the decisions and are they doing it well?
Questioning the quality of recruitment is not, IMO, using PP as a stick to beat RD. It is a legitamite question and concern.
Apart from the very brief glimpse v Birmingham I have not seen Piotr play.
The real issue for me is that I don't think anyone can say that they don't find the whole saga surprising. I'm not sure the exact fee that Charlton paid for PP but whatever it was it was the most money we have paid for a player for a long time.
Now unless we were buying huge potential on the scale of the next Christiano Ronaldo or similar it implies to me that we were expecting a player that was good enough to go straight into the first team squad at least and also expecting a player capable of getting better still with a view to selling for a decent profit at some point.
That now looks to be complete nonsense and there are even question marks over whether Piotr will ever cut the mustard at Charltons level. Perhaps he has had problems settling in but he seems a confident young man and has already left Poland to ply his trade in Holland with some success.
Something just doesn't add up and I can't put my finger on what it is. I hope that whoever scouted him is not so poor as to misjudge a players ability to the extent it seems to be or is there something else that I'm not seeing.
Nothing since Roland's takeover is more baffling than this situation in my opinion ang we don't seem any closer to finding out what appears to have gone wrong.
Excellent summary SHG, and I remember you using that phrase back in Jan. Here is something else that is odd; I was just reflecting how much better for everybody it would have been if he had arrived now, in the close season. I seemed to remember PP saying that we wanted him straight away. Turns out my memory was playing tricks. It was the player who insisted he wanted to come straight away whereas "the club" was happy to wait until the seasons ended. I guess you can admire the lad for his desire to get on with it, but I am surprised that he was allowed to set the agenda in this way. It's just another element that doesn't add up.
Agree. It certainly doesn't sound as if Piotr is the shy retiring lad that would on the face of it struggle to come to terms with new surroundings and challenges. Seems more to have great confidence in his own ability.
It's already been said but this summer will be defining for PP and his Charlton career. Perhaps Bob is exactly what he needs. I hope so.
If Polish Pete is not at least in the squad reckoning come August I would think that his Charlton adventure might well be over and the signing will go down as one of the strangest in our history along with Omar Puso and Alan Simonsen albeit for very different reasons.
Thanks SHG! So we're still talking to his agent, or was this just a smokescreen, to appease the fans, and pull the wool over our eyes?
Well I don't think anyone knows for sure but rumours are from : all agreed but just O'Grady needing to decide to sign, signinging today, not signing as won't move south,
Piotr is certainly an enigma wrapped in a conundrum covering a mystery, but I hope (and suspect) not hiding a vacuum.
As kids we had the concept of a goal hanger, nowadays it might be described as a penalty box or 18 yard player. Piotr's vids, and indeed the good fellow himself says as much, he is a finisher...will be happy to score soft, or dustbin, or snap shot goals, but in the box will try to score with every touch.
Now that is well and good. However you have to take into account offsides, balls actually finding their way into the area frequently, and to cope with the hairy championship defenders who are trying to stop you. Being only a penalty box player is a tough gig these days and others try to add a few more strings to their bows.
It is quite thought provoking contemplating the kind of striker Piotr is with Simon Church. Church runs and runs, chases everything down, never gives up, is very team oriented...but sadly when it comes to even getting a fair share of dustbin goals he falls short.
Piotr is very goal orientated, is not the kind of player to compensate for lack of scoring by running and running. So what have we acquired? A player who will be prolific if it can be accepted that his overt work rate will be average, and if the ball is played into the area twenty times a game at a variety of heights and angles. We were not set up like that at the moment Piotr arrived.
When Piotr arrived the first team were not getting the ball up front particularly frequently beyond Yann being a focus, and certainly not much in wider areas, the development squad culture and players available were similar. Piotr was therefore pitched not only into an alien cultural environment at such a young age, but an alien footballing environment, and asked to play in a way that was alien to him and not playing to his strengths. The result a massive confidence loss.
I have said elsewhere he needs support to rebuild his game, but he may also need to add an extra aspect to his game in order to get regular Championship football. I can't think of many Championship goalscorers who are able to simply be a penalty area player. Ross McCormack is a typical example of a player who is involved everywhere, and somehow some more qualities need to be added to Piotr's game.
It may be Bobbin along and the new coaching regime can unwrap the goodies in Piotr, but I also think his acquisition at the time he came made absolutely no sense. I happen to think more or less the same about Reza. I have seen Anil Koc and would rather not comment, although what I have seen of Loic Nego is more encouraging.
Poitr ought not to be written off, but he certainly needs some restoration work before he is ready, and I say that however much our football next season will be radical, modern and continental.
Comments
... OR rd wanted him a a gift for the new puppet, guess it depends which way you think
In any other context it is almost akin to bullying.
As regards PP the vast majority of supporters will have never even seen him play.
So why the abuse? Who said anywhere he was ready for the first team? Indeed the reverse is true - there is every indication he was not even supposed to sign until the new season.
The "statistics" show the lad can clearly play at a lower level. De Graafschap fans clearly thought so. It appears that the Polish national coaches see something in him as well.
In all honesty if I were his agent I would be writing the last few months off to experience and seeking a loan back to a Dutch/ Belgian/ Polish side. That is in no way an admission of failure to make the grade. To make the grade as a professional footballer it is a tough enough challenge in the first place. At aged 19 to have to carry the burden of the vitriol aimed at the ownership who brought you to club is neither helpful or healthy. Who needs that? On a 5yr contract he has time to develop his career - he just needs to go and enjoy his football.
As an aside if you go onto the Zone Rouche site for Standard Liege, although I may have lost something in translation, several contributors appear to be looking forward to seeing Adjarevic back in the squad and are hopeful Koc (though Turkish clubs have expressed an interest) will be able to step up along with a number of other Liege academy players.
Who said? Charlton did.
I don't disagree about some of the criticism of young players, but if there were unreasonable expectations of Piotr it's nobody's fault but the club's. They presented him as ready to go straight into the first team and given the timing a direct replacement for Yann Kermorgant. Indeed, in my opinion he was being used by the owner as part of the justification for selling YK. It's no good people now suggesting he was only ever brought in as a future prospect - if that was the case it should have been reflected in the way the signing was presented.
This hasn't altered my view that the transfer at that particular time was unwise, frankly baffling and a use of quite a lot of money, that might have been better spent on players who could play a role in the fight to stay up. I agree with @Airman Brown.
It's not hard to find
I think this is harriots biggest cafc season and I freely admit his berformance against Barnsley is one that infuriated me more than any one single performance I had seen in ages
And wrongly I was insulting towards him that night
However since then my voice of concern towards him and that position is one of critique not out right criticism
With pp it's one of derision
The thing is no one on here bar reserves and pos maddad sees more of pp than dick and dick has been one who has highlighted his performances
Yet he hasn't chosen pp as anything other than a player needing improvement and the coaching staff to get the potential from pp by aiding him mentally and technique
Too me Riga was the man to do this and therefore RD and his decision to allow Riga to leave is baffling
But it's not something I will judge RD on
We need to speculate on talent from across the world that is of the age of pp
You only need to find one that could return you 10x the outlay
It's a risk and reward strategy that coincided with yann leaving IMO
Some will work like cp for Riga
Yann for no one in particular
They both worked
It's now as a body of fans we sit back watch and take in the whole game plan
Then decide in 12 to 18 months what we do as fans if anything at all
Yet pp is the stick mentioned by more than any other player bar YT as the measure of RD
The real issue for me is that I don't think anyone can say that they don't find the whole saga surprising. I'm not sure the exact fee that Charlton paid for PP but whatever it was it was the most money we have paid for a player for a long time.
Now unless we were buying huge potential on the scale of the next Christiano Ronaldo or similar it implies to me that we were expecting a player that was good enough to go straight into the first team squad at least and also expecting a player capable of getting better still with a view to selling for a decent profit at some point.
That now looks to be complete nonsense and there are even question marks over whether Piotr will ever cut the mustard at Charltons level. Perhaps he has had problems settling in but he seems a confident young man and has already left Poland to ply his trade in Holland with some success.
Something just doesn't add up and I can't put my finger on what it is. I hope that whoever scouted him is not so poor as to misjudge a players ability to the extent it seems to be or is there something else that I'm not seeing.
Nothing since Roland's takeover is more baffling than this situation in my opinion ang we don't seem any closer to finding out what appears to have gone wrong.
Clearly PP hasnt done enough in training or U21 games to impress either CP or JR that he was worthy of even a bench place after his five minutes v Birmingham.
Could be lots of reasons for that. The transistion to a different type of football, settling in England, JR and CP not being able to spot his ability, just not being good enough, illness, injury or something else We don't know yet.
People should give the young man a chance as he might come good but people are also entitled to question the wisdom of his purchase at what for us is large fee (£570k) when we needed to strenghen a relegation threatened squad. That he often couldn't get in the U21 side and didn't impress when he did is at least a cause for concern.
I don't put any weight on Benfica or West Ham being in for him. They didn't sign him, we did so he's our asset/problem. It out teams he has to play for.
You also have to put it into the context of the other signings made since the takeover. If Nego, Thuram, Reza, AA and Koc had all been great successes then it would be fair to say "you can't get them all right but 5 out of 6 ain't bad and he still might come good"
When the reality is that only AA was any sort of success while Reza was inconsistant but did score one winning goal then it quite fair to ask what is going on with the recruitment, who is making the decisions and are they doing it well?
Questioning the quality of recruitment is not, IMO, using PP as a stick to beat RD. It is a legitamite question and concern.
It's already been said but this summer will be defining for PP and his Charlton career. Perhaps Bob is exactly what he needs. I hope so.
If Polish Pete is not at least in the squad reckoning come August I would think that his Charlton adventure might well be over and the signing will go down as one of the strangest in our history along with Omar Puso and Alan Simonsen albeit for very different reasons.
Let's hope Bob can turn it around for the lad.
But it maybe in 5 yrs time
But there would be a thread on here every goal he scored regardless where he plays
Take your pick.
As kids we had the concept of a goal hanger, nowadays it might be described as a penalty box or 18 yard player. Piotr's vids, and indeed the good fellow himself says as much, he is a finisher...will be happy to score soft, or dustbin, or snap shot goals, but in the box will try to score with every touch.
Now that is well and good. However you have to take into account offsides, balls actually finding their way into the area frequently, and to cope with the hairy championship defenders who are trying to stop you. Being only a penalty box player is a tough gig these days and others try to add a few more strings to their bows.
It is quite thought provoking contemplating the kind of striker Piotr is with Simon Church. Church runs and runs, chases everything down, never gives up, is very team oriented...but sadly when it comes to even getting a fair share of dustbin goals he falls short.
Piotr is very goal orientated, is not the kind of player to compensate for lack of scoring by running and running. So what have we acquired? A player who will be prolific if it can be accepted that his overt work rate will be average, and if the ball is played into the area twenty times a game at a variety of heights and angles. We were not set up like that at the moment Piotr arrived.
When Piotr arrived the first team were not getting the ball up front particularly frequently beyond Yann being a focus, and certainly not much in wider areas, the development squad culture and players available were similar. Piotr was therefore pitched not only into an alien cultural environment at such a young age, but an alien footballing environment, and asked to play in a way that was alien to him and not playing to his strengths. The result a massive confidence loss.
I have said elsewhere he needs support to rebuild his game, but he may also need to add an extra aspect to his game in order to get regular Championship football. I can't think of many Championship goalscorers who are able to simply be a penalty area player. Ross McCormack is a typical example of a player who is involved everywhere, and somehow some more qualities need to be added to Piotr's game.
It may be Bobbin along and the new coaching regime can unwrap the goodies in Piotr, but I also think his acquisition at the time he came made absolutely no sense. I happen to think more or less the same about Reza. I have seen Anil Koc and would rather not comment, although what I have seen of Loic Nego is more encouraging.
Poitr ought not to be written off, but he certainly needs some restoration work before he is ready, and I say that however much our football next season will be radical, modern and continental.