Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
Unless I dreamed it I thought Andrew Barclay originally wanted to acquire the freehold real estate in any takeover and quite rightly so to secure his investment.
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
With regard to my original “not trusting” post and subsequent comment. I do agree that TS has and has had from day one very close to universal trust. What I would say though is that even our saviour Thomas is at this point coming under some, shall we say scrutiny. If as, and I wouldn’t disagree some of our current issues are budget related then people are rightly asking questions. I think it’s fair to say we all regarded the comments by our owner like “blowing through this league” as confirmation that our recruitment process would fit in with his ambitions and bravado. Did any of us think that with two weeks of the transfer window closing that budget would be a problem. I don’t think so. On that basis is not just expectations that are coming into question but also can we actually trust what our owner says or do we write it off to oh that’s just Thomas being Thomas ? The next time Mr. Sandgaard over eggs our future quite rightly people will take his comment with a pinch of salt. I think trust in what he says has been very firmly thrown into doubt.
The esoteric debate is all well and good but the very obvious problem is we haven't signed enough players early enough and some of them aren't looking too clever. Bringing on Academy players is great to see, but one or two at a time for limited games, when the first team are holding their own, not throwing numbers of them in because the squad is too small. Thomas Sandgaard is responsible and he needs to address the obvious discontent and make it clear if Ged Roddy is being targeted unfairly.
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet @Airman Brown?
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Complex and long running problems rarely if ever have simple or easy solutions as events in Kabul show only this week. There isn't a quick fix to the deep structural problems and league status that previous owners have left for TS to clean up.
This is a new leadership team so they are still, possibly going through those forming and storming stages of Tuckman's model. The aim is to get to norming (ie setting out who does what and what the internal rules/boundaries are) and then on to performing (getting outcomes) but the first two stages are required steps.
From the outside it looks like the team and so club is still at storming ie working through who is best at each job, who has the power, who makes decisions, who defers to others? That's normal. Good teams move through that stage quickly but others can get stuck in it for ever.
I think the model Grapevine describes is fine but he mentions a CEO. We don't really have a CEO, we have a owner trying to be CEO from thousands of miles away. That leaves a vacuum day to day and means that the "storming" continues much longer than it should.
The things being said about Roddy may or not be true but it is telling that when Jacob Roddy was signed I mentioned it on a inbox conversation here on CL and remarked that I was surprised that almost no one had picked up on the potential nepotism. Now results are poor it has become an issue and from what I hear not just with fans. Whether that is fair or not is another question.
In what seems like an age ago I was derided for reducing the debate on Karl Robinson to just three words but I think the same three words apply now to the current manager and recruitment panel.
Others can and no doubt have expressed things way better than I, however I’m not sure the problem is the football development strategy, it’s more like the amount of resources put into it if you can separate the two
Eg Clare and Dobson, were purchased’ so we aren’t relying on the academy, we are saying this is our budget and that is an arbitrary decision based on how much the owner is willing to lose.
So what I’m saying is the strategy is a financial one and so far I’m struggling to see how it can ever be successful given the realities of league One now.
I think it's the name that makes everyone hate him. If he was called John Smith then nobody would bother.
Ged Roddy sounds like an evil gnome.
Is Ged even short for anything? Who names a baby Ged?
Parents who had a liking for US TV programmes about a bunch of hillbillies who became rich when the patriarch struck black gold, Texas tea, whilst out shooting at some food?
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Budget issues is a red flag to me.
Airman mentioned yesterday that we weren't willing to pay the wages for a few players.
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Budget issues is a red flag to me.
Airman mentioned yesterday that we weren't willing to pay the wages for a few players.
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
Is it not paying League 1 wages, or not prepared to follow Ipswich for example up to paying decent Championship wages?
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Budget issues is a red flag to me.
Airman mentioned yesterday that we weren't willing to pay the wages for a few players.
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
In fairness Wigan and Ipswich are paying silly money on wages, I wouldn't expect us to go toe to toe with that.
With regard to my original “not trusting” post and subsequent comment. I do agree that TS has and has had from day one very close to universal trust. What I would say though is that even our saviour Thomas is at this point coming under some, shall we say scrutiny. If as, and I wouldn’t disagree some of our current issues are budget related then people are rightly asking questions. I think it’s fair to say we all regarded the comments by our owner like “blowing through this league” as confirmation that our recruitment process would fit in with his ambitions and bravado. Did any of us think that with two weeks of the transfer window closing that budget would be a problem. I don’t think so. On that basis is not just expectations that are coming into question but also can we actually trust what our owner says or do we write it off to oh that’s just Thomas being Thomas ? The next time Mr. Sandgaard over eggs our future quite rightly people will take his comment with a pinch of salt. I think trust in what he says has been very firmly thrown into doubt.
This. I said the other week that I think TS is trying way to hard to please everyone, you could argue that if he says nothing he can't win, but it's not just one comment of "blow league out of water" that was over the top and not needed. Didn't he say last year we had the best attack in the league, the Europe stuff as well as saying we're creating chances this season. Although you can take these stuff with a pinch of salt and just his ambition but the more you keep doing it the more people don't believe you or get wound up.
The guitar stuff and if he was directly involved in it, the 20% off drinks stuff is this example of trying to please people. The guitar stuff looks great when your doing well, but poor when your not. Wait to do those things at end of season if we've been promoted.
[A long detailed post - please don't quote it in full - AW]
@Grapevine49 my post is meant entirely respectfully and not meant to be in any way patronising so please take it in the spirit it's meant.
I recall you and I both vehemently defended ESI whilst others were calling them out and perhaps because we want it to be true and want to see the best in others.
I infer from your wisdom and widely lauded posts on here over the years that you come from a highly accomplished professional background and were likely very competent and successful in your fields with colleagues who shared those attributes.
I think that you may therefore generously apply the same qualities and characteristics inherent in established and successful corporate entities to football ownerships and view them through that lens.
However if the past decade has taught me anything the "business" of football and an uncomfortable majority of those running clubs are the complete anthises of sensible business models and strategies and competent corporate governance and execution.
As logical and rational as it may be to view Charlton owners through a competent corporate lens the whole model is madness in 2021.
It is a loss making venture that would be nigh impossible to sell to investors or placate shareholders with in other industries and is seemingly impossible to compete without throwing good money after bad without extreme fortunes of money and luck or a bona fide strategy that few in the game seem to design let alone execute successfully.
And it's a results driven business. TS is new to the game and it would appear very green. He doesn't have the luxury of Duchatelet's billions to buy time and learn from mistakes (albeit he has the earnest charm and likeability to deflect them) and he will not be able or willing to fund 7 or 8 figure losses on an ongoing basis for years to come.
Whilst I may be way off the mark and perhaps this set of executives/ management coalition or whatever it may be will buck the trend and do have a concrete, defined and workable strategy that everyone is on board with, the last decade has shown me that it may not be the case and that gut instinct and cautious cynicism is the best approach until tangible goals ie a competitive squad are there as evidence of success or at least the foundations.
This transfer window along with the other off the field individually trivial matters are indicating that we're perhaps not quite there yet in terms of having the foundations of a successful strategy... if it is even known what that strategy is or will look like, and it's mildly concerning a year into the ownership that that may be the case.
May be I am being catastrophic but it wouldn't surprise me if TS walks in a year citing personal reasons or something. (We will all blame each other for not being supportive enough on twitter and forums no doubt if so!). Pure pie in the sky pessimism from me hopefully but based on the past ten years and the fact why a) i can't understand how anyone without bottomless pockets can fund a club long term incurring such losses and b) the lack of apparent strategy in terms of squad build this summer to get us out of the loss making pit of league one
I really hope I'm being a miserable cynical moaner in my reluctance to keep the faith and hope in a seemingly far nicer and genuine ownership than we've previously endured but by being good guys doesn't mean they're equipped to navigate the treacherous road of engish football in 2021 that has chewed up and spat out many bigger boys than our lot.
All we can do is give our lads support on matchdays a hope for the best off the pitch I suppose.
But something feels quite off at present and not the incarnation of the brave new chapter many of us envisaged a year ago or even up to a few weeks ago.
RD was worth about 600 million, not billions. At least I thought that was the figure quoted, or there abouts.
I believe RD is worth slightly more than Sandgaard, but I think it’s more about how much of their wealth they’re willing to spend (I.e. lose) and how much of that amount they will spend well.
It's good to read some thoughtful posts here, I found myself liking several, even though they disagree with each other on several aspects.
It does rather look that there's a consensus the absence of a CEO is becoming an issue. I've always had a problem with the "CEO" title in football clubs; the job description doesn't fit that of CEO in normal businesses of similar size turnover because in most cases the business does not operate successfully without the financial benevolence of the owner. In most businesses the CEO is responsible for business strategy that generates the revenue to build for the long-term. That's impossible to do in most football clubs, yet unfortunately it hasn't stopped football paying eye watering salaries to so-called CEOs on the basis that that's what CEOs earn in other companies. So it's worth remembering that recruiting a decent CEO with the money in our budget will probably be just as challenging as recruiting a decent second striker. I think if we were to look carefully at other clubs we see that it took a while before new owners started delegating extensively to a CEO. Abramovich was very hands-on in the early days when they did things like stealing Parker, but he had no choice but to look to delegate to competent business managers later on, especially when coming under pressure from Uncle Vlad to spend more time running Kamchatka. (the far east Russian region, not a football club!). You can understand why an owner like Thomas who likes football, would feel he's earned the right to be his own CEO for a while. But I would guess that he will soon feel the pressure to delegate more, especially as posted by @WishIdStayedinthePub in the Savings and Investment thread, his company's earnings have taken a dip recently and small investors are suggesting that he is spending too much time on his football club.
The other point I'd like to make can be summarised in one word: Ipswich. I've not read that anyone has bothered to look in detail at what their fans are saying, but I doubt if it is much more reasonable than our overall response, if you include the hysteria of Charlton Twitter. For the moment, in the absence of any more understanding from the home of the Champions, it's reasonable to conclude from there that size of the budget is not the overriding factor in explaining our poor start. Nor is it likely to be any one other factor, or the fault of any one individual, even if I can understand the disquiet around Jacob Roddy.
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Budget issues is a red flag to me.
Airman mentioned yesterday that we weren't willing to pay the wages for a few players.
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
Is it not paying League 1 wages, or not prepared to follow Ipswich for example up to paying decent Championship wages?
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Budget issues is a red flag to me.
Airman mentioned yesterday that we weren't willing to pay the wages for a few players.
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
Is it not paying League 1 wages, or not prepared to follow Ipswich for example up to paying decent Championship wages?
You'll have to read Airman's post.
I have, but it sounds like we weren't prepared to chase Ipswich and Wigan
Complex and long running problems rarely if ever have simple or easy solutions as events in Kabul show only this week. There isn't a quick fix to the deep structural problems and league status that previous owners have left for TS to clean up.
This is a new leadership team so they are still, possibly going through those forming and storming stages of Tuckman's model. The aim is to get to norming (ie setting out who does what and what the internal rules/boundaries are) and then on to performing (getting outcomes) but the first two stages are required steps.
From the outside it looks like the team and so club is still at storming ie working through who is best at each job, who has the power, who makes decisions, who defers to others? That's normal. Good teams move through that stage quickly but others can get stuck in it for ever.
I think the model Grapevine describes is fine but he mentions a CEO. We don't really have a CEO, we have a owner trying to be CEO from thousands of miles away. That leaves a vacuum day to day and means that the "storming" continues much longer than it should.
The things being said about Roddy may or not be true but it is telling that when Jacob Roddy was signed I mentioned it on a inbox conversation here on CL and remarked that I was surprised that almost no one had picked up on the potential nepotism. Now results are poor it has become an issue and from what I hear not just with fans. Whether that is fair or not is another question.
In what seems like an age ago I was derided for reducing the debate on Karl Robinson to just three words but I think the same three words apply now to the current manager and recruitment panel.
JUST WIN GAMES
Me too. For one reason or another I’ve not been on here much lately. But when I heard the name Roddy in the team sheet the other night alarm bells started ringing. I admit I approach this from a bit of a personal level as I am quite close to the family of one of our poor academy lads that was binned over the early part of the summer. He had dedicated much of his life to this club having been there for most of it. His family sacrificed a lot for him. I know how it works. If he’s not good enough he goes. But he was regularly getting games in the youth level teams. Regardless. If Avory thinks he’s not up to it then so be it. But to hear the New technical directors young son has waltzed in from nowhere and has moved quickly up the ranks to first team football rang some alarm bells. I assumed more would be aghast. But no. I get we are a wounded bunch and may not want to rock the Apple cart. But come on. If there’s a stench let’s at least find out what’s causing it.
Airman Brown, you mention that maybe the budget may be a problem. To your knowledge, is Andrew Barclay still interested in investing in any way or in the future. To be clear I mean as well as Sandgaard not instead of?!
I can’t speak for AB. I would think that the issue for most people remains “invest in what”? The club currently is its goodwill and place in the EFL offset by its losses. Arguably the value of that to an investor is negative.
Have you seen any red flags with the current regime to make you concerned about anything yet Airman?
Budget issues is a red flag to me.
Airman mentioned yesterday that we weren't willing to pay the wages for a few players.
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
In fairness Wigan and Ipswich are paying silly money on wages, I wouldn't expect us to go toe to toe with that.
But if thats where the bar is to build a competitive team, you might have to bite the bullet and pay out to get promoted.
Its just bizarre to me that an owner is happy paying £6-7 million just to stand still in this league, but then gets squeamish when they find out players can be expensive?
Comments
Eg Clare and Dobson, were purchased’ so we aren’t relying on the academy, we are saying this is our budget and that is an arbitrary decision based on how much the owner is willing to lose.
Parents who had a liking for US TV programmes about a bunch of hillbillies who became rich when the patriarch struck black gold, Texas tea, whilst out shooting at some food?
How can he talk about Europe and not even pay League one wages?!
The guitar stuff and if he was directly involved in it, the 20% off drinks stuff is this example of trying to please people. The guitar stuff looks great when your doing well, but poor when your not. Wait to do those things at end of season if we've been promoted.
The other point I'd like to make can be summarised in one word: Ipswich. I've not read that anyone has bothered to look in detail at what their fans are saying, but I doubt if it is much more reasonable than our overall response, if you include the hysteria of Charlton Twitter. For the moment, in the absence of any more understanding from the home of the Champions, it's reasonable to conclude from there that size of the budget is not the overriding factor in explaining our poor start. Nor is it likely to be any one other factor, or the fault of any one individual, even if I can understand the disquiet around Jacob Roddy.
Don't blame it on the moonlight,
Don't blame it on the good times,
Blame it on Ged Roddy
🙂
But when I heard the name Roddy in the team sheet the other night alarm bells started ringing.
I admit I approach this from a bit of a personal level as I am quite close to the family of one of our poor academy lads that was binned over the early part of the summer.
He had dedicated much of his life to this club having been there for most of it. His family sacrificed a lot for him.
I know how it works. If he’s not good enough he goes. But he was regularly getting games in the youth level teams. Regardless. If Avory thinks he’s not up to it then so be it.
But to hear the New technical directors young son has waltzed in from nowhere and has moved quickly up the ranks to first team football rang some alarm bells.
I assumed more would be aghast. But no.
I get we are a wounded bunch and may not want to rock the Apple cart. But come on. If there’s a stench let’s at least find out what’s causing it.
Its just bizarre to me that an owner is happy paying £6-7 million just to stand still in this league, but then gets squeamish when they find out players can be expensive?