Yep. It’s concerning now. How is it that Ipswich and Wigan are able to secure top targets and we aren’t? And we need a fair few players.
Because it looks like they are budgeting massively over their income.
We can’t have it both ways imo. We can’t bang the drum on how important stability and sustainability is, then kick off when clubs around us pay over the odds on a short-term gamble.
Frustrating as it is.
If anyone is still banging the drum about sustainability then I assume they object to us paying any players anything and want the academy shut down and still pay double for match tickets?
I think if we rely solely on Stockley we are going to be somewhat disappointed. Certainly pleased he has been signed.....but my big doubts about him is that he scores the vast majority of his goals with his head......which is great in itself but there are some downsides to that if you don’t have a suitable partner. I give you Matt Tees and his brilliant partner Ray Treacy. We desperately need a partner for him that is an accomplished and acknowledged striker of the ball i.e. busy with his feet. I realise I’m stating the obvious but felt I needed to say it anyway. I am not convinced that either Washington and Schwartz is that player........do either of them have 15/20 goals in them? Mmmm......I’m not convinced.
lt'll be interesting to see which players are involved in the Dartford PSF on Saturday.
If the same young guns are on show again, this may add fuel to the "fire" that TS & NA are very serious about making more than one of them serious contenders for places in the upcoming matchday squads.
Really hoping we see Inniss, Gilbey & Matthews at some point in the game.
It's alright if we don't get promoted we can have a rebuild and piss the league next season.........
Last season really mattered and we could/should have at least finished top 6 and had a crack at the play offs. Who noticed these very rich people snapping up other league 1 clubs? And now people are supprised?
No one can guarantee top two, certainly not in July. Just over 18 months ago a lot of the people that are writting us off now were in the Covered End singing "we're fucking rich". Stop the knee jerk reactions cos Fraser signed for Ipswich. It doesn't mean we missed out.
We might not "blow the league out of the water" but we won't be far off the promotion picture, if off at all.
When we get the next couple over the line the mood will change back to "we're going up as fucking champions" and HMS piss the league will be launched. Then Sunderland will sign Wykes replacement and Thomas will be skint again, and as it how it was and how it will all ways be.
We will be a very good league 1 team next season, I have no doubt. Will it be good enough to get promoted? Hopefully. Will it be enough to satisfy everyone on here? No fucking chance, Messi has just signed a new deal at Barca!!
Yep, don’t understand those who were saying last season that it didn’t matter if we didn’t go up as we needed a massive rebuild and it would be easier to do it in League One than The Championship. We could be stuck in this league for a few years yet. You take the chances when you can. Last season League One was poor and we missed a massive opportunity.
We should be aspiring to better than a ‘very good League One team next season’, we should be aiming to be the best League One team next season. If we are stuck in League One for another season then Thomas’s five year PL plan is out the window. If, and at this stage it’s an if, he’s not willing to finance getting out of League One then how does he expect to reach the PL?
We’ve missed out on a few players by not offering enough in wages. Listening to Gallen’s recent interview sounds like he’s working in the constraints of a shoe string budget. We’re not blowing any league apart anytime soon.
Disagree, no indication of that at all. Working to a budget yes, but so are Man City.
It’s not a dig at TS but we are working to budget that isn’t anywhere near our rivals.
You have no idea what our budget is, let alone that of our 'rivals'.
Let’s judge it at the end of the window. But looking at the signings we’ve made so far vs Ipswich or Wigan, we aren’t close to them.
I think if we rely solely on Stockley we are going to be somewhat disappointed. Certainly pleased he has been signed.....but my big doubts about him is that he scores the vast majority of his goals with his head......which is great in itself but there are some downsides to that if you don’t have a suitable partner. I give you Matt Tees and his brilliant partner Ray Treacy. We desperately need a partner for him that is an accomplished and acknowledged striker of the ball i.e. busy with his feet. I realise I’m stating the obvious but felt I needed to say it anyway. I am not convinced that either Washington and Schwartz is that player........do either of them have 15/20 goals in them? Mmmm......I’m not convinced.
Washington got 11 or 12 I think last season so could quite conceivably get somewhere in the low-mid teens range if we avoid another absolutely catastrophic slump period.
Probably the only time I've been jealous of another league 1 clubs signing. Will certainly be having a bit on them to win the league now and putting them in my accumulator.
Nowhere near panic stations, as posted previous, who even knows if we ever wanted him.
As things stand we haven't strengthened only weakened. Got back Stockley, replaced our goalie, got back Akin and replaced Pratley.
Still a lot of signings needed and significant ones. Around 4-5. I'll judge at the start of the season but I suppose I do sympathise with the 'panickers'
I really don't understand this desire to throw money at everything. It might bring short term success but what happens when the well dries up/owner gets bored or their means of earning cash outside of football runs into problems. You end up with them pulling the plug and get screwed.
Not doubting sensible investment is needed but if we have learned anything it needs to be done as sustainably as possible otherwise you are only a bit of bad luck away from shit creek.
Stuck £10 on Wigan to win the league outright at 18/1.
Everyone saying "Money doesn't guarantee success" you're correct, but it gives you a much much higher chance than a team that isn't investing at scale.
No chance at the moment with their squad they done enough to move to mid table …… you say money they not spent any unlike us so in the principle we must be top
Let’s not forget Fraser was completely nullified by Pratley. Completely shut out.
and he’s supposedly shit
id have him in the “nice to have” column rather than the “essential” column but wouldn’t have minded him nonetheless
He plays one good game against us and suddenly he world class … two points he was not very good in our second game against them and if he was that good he would not be joining Ipswich
We’ve missed out on a few players by not offering enough in wages. Listening to Gallen’s recent interview sounds like he’s working in the constraints of a shoe string budget. We’re not blowing any league apart anytime soon.
Edit: Thomas had gone on record to say we are only going to do a little bit more than last season, which we’ve probably already done by signing Stockley.
Who we missed out on ?
seems every player other player that joined another club we were interested in blimey we would have had a squad of about 320 players if they had all signed
we can only miss out on someone if we were interested the only player we missed out on at present is Graham who joined Birmingham
We’ve missed out on a few players by not offering enough in wages. Listening to Gallen’s recent interview sounds like he’s working in the constraints of a shoe string budget. We’re not blowing any league apart anytime soon.
Disagree, no indication of that at all. Working to a budget yes, but so are Man City.
It’s not a dig at TS but we are working to budget that isn’t anywhere near our rivals.
You have no idea what our budget is, let alone that of our 'rivals'.
TS has said we are going to do a little bit more than last season, an educated guess would be it’s not the same as our “rivals” who are Ipswich and Wigan..
I'm not usually an ITK type, but by chance I do happen to know (not via a CAFC source, but I'm sure a reliable one) that we had made contact with a player a L1 rival has subsequently signed. Same player had been offered well in excess of £10k pw by a Champ club, but chose the L1 offer - I don't know what that offer was.
So maybe does suggest we are not prepared to go as high as competitors for marquee type signings at least.
I have an open mind as to whether that is a good or a bad thing (we need to see how our transfer strategy plays out, and indeed what it is) and at the end of the day it is not our money, Sandgaard saved the club and those sort of wages at L1 level are a massive gamble.
We were worried about much more fundamental things this time last year and none of us even knew who TS was.
He and Adkins have injected a huge amount of positivity and structure into matters on the footballing side. That surely has to be the sustainable way to build things, although it's not necessarily blowing us out of the division this season I accept.
Think we have to sit back, be happy we have some decent people running the club again and try to enjoy it. I'm sure we will be competitive this year - pretty clearly we will be adding to the squad and what we've carried forward from last year (including Famewo, Matthews and Stockley) feels to me a stronger starting point than we've had in recent seasons.
Fair enough, even if personally that seems an extremely literal interpretation of a turn of phrase. It could just as easily mean just not being willing to spend outside of our means.
I'm certainly not reading much into the talk of budgets etc. Sunderland have been big spenders for several years now in fees and wages and they're still down here.
If it works and you get promotion first try then it's great, if not you are in deep trouble.
It's silly to take what he says completely literally, it wasn't a confidential financial statement to the senior management explaining the actual strategy, but a carefully worked soundbite, knowing that what TS says will be noted by players, agents and other clubs
Let’s not forget Fraser was completely nullified by Pratley. Completely shut out.
and he’s supposedly shit
id have him in the “nice to have” column rather than the “essential” column but wouldn’t have minded him nonetheless
He plays one good game against us and suddenly he world class … two points he was not very good in our second game against them and if he was that good he would not be joining Ipswich
14 goals and 8 assists from midfield isn't to be sniffed at
Let’s not forget Fraser was completely nullified by Pratley. Completely shut out.
and he’s supposedly shit
id have him in the “nice to have” column rather than the “essential” column but wouldn’t have minded him nonetheless
He plays one good game against us and suddenly he world class … two points he was not very good in our second game against them and if he was that good he would not be joining Ipswich
14 goals and 8 assists from midfield isn't to be sniffed at
Did Gilbey not do the same in fact Fraser was brought in to replace him ?
Scott Fraser played well against us at our place. We then decided to stick Pratley on him, who nullified him excellently, in the reverse fixture.
However - we had the squad to be able to do that. With Pratley marking the Milton Keynes team's best player out the game, we were able to focus our efforts elsewhere without too much bother. That's because we had other good players on the pitch, basically - so I think Fraser, if we'd signed him this time round, would have been quite the coup as the oppo would not only have had to deal with him, but also the likes of an energetic Jaiyesimi; Stockley occupying the CBs; Washington making driving channel runs; etc etc.
I'm disappointed he's not signed - though it's hardly the end of the world. I think we'll bring in a midfielder that'll surprise everyone in terms of ability (just a hunch - no idea who, though).
Let’s not forget Fraser was completely nullified by Pratley. Completely shut out.
and he’s supposedly shit
id have him in the “nice to have” column rather than the “essential” column but wouldn’t have minded him nonetheless
He plays one good game against us and suddenly he world class … two points he was not very good in our second game against them and if he was that good he would not be joining Ipswich
14 goals and 8 assists from midfield isn't to be sniffed at
Did Gilbey not do the same in fact Fraser was brought in to replace him ?
Not quite. He scored 5 goals and got 2 assists in 27 starts the season before he joined us and 3 goals, 6 assists in 39 starts the season before that in League 2.
Fraser got 5 goals 11 assists in 25 starts for Burton the season before he joined MK.
Hopefully we can find some similar quality somewhere without having to pay £10k per week or whatever Ipswich and Wigan are paying. Wouldn't be sensible for us to sign someone on that wage given the rest of the squad are likely on less than half of that.
Let’s not forget Fraser was completely nullified by Pratley. Completely shut out.
and he’s supposedly shit
id have him in the “nice to have” column rather than the “essential” column but wouldn’t have minded him nonetheless
He plays one good game against us and suddenly he world class … two points he was not very good in our second game against them and if he was that good he would not be joining Ipswich
14 goals and 8 assists from midfield isn't to be sniffed at
Did Gilbey not do the same in fact Fraser was brought in to replace him ?
Alex Gilbey very rarely scores or assists. He got 5 goals in his last season for MK, which equalled his highest ever tally
Nigel will be looking very silly next May when Ipswich celebrate thier league title win at the Valley and we finish 9th.
I fully expect to see a team of untried 18 YO's and more loans next season. that's the narrative the club are pushing... didn't we also say the reliance on loans would stop with TS in charge?
If TS isn't prepared to spend then look forward to another two seasons in L1 and another £20m in losses. Best to spend and give yourself the best chance of getting out of this horrible league.
Yep. It’s concerning now. How is it that Ipswich and Wigan are able to secure top targets and we aren’t? And we need a fair few players.
Because it looks like they are budgeting massively over their income.
We can’t have it both ways imo. We can’t bang the drum on how important stability and sustainability is, then kick off when clubs around us pay over the odds on a short-term gamble.
Frustrating as it is.
Aye boss. Going from the brink of extinction last year to splashing an obscene amount of cash the next year is not sustainable and was never going to happen
Nigel will be looking very silly next May when Ipswich celebrate thier league title win at the Valley and we finish 9th.
I fully expect to see a team of untried 18 YO's and more loans next season. that's the narrative the club are pushing... didn't we also say the reliance on loans would stop with TS in charge?
If TS isn't prepared to spend then look forward to another two seasons in L1 and another £20m in losses. Best to spend and give yourself the best chance of getting out of this horrible league.
I can understand the impatience growing a bit more when Ipswich & Wigan are spending and signing players that are proven to be great in this league, but you do have to bare in mind we are still in a much stronger position than we were at the start of last season, and that’s just through having Sandgaard as our owner.
There’s absolutely no way this club would even have been able to compete to sign Stockley, MacGillivray, Dobson & Famewo (on loan but with option to buy) at the beginning of the last season with the desperate state we were in.
We have a few weeks to go still before the season starts, we will need loan players, and not all of them will work out but I think every League One team will be bringing in at least some loan players to fill the gaps in the squad.
This is a marathon not a sprint, we should at least trust that Sandgaard & Adkins will get a handful of good players in before the end of the window and that they’re not sitting around doing nothing.
I'm really disappointed we haven't signed Fraser. I don't care if Pratley took him out of one game. He completely ran the other one and scored 14 goals from midfield. If he does that for you again, you're pushing right up the table.
My only other top hopeful for the summer was Conor Ogilvie. At least there's still some hope there!
If it's true that Solomon Otobor failed a medical with us and we've also bid for Siriki Dembele (although I can't see him dropping back to league one), then they are clearly a very good standard of player, too.
Nigel will be looking very silly next May when Ipswich celebrate thier league title win at the Valley and we finish 9th.
I fully expect to see a team of untried 18 YO's and more loans next season. that's the narrative the club are pushing... didn't we also say the reliance on loans would stop with TS in charge?
If TS isn't prepared to spend then look forward to another two seasons in L1 and another £20m in losses. Best to spend and give yourself the best chance of getting out of this horrible league.
I understand a bit of impatience/disappointment but posts like this are just objectively silly. We know for a fact (with quotes from Adkins) that signings are actively being worked on. Of the signings we HAVE made, one came from a Championship club and another was his former club's POTY. We're clearly not just trawling for has-beens here.
Is it going slower than we'd like? Yes. Have we missed out on SOME of our first choices? Most likely. Are we doomed and destined to another season of purgatory? Not yet we're not.
If pigott, Fraser, wyke, Humphries are so good that the top two places are already decided, why did they not end up playing at a higher level than last season, especially seeing that at least two of them were out of contract and low risk signings for lower half championship clubs?
Building a TEAM is much more than signing expensive individuals.Yes, Ipswich and Wigan may have spent more than us but that does not equate to team dynamics or guarantee that they would be challenging on the last match of the season. A team is always more than the sum of its parts. Buy wisely TS, SG and NA.
I really don't understand this desire to throw money at everything. It might bring short term success but what happens when the well dries up/owner gets bored or their means of earning cash outside of football runs into problems. You end up with them pulling the plug and get screwed.
Not doubting sensible investment is needed but if we have learned anything it needs to be done as sustainably as possible otherwise you are only a bit of bad luck away from shit creek.
I certainly don’t disagree with you. However, as others have sad, it was TS and NA who raised expectations at the end of the season by their comments along the lines of “We are going to blow through this league next year” and “That will be us next year celebrating on the last game of the season”.
They can try to temper expectations by saying the club aren’t going to throw money around and have to go about things in a sustainable way and that the club has only just been saved from potential extinction due to the shysters and their shenanigans. Also, that money doesn’t guarantee success. All fair comments. Some fans will rationalise TS and NA were only displaying their natural enthusiasm in making those types of statements, others will be less understanding.
I haven’t watched either of the games against Celtic or Welling but if the window shut today we don’t have the squad numbers/depth at present to sustain a 46 game tilt at achieving a top 6 position. Clearly TS and NA think the same otherwise they wouldn’t be talking about adding to the squad. I think the comment made about the return of home fans helping the team get an extra few points may be possible but some strong additions to the squad are required in the base case.
As the mantra goes, the next 2-3 weeks are critical.
Ipswich and Wigan are doing a League One version of Everton/West Ham. Hoover up some big name players and/or players coming off a decent season for teams one step below them. It hasn't always worked out for those clubs and there's no guarantee it works for these teams in the third tier either.
Yes, money spent generally gives you a better chance but there are still plenty of players out there who can do just as good a job as Fraser or Pigott or Wyke. These guys are signing for League One clubs, not Man City.
On the flip side, we do need to see some movement (2? 3?) before the friendlies against Reading/Palace/Fulham otherwise we're going to be playing catch up on the squad building side again this season. That has worked out for us in the past (18/19 particularly) but it does make the job tougher...
True but if we'd signed players like Humphrys, Harper, Pigott and Fraser we'd all be over the moon.
I'm not one to panic and there's still many weeks to go before the window closes but even the most biased die hard Charlton fan can admit that plenty of top players are moving to rival league one clubs and we don't even seem to be in with a sniff of signing them.
Some will probably say 'maybe we weren't even in for them' which of course may well be true, in which case that's even more concerning.
Comments
Certainly pleased he has been signed.....but my big doubts about him is that he scores the vast majority of his goals with his head......which is great in itself but there are some downsides to that if you don’t have a suitable partner. I give you Matt Tees and his brilliant partner Ray Treacy.
We desperately need a partner for him that is an accomplished and acknowledged striker of the ball i.e. busy with his feet.
I realise I’m stating the obvious but felt I needed to say it anyway.
I am not convinced that either Washington and Schwartz is that player........do either of them have 15/20 goals in them?
Mmmm......I’m not convinced.
If the same young guns are on show again, this may add fuel to the "fire" that TS & NA are very serious about making more than one of them serious contenders for places in the upcoming matchday squads.
Really hoping we see Inniss, Gilbey & Matthews at some point in the game.
We should be aspiring to better than a ‘very good League One team next season’, we should be aiming to be the best League One team next season. If we are stuck in League One for another season then Thomas’s five year PL plan is out the window. If, and at this stage it’s an if, he’s not willing to finance getting out of League One then how does he expect to reach the PL?
Nowhere near panic stations, as posted previous, who even knows if we ever wanted him.
As things stand we haven't strengthened only weakened. Got back Stockley, replaced our goalie, got back Akin and replaced Pratley.
Still a lot of signings needed and significant ones. Around 4-5. I'll judge at the start of the season but I suppose I do sympathise with the 'panickers'
Not doubting sensible investment is needed but if we have learned anything it needs to be done as sustainably as possible otherwise you are only a bit of bad luck away from shit creek.
seems every player other player that joined another club we were interested in blimey we would have had a squad of about 320 players if they had all signed
we can only miss out on someone if we were interested the only player we missed out on at present is Graham who joined Birmingham
So maybe does suggest we are not prepared to go as high as competitors for marquee type signings at least.
I have an open mind as to whether that is a good or a bad thing (we need to see how our transfer strategy plays out, and indeed what it is) and at the end of the day it is not our money, Sandgaard saved the club and those sort of wages at L1 level are a massive gamble.
We were worried about much more fundamental things this time last year and none of us even knew who TS was.
He and Adkins have injected a huge amount of positivity and structure into matters on the footballing side. That surely has to be the sustainable way to build things, although it's not necessarily blowing us out of the division this season I accept.
Think we have to sit back, be happy we have some decent people running the club again and try to enjoy it. I'm sure we will be competitive this year - pretty clearly we will be adding to the squad and what we've carried forward from last year (including Famewo, Matthews and Stockley) feels to me a stronger starting point than we've had in recent seasons.
However - we had the squad to be able to do that. With Pratley marking the Milton Keynes team's best player out the game, we were able to focus our efforts elsewhere without too much bother. That's because we had other good players on the pitch, basically - so I think Fraser, if we'd signed him this time round, would have been quite the coup as the oppo would not only have had to deal with him, but also the likes of an energetic Jaiyesimi; Stockley occupying the CBs; Washington making driving channel runs; etc etc.
I'm disappointed he's not signed - though it's hardly the end of the world. I think we'll bring in a midfielder that'll surprise everyone in terms of ability (just a hunch - no idea who, though).
Not quite. He scored 5 goals and got 2 assists in 27 starts the season before he joined us and 3 goals, 6 assists in 39 starts the season before that in League 2.
Fraser got 5 goals 11 assists in 25 starts for Burton the season before he joined MK.
Hopefully we can find some similar quality somewhere without having to pay £10k per week or whatever Ipswich and Wigan are paying. Wouldn't be sensible for us to sign someone on that wage given the rest of the squad are likely on less than half of that.
I fully expect to see a team of untried 18 YO's and more loans next season. that's the narrative the club are pushing... didn't we also say the reliance on loans would stop with TS in charge?
If TS isn't prepared to spend then look forward to another two seasons in L1 and another £20m in losses. Best to spend and give yourself the best chance of getting out of this horrible league.
There’s absolutely no way this club would even have been able to compete to sign Stockley, MacGillivray, Dobson & Famewo (on loan but with option to buy) at the beginning of the last season with the desperate state we were in.
We have a few weeks to go still before the season starts, we will need loan players, and not all of them will work out but I think every League One team will be bringing in at least some loan players to fill the gaps in the squad.
This is a marathon not a sprint, we should at least trust that Sandgaard & Adkins will get a handful of good players in before the end of the window and that they’re not sitting around doing nothing.
My only other top hopeful for the summer was Conor Ogilvie. At least there's still some hope there!
If it's true that Solomon Otobor failed a medical with us and we've also bid for Siriki Dembele (although I can't see him dropping back to league one), then they are clearly a very good standard of player, too.
Is it going slower than we'd like? Yes. Have we missed out on SOME of our first choices? Most likely. Are we doomed and destined to another season of purgatory? Not yet we're not.
They can try to temper expectations by saying the club aren’t going to throw money around and have to go about things in a sustainable way and that the club has only just been saved from potential extinction due to the shysters and their shenanigans. Also, that money doesn’t guarantee success. All fair comments. Some fans will rationalise TS and NA were only displaying their natural enthusiasm in making those types of statements, others will be less understanding.
I haven’t watched either of the games against Celtic or Welling but if the window shut today we don’t have the squad numbers/depth at present to sustain a 46 game tilt at achieving a top 6 position. Clearly TS and NA think the same otherwise they wouldn’t be talking about adding to the squad. I think the comment made about the return of home fans helping the team get an extra few points may be possible but some strong additions to the squad are required in the base case.
As the mantra goes, the next 2-3 weeks are critical.
I'm not one to panic and there's still many weeks to go before the window closes but even the most biased die hard Charlton fan can admit that plenty of top players are moving to rival league one clubs and we don't even seem to be in with a sniff of signing them.
Some will probably say 'maybe we weren't even in for them' which of course may well be true, in which case that's even more concerning.