hate to disappoint you all, but don't expect much in January
No-one has any expectations for January. It's very clear what needs to be done and equally clear that it won't happen.
Groundhog Day. Déja vu (all over again).
Depressing as hell.
I’m always making the same mistake, during every window, of getting excited by every signing. ‘He’s highly rated by his club’. ‘One for the future’. ‘Too good for this league’. ‘He’s played at a much higher level’.
Even today I’ve glanced at the Jan Transfer Rumours thread and started to get excited by the prospect of signing Ben somebody from Bromley who’s ’good at keeping the ball away from defenders’ and whose dad works for CACT. Remember when we signed those two players from Brighton at the last minute a few years back, and the Spurs fella recommended by Sir Chris Powell. All duds. The Man City bloke. Another dud. For ever Cullen, Bielik or Gallagher there seem to be twenty duds.
The question is, are all clubs like this?
[Edit: Just seen AFKA’s list: ‘Matt Penney, Gavin Kilkenny, Harry Arter, Todd Kane, Nile John, and Juan Castillo’. I was excited by every single one of them, on paper, despite my best efforts. This time might be different. I’ll believe they’re good when they play well, no matter if they’re Al Hamadi or the Ben bloke from Bromley. I’m getting in touch with my inner Golfie.]
Over the last little while we've all heard AS, MA & CM variously talking about getting out of League 1 (not necessarily this season) and improving the squad by trying to keep the talent we already have, by signing players to alleviate the frailties everyone knows we have and by bringing in permanent and loan signings who improve what we currently have.
Everyone has been here long enough to know what's needed and to identify potential targets and make beneficial things happen.
Simplistically put, to make us more competitive, the Board have to do a great job on the financial side, AS & MA on re-signings and recruitment and MA on upgrading the attitude and ability of the squad he has to work with.
None of them has anything to prove to me in the New Year, I'll be happy if I see and think they've done a good job in beginning to achieve what they have said they're here for.
I'd like to hear it too from the horse's mouth too....... in one of his pods CM says something like one of the responsibilities of the Board is to clearly communicate the strategy and what's going on to the fanbase. It would be great to properly hear and understand their perspective post January.
I think that's what we're getting with the monthly report from Andy Scott to be honest, it's very clear he's the spokesperson for the board as a whole
Yes, I agree with you but would add that it would be great if he/they could go into some depth. I think they can do it without hurting people's privacy or giving any business secrets away.
For example, what is happening to sharpen up our recruitment of permanent players and loanees, the geography we have scouted in the past and will scout in the future.
They could put more meat on the bones of what we're trying to achieve with the new appointments in say developing the academy players as they move towards the first team squad or what the new Director of Performance will be looking to improve and how he's going to do it.
I don't need a half hour powerpoint or anything but a few minutes once a month or so and touching briefly on a few items doesn't do it for me, I want more.
With these things and more there's a lot of opportunity to draw us all closer to the club and in the end it surely can't hurt revenue if that were to happen.
Over the last little while we've all heard AS, MA & CM variously talking about getting out of League 1 (not necessarily this season) and improving the squad by trying to keep the talent we already have, by signing players to alleviate the frailties everyone knows we have and by bringing in permanent and loan signings who improve what we currently have.
Everyone has been here long enough to know what's needed and to identify potential targets and make beneficial things happen.
Simplistically put, to make us more competitive, the Board have to do a great job on the financial side, AS & MA on re-signings and recruitment and MA on upgrading the attitude and ability of the squad he has to work with.
None of them has anything to prove to me in the New Year, I'll be happy if I see and think they've done a good job in beginning to achieve what they have said they're here for.
I'd like to hear it too from the horse's mouth too....... in one of his pods CM says something like one of the responsibilities of the Board is to clearly communicate the strategy and what's going on to the fanbase. It would be great to properly hear and understand their perspective post January.
Final paragraph, actions speak louder than words. A smooth tongue is not what we are interested in.
Exactly, none of us are, we've all had too much of that for too long.
I guess for me, the more detail they communicate the easier it is for us to measure how they've done........... the less detail they give the harder it is to measure......... if communications are high level it always makes me wonder if people are doing their best to avoid being held accountable.
The year is 3065. The alien mutant league continues on after the Great Robot War. The South-East of England has been destroyed by nuclear fire. Gillingham looks the same. In the Space third division Charlton sit midtable going into the January transfer window. The addition of genetically engineered eight legged spider people has increased the number of goals scored per game to an average of 14. Matches mostly consist of nutmegs. Despite now only being a pile of bones and a weathered alice band, the only successful goalscoring season of his career 1,042 years ago, Charlton fans still clamour for the signing of Cole Stockton.
I would imagine Chem Campbell and the Udinese bloke may return, and if miracles do happen, Kirk can be moved on. The worry for me is that we just swap them like for like in terms of impact. Says it all when we're supposedly trying to agree a deal for a centre back who played 34 times for Cheltenham last season.
(Yes - I'm aware people may highlight Alfie May, but he arrived off the back of 2 solid seasons scoring goals).
Ultimately, for a change in our trajectory, the owners will have to spend money. The problem with that is that I don't think they want to, and I'm not sure Scott etc would use it wisely if they were willing
A Kirk like for like is unlikely. From another planet maybe. It's the wrong Sci-fi enterprise I know, but surely there can be only one, bystander! 😉
Bolton Bust three years ago Sensible group of owners Good manager, good coaches Many free or low cost transfers
It can be done We simply, I believe, don't have the right people in situ
Neither did they after six months. All the fans wanted Evatt sacked. Truth is, if we keep going round in circles we’ll never know if we have the right people or not.
Bolton Bust three years ago Sensible group of owners Good manager, good coaches Many free or low cost transfers
It can be done We simply, I believe, don't have the right people in situ
Neither did they after six months. All the fans wanted Evatt sacked. Truth is, if we keep going round in circles we’ll never know if we have the right people or not.
I think it’s laughable to think we’ll spend £500k plus on a striker. If it wasn’t for a generous sponsorship we wouldn’t have Alfie May. Loans loans, loans.
Agree, probably setting ourselves up for disappointment here...
But thinking about it, Leaburn was likely to be sold in the Summer anyway. Now he's out for the season, the owners may be willing to invest some money in a new #1 Target Man if they're going to offload Miles for a few mil in 2024 and recoup the fee. But that's a big maybe.
If Leaburn hadn’t got injured recently would we have sold him in January?
To not bring in a decent striker in January would be folly, and virtually write off the rest of the season, question is, is there any budget left from the new owners , to go get an equivalent impact Alfie May or do they just shrug their shoulders and say whatever, and lose another 6 plus million next season stuck in this division, I don’t think a loan striker will cut the mustard, as they’ll likely be unproven.
Were our collective of investors banking on flogging Miles to raise their transfer kitty?
we are almost back to where we were at the start of the season, when we had miles and Chuks injured at the same time.
Theres no guarantees that Miles will come back and be firing on all cylinders or be injury prone and miss loads of games, to do nothing in January is not an option, but I’m very nervous that we will bring in a right load of dross, of unfit, not up to it players.
5 more league games left I think, until the end of 2023.
If we go on a dodgy run, between now and then, will Micky Apples become another ‘Charlton casualty’ being our 5th manager since 2020, it’s worse than Doctor Who regenerating every 5 minutes.
Bolton Bust three years ago Sensible group of owners Good manager, good coaches Many free or low cost transfers
It can be done We simply, I believe, don't have the right people in situ
Neither did they after six months. All the fans wanted Evatt sacked. Truth is, if we keep going round in circles we’ll never know if we have the right people or not.
Could you imagine our fans if we were relegated to league 2 and sat 19th after 24 games.
Evatt has been a great appointment.
He had Barrow playing great possession based football but they were a little toothless in the first season, a bit like Garner’s Charlton. The “Barrowcelona” second season added goals to the mix. Bolton were at rock bottom, which was strangely a great time for him to join. He came in being able to build a squad to fit his vision and was given time to implement it. With that time he’s been able to tweak it to be more effective each window.
We don’t have a fan base that will have that patience. It feels very “we want a whole promotion guaranteed squad signed now or it’s failed”. We can literally go from booing, the season is over already, we won’t sign anyone, just another bunch of chancers to singing “the reds are going up, allez allez allez” and back again within 30 mins!
Highs and lows. Gills away was a low. 3 losses in 17 is great progress. Couple of competitive CB’s and a CM to compliment Dobbo’s fight and it’s a whole different story.
Bolton Bust three years ago Sensible group of owners Good manager, good coaches Many free or low cost transfers
It can be done We simply, I believe, don't have the right people in situ
Neither did they after six months. All the fans wanted Evatt sacked. Truth is, if we keep going round in circles we’ll never know if we have the right people or not.
Could you imagine our fans if we were relegated to league 2 and sat 19th after 24 games.
Evatt has been a great appointment.
He had Barrow playing great possession based football but they were a little toothless in the first season, a bit like Garner’s Charlton. The “Barrowcelona” second season added goals to the mix. Bolton were at rock bottom, which was strangely a great time for him to join. He came in being able to build a squad to fit his vision and was given time to implement it. With that time he’s been able to tweak it to be more effective each window.
We don’t have a fan base that will have that patience. It feels very “we want a whole promotion guaranteed squad signed now or it’s failed”. We can literally go from booing, the season is over already, we won’t sign anyone, just another bunch of chancers to singing “the reds are going up, allez allez allez” and back again within 30 mins!
Highs and lows. Gills away was a low. 3 losses in 17 is great progress. Couple of competitive CB’s and a CM to compliment Dobbo’s fight and it’s a whole different story.
I have patience if I truly believe in the player/manager. You are right though, we are a bit entitled (myself included) and don't have complete patience for building something.
I still feel bad for Garner, only manager I've resonated with since Powell and Bowyer (Jacko to an extent from his playing days). A fair bit of our fan base have an emotional bias towards Holden cause he spoke to fans on the train and bought some beers. Mine is towards Garner for going absolutely mental and getting sent off. I'm not a fan of the whole looking calm on the touchline that Jackson, Adkins, Holden were, Appleton now as well. I like that Garner looked like he actually had a bit of passion. Goes a long way at this level
I feel a bit bad for all of them in truth because I don’t think any since Bowyer have really been given the tools to mount a genuine promotion charge and haven’t been given the time to bed in and master their ethos as a manager.
Lots of the best managers, as we’ve just discussed with Evatt, don’t start amazingly but they’re given the time and opportunity to create an ethos at the club and the continuity of it brings about positive results.
With Appleton, the jury is quite rightly still out. He’s had some poor performances and results but also has had some excellent ones. Same is very true for Scott. We can’t judge his performance yet. He sounds like he’s done some excellent work behind the scenes but a few of the last minute loans have not been good enough.
They have been in or around the club for a year now. The last transfer window was poor. I hope they've seen the light and get business done early in January.
However, I remain unconvinced. Given they spent £12m + buying TS out and have shelled out cash trying to improve us, in my opinion, they've not had a great first 12 months' involvement at CAFC.
I quoted Bolton. They were bust and had to start completely over again.
We weren't.
So right now, cold hard facts / stats. We're not really any better off than 12 months ago.
Out of the League cup. Out of the FA cup. Dreaming of a promising January transfer window and an almost automatic promotion run of form to make play offs. Leaburn injured Aneke injured
At least we had Brighton and Man Utd away to look forward to 12 months ago.....
Bolton Bust three years ago Sensible group of owners Good manager, good coaches Many free or low cost transfers
It can be done We simply, I believe, don't have the right people in situ
Neither did they after six months. All the fans wanted Evatt sacked. Truth is, if we keep going round in circles we’ll never know if we have the right people or not.
Could you imagine our fans if we were relegated to league 2 and sat 19th after 24 games.
Evatt has been a great appointment.
He had Barrow playing great possession based football but they were a little toothless in the first season, a bit like Garner’s Charlton. The “Barrowcelona” second season added goals to the mix. Bolton were at rock bottom, which was strangely a great time for him to join. He came in being able to build a squad to fit his vision and was given time to implement it. With that time he’s been able to tweak it to be more effective each window.
We don’t have a fan base that will have that patience. It feels very “we want a whole promotion guaranteed squad signed now or it’s failed”. We can literally go from booing, the season is over already, we won’t sign anyone, just another bunch of chancers to singing “the reds are going up, allez allez allez” and back again within 30 mins!
Highs and lows. Gills away was a low. 3 losses in 17 is great progress. Couple of competitive CB’s and a CM to compliment Dobbo’s fight and it’s a whole different story.
Not sure I agree. If we see progress most fans will be happy enough. But we haven't. Bolton have spent time building a squad.
Have we built anything in the last 2 windows?
Alfie May and possibly Jones aside where are the foundations?
CBT and Dobbo 6 months from leaving for nothing.
Maybe Edun and T Watson as squad players. Maybe Taylor if he can get fit. Maybe Aneke if he could stay fit. Lots of maybes.
Leaburn most think will leave in the summer...
Some kids...
Who else would people want to keep as building blocks of the squad?
This season we have lost to Newport, Crawley and Gill's and drawn with CVPM; that is an abnormally large number of serious lows.
I know I might be sounding a bit pedantic here, and it is 1.42am. Can the title be changed to January 2024 Transfer Rumours. Otherwise it sends shivers down my spine that for the whole of January we will only ever have 1 transfer rumour. That worries me.
They have been in or around the club for a year now. The last transfer window was poor. I hope they've seen the light and get business done early in January.
However, I remain unconvinced. Given they spent £12m + buying TS out and have shelled out cash trying to improve us, in my opinion, they've not had a great first 12 months' involvement at CAFC.
I quoted Bolton. They were bust and had to start completely over again.
We weren't.
So right now, cold hard facts / stats. We're not really any better off than 12 months ago.
Out of the League cup. Out of the FA cup. Dreaming of a promising January transfer window and an almost automatic promotion run of form to make play offs. Leaburn injured Aneke injured
At least we had Brighton and Man Utd away to look forward to 12 months ago.....
12 months? Didn't they buy the club in the summer, half way through a transfer window?
Surely it is essential to give the manager or head coach the carefully selected tools to do his job properly not just pile a lot of (mostly injured) bodies on him and tell him to form a winning team.
That seems pretty basic common sense to me.
Yet we have consistently failed to do it since Roland got bored of his football project and Bowyer was given a budget and free hand to get on with his recruitment supported and implemented by Steve Gallen.
Appleton has had zero influence on the make up of this squad so far. Dean Holden obviously had the hump and selected young academy products over Scott;s choices and was dismissed. Ben Garner was recruited by Sandgaard to introduce a progressive style of football and given Innis, Stockley and Gilbey
Jackson wanted to play five at the back but was given Nile John who never played and had to use DJ as wing-back. Even Adkins was let down and was evidently quite shocked at being recruited for his long experience in the game and then ignored in favour of the boss's son who knew nothing and his infamous black box.
My advice to Mr Scott is to invest in a notebook and pencil at WH Smiths, tell Appleton the budget (even if it is zero) and ask him nominate his realistic targets and write those down in the notebook and get on with it.
Our recruitment has been poor for several seasons - isn’t it fair to give the new ownership time to attempt to improve our scouting set up and see the results of that? Bring in more and better scouts and analysts, give them the tools and systems they need, sign players with Appleton’s input etc.
We’re not going down the route of signing the best in the league so we need to get a lot better at identifying players who can be signed for small fees, on frees and loans.
Our recruitment has been poor for several seasons - isn’t it fair to give the new ownership time to attempt to improve our scouting set up and see the results of that? Bring in more and better scouts and analysts, give them the tools and systems they need, sign players with Appleton’s input etc.
We’re not going down the route of signing the best in the league so we need to get a lot better at identifying players who can be signed for small fees, on frees and loans.
I'd argue Alfie May was the best in the league....
They have been in or around the club for a year now. The last transfer window was poor. I hope they've seen the light and get business done early in January.
However, I remain unconvinced. Given they spent £12m + buying TS out and have shelled out cash trying to improve us, in my opinion, they've not had a great first 12 months' involvement at CAFC.
I quoted Bolton. They were bust and had to start completely over again.
We weren't.
So right now, cold hard facts / stats. We're not really any better off than 12 months ago.
Out of the League cup. Out of the FA cup. Dreaming of a promising January transfer window and an almost automatic promotion run of form to make play offs. Leaburn injured Aneke injured
At least we had Brighton and Man Utd away to look forward to 12 months ago.....
This happened with Wigan too and I genuinely believe that makes it easier. When you start from scratch, you don't have to worry about being close to FFP and you can entirely build a squad to fit your and your managers philosophy. Having a bloated squad of deadwood around that no one wants makes it so much harder to revolutionise it.
They have been in or around the club for a year now. The last transfer window was poor. I hope they've seen the light and get business done early in January.
However, I remain unconvinced. Given they spent £12m + buying TS out and have shelled out cash trying to improve us, in my opinion, they've not had a great first 12 months' involvement at CAFC.
I quoted Bolton. They were bust and had to start completely over again.
We weren't.
So right now, cold hard facts / stats. We're not really any better off than 12 months ago.
Out of the League cup. Out of the FA cup. Dreaming of a promising January transfer window and an almost automatic promotion run of form to make play offs. Leaburn injured Aneke injured
At least we had Brighton and Man Utd away to look forward to 12 months ago.....
This happened with Wigan too and I genuinely believe that makes it easier. When you start from scratch, you don't have to worry about being close to FFP and you can entirely build a squad to fit your and your managers philosophy. Having a bloated squad of deadwood around that no one wants makes it so much harder to revolutionise it.
I wouldn't go as far that, but I do think admin is a very high risk, high reward situation. If you get it RIGHT you get something like Bolton or Wigan but if it goes wrong then you could end up in terminal trouble.
And if Roland maintains his control over assets like the Valley and the training ground there's high potential for it to go very badly for us.
Not that I think we are anywhere near administration by way, I'm talking entirely hypothetically l.
Our recruitment has been poor for several seasons - isn’t it fair to give the new ownership time to attempt to improve our scouting set up and see the results of that? Bring in more and better scouts and analysts, give them the tools and systems they need, sign players with Appleton’s input etc.
We’re not going down the route of signing the best in the league so we need to get a lot better at identifying players who can be signed for small fees, on frees and loans.
I'd argue Alfie May was the best in the league....
Agree, I should have made that clearer - if a player is available for a relatively low price (£250k?) I expect we’ll pay it. What I don’t expect to see is us paying say £1m+ for L1 and L2 players. Ipswich paid some big fees and I’d be surprised if we did. I think the only way that potentially happens at this level is if there’s a big sale or two.
I've recommended Humprys to the club a few times but I am ignored each time. He may not be Shearer but he's big, strong, mobile and stays fit.
Sadly he's paid pretty well at Wigan so probably out of our range at the moment
I've been banging on about him for years, although I'm sure the club scouts are already well aware of him. Like you say, he's on a fair wedge at Wigan and is probably their best player, so no chance of us getting him.
I've recommended Humprys to the club a few times but I am ignored each time. He may not be Shearer but he's big, strong, mobile and stays fit.
Sadly he's paid pretty well at Wigan so probably out of our range at the moment
I've been banging on about him for years, although I'm sure the club scouts are already well aware of him. Like you say, he's on a fair wedge at Wigan and is probably their best player, so no chance of us getting him.
I know but that's the frustrating part. Steve Gallen was keen but he'd just gone to Wigan and was paid well but this summer he had just got engaged, was struggling to get in the team and was on loan at Hearts and would have been available.
I'm just fascinated to know who spotted Tedic and thought "That's our guy"
Comments
‘He’s highly rated by his club’. ‘One for the future’. ‘Too good for this league’. ‘He’s played at a much higher level’.
[Edit: Just seen AFKA’s list: ‘Matt Penney, Gavin Kilkenny, Harry Arter, Todd Kane, Nile John, and Juan Castillo’. I was excited by every single one of them, on paper, despite my best efforts. This time might be different. I’ll believe they’re good when they play well, no matter if they’re Al Hamadi or the Ben bloke from Bromley. I’m getting in touch with my inner Golfie.]
Bust three years ago
Sensible group of owners
Good manager, good coaches
Many free or low cost transfers
It can be done
We simply, I believe, don't have the right people in situ
For example, what is happening to sharpen up our recruitment of permanent players and loanees, the geography we have scouted in the past and will scout in the future.
They could put more meat on the bones of what we're trying to achieve with the new appointments in say developing the academy players as they move towards the first team squad or what the new Director of Performance will be looking to improve and how he's going to do it.
I don't need a half hour powerpoint or anything but a few minutes once a month or so and touching briefly on a few items doesn't do it for me, I want more.
With these things and more there's a lot of opportunity to draw us all closer to the club and in the end it surely can't hurt revenue if that were to happen.
I guess for me, the more detail they communicate the easier it is for us to measure how they've done........... the less detail they give the harder it is to measure......... if communications are high level it always makes me wonder if people are doing their best to avoid being held accountable.
Just found this tweet:
Could you imagine our fans if we were relegated to league 2 and sat 19th after 24 games.
To not bring in a decent striker in January would be folly, and virtually write off the rest of the season, question is, is there any budget left from the new owners , to go get an equivalent impact Alfie May or do they just shrug their shoulders and say whatever, and lose another 6 plus million next season stuck in this division, I don’t think a loan striker will cut the mustard, as they’ll likely be unproven.
Were our collective of investors banking on flogging Miles to raise their transfer kitty?
we are almost back to where we were at the start of the season, when we had miles and Chuks injured at the same time.
Theres no guarantees that Miles will come back and be firing on all cylinders or be injury prone and miss loads of games, to do nothing in January is not an option, but I’m very nervous that we will bring in a right load of dross, of unfit, not up to it players.
5 more league games left I think, until the end of 2023.
If we go on a dodgy run, between now and then, will Micky Apples become another ‘Charlton casualty’ being our 5th manager since 2020, it’s worse than Doctor Who regenerating every 5 minutes.
Upfront May and JCH.
Wide Ladapo and Humphreys.
On the bench Sam Smith (Reading still in difficulties), Leaburn, CBT and Aneke.
Bolton were at rock bottom, which was strangely a great time for him to join. He came in being able to build a squad to fit his vision and was given time to implement it. With that time he’s been able to tweak it to be more effective each window.
I still feel bad for Garner, only manager I've resonated with since Powell and Bowyer (Jacko to an extent from his playing days). A fair bit of our fan base have an emotional bias towards Holden cause he spoke to fans on the train and bought some beers. Mine is towards Garner for going absolutely mental and getting sent off. I'm not a fan of the whole looking calm on the touchline that Jackson, Adkins, Holden were, Appleton now as well. I like that Garner looked like he actually had a bit of passion. Goes a long way at this level
With Appleton, the jury is quite rightly still out. He’s had some poor performances and results but also has had some excellent ones. Same is very true for Scott. We can’t judge his performance yet. He sounds like he’s done some excellent work behind the scenes but a few of the last minute loans have not been good enough.
However, I remain unconvinced. Given they spent £12m + buying TS out and have shelled out cash trying to improve us, in my opinion, they've not had a great first 12 months' involvement at CAFC.
I quoted Bolton. They were bust and had to start completely over again.
We weren't.
So right now, cold hard facts / stats. We're not really any better off than 12 months ago.
Out of the League cup.
Out of the FA cup.
Dreaming of a promising January transfer window and an almost automatic promotion run of form to make play offs.
Leaburn injured
Aneke injured
At least we had Brighton and Man Utd away to look forward to 12 months ago.....
Pope
Konsa Gomez Lockyear Doughty
Cullen Gallagher Bielik
Lookman May Grant
Not sure I agree. If we see progress most fans will be happy enough. But we haven't. Bolton have spent time building a squad.
Have we built anything in the last 2 windows?
Alfie May and possibly Jones aside where are the foundations?
CBT and Dobbo 6 months from leaving for nothing.
Maybe Edun and T Watson as squad players. Maybe Taylor if he can get fit. Maybe Aneke if he could stay fit. Lots of maybes.
Leaburn most think will leave in the summer...
Some kids...
Who else would people want to keep as building blocks of the squad?
This season we have lost to Newport, Crawley and Gill's and drawn with CVPM; that is an abnormally large number of serious lows.
Surely it is essential to give the manager or head coach the carefully selected tools to do his job properly not just pile a lot of (mostly injured) bodies on him and tell him to form a winning team.
That seems pretty basic common sense to me.
Yet we have consistently failed to do it since Roland got bored of his football project and Bowyer was given a budget and free hand to get on with his recruitment supported and implemented by Steve Gallen.
Appleton has had zero influence on the make up of this squad so far. Dean Holden obviously had the hump and selected young academy products over Scott;s choices and was dismissed. Ben Garner was recruited by Sandgaard to introduce a progressive style of football and given Innis, Stockley and Gilbey
Jackson wanted to play five at the back but was given Nile John who never played and had to use DJ as wing-back. Even Adkins was let down and was evidently quite shocked at being recruited for his long experience in the game and then ignored in favour of the boss's son who knew nothing and his infamous black box.
My advice to Mr Scott is to invest in a notebook and pencil at WH Smiths, tell Appleton the budget (even if it is zero) and ask him nominate his realistic targets and write those down in the notebook and get on with it.
How hard can it be?
We’re not going down the route of signing the best in the league so we need to get a lot better at identifying players who can be signed for small fees, on frees and loans.
And if Roland maintains his control over assets like the Valley and the training ground there's high potential for it to go very badly for us.
Not that I think we are anywhere near administration by way, I'm talking entirely hypothetically l.
Sadly he's paid pretty well at Wigan so probably out of our range at the moment
I'm just fascinated to know who spotted Tedic and thought "That's our guy"