With the exception of Henry Rylah we had our (currently available) best 11 starting the game last night. I watched it on CharltonTV and although we rode our luck early doors we got to full time as unscathed as Reading and had a fair number of decent spells and individual performances and I thought the Academy guys who came on all acquitted themselves well considering their relative inexperience.
I don't see a lot of games, from those I have seen I think our current squad can compete with middling and lower end teams but not with the decent and good sides in L1, we usually aren't able to get hold of a game by the scruff of the neck and when we go in front our lead can look too fragile to last.
I'm so fed up with disappointing results, lack of consistency on the pitch and poor general football club management so come on SMT make all those things go away......... and don't take too long over it please.
It’s worth remembering that we won’t be the only club looking to strengthen striking options. Clubs at the top end of league one and bottom end of The Championship will be fishing in the same pond as us. I’d be amazed if we sign JCH or Ladapo because they’re going to be relatively expensive. We’ll take a Championship, out of favour journeyman striker or a PL kid. Deep down I think we all exactly know where this thread will be on 1st February.
Yes I am doubtful we will sign the quality striker we need but like others, I would prefer Ladapo to JCH if that was an option.
We have a lot of raw talented youngsters in our squad from our own academy, so I will repeat what I was saying in the summer, stop signing other teams young talent on loan unless they are a once in a generation far too good for this league like Rak-Sakyi.
Genuinely why would a player like Ladapo choose to come to us? A club that is now well and truly mid table league one.
Think he's a bit unusual as he'd be able to be closer to family presumably. I guess also the clubs above us are less likely to be going in for a striker and it's a chance to be the main man who lifts the team into the playoffs. A chance to partner with May could be good too
Some believe, myself included, that Methven sold the beneficial owners a pup in that he promised that a lot could be achieved for relatively little expenditure.
Because of that the budget has not been sufficient. There is also an argument that what money has been spent has been spent badly, both under this regime as demonstrated by the loans and permanent transfers, other than May, Jones and perhaps L Watson, being underwhelming, and before the takeover (ie Kirk) leaving an unbalanced, unfit and underperforming squad.
The counter argument is that money has and will be invested by this regime (May, Jones, Taylor, Edun and the loan fees) but that it will take longer than two windows to turn around a squad and club that has been in the doldrums for many years so patience is needed and expecting a revival so soon is unreasonable.
The rumour mill is very quiet and so far it seems very little is being leaked to "insider" sources. That doesn't mean that nothing is happening just that the current regime are playing it close to their chest. Now they have their feet under the table they may feel there is less need to brief the media and certain fans behind the scenes to curry favour.
I'm sure Scott and the others can see the weaknesses in the squad just as we can.
Appleton has repeatedly spoken about having to "re-balance" the squad in January which I hear as management speak for "I need to clear half a dozen out and get some better players in".
For me the two variables will be:
1. Appleton's ability to influence the board's decision making both in terms of who to sign and how much there is to spend
2. The take of the beneficial owners. All other than Rosenfield have, IIRC, attended games and must be aware of both the results and the performances. They may not be bothered but I suspect that they hoped for and were promised more than a season in mid table. How keen will they to put more money in as equity, either at their own suggestion or if Charlie asks? I really don't know.
Since Holden left the league form has been good enough for the fringe of the play-offs so perhaps we're not that far away.
But the league didn't start when Holden left so we are mid-table, albeit with some games in hand, and we have a raft of injury issues and a number of players (Chem Campbell, Tedic, Abankwah, Kirk) that the manager is very reluctant, to put it nicely, to use. There are a number of other weaknesses in the squad that have been covered at length (over reliance on kids, inability to keep clean sheets, average keepers, poor away form, etc etc).
So all eyes will be on the management team over the next 7 weeks to see whether they have the money and nouse to improve on what has gone on so far this season.
Genuinely why would a player like Ladapo choose to come to us? A club that is now well and truly mid table league one.
Plenty of reasons. We don't have to be a midtable club. We're a relatively big club for the league, big stadium and decent history. We're not a million miles away and it just takes a few very good signings for things to turn around, and he can be one of them. Add to that that he might rather play for an average L1 team than sit on the bench aged 30 and watch his career slide away. Plus he's a footballer; if we're willing to pay him what he wants he'll go where that money is.
Genuinely why would a player like Ladapo choose to come to us? A club that is now well and truly mid table league one.
Same reason nearly all players move/choose clubs, money. If we pay Ipswich more than anyone else we get him, or if we pay Ladapo more than anyone else we get him
Normally, you'd expect at least one of your loan players to really stand out as a star player, so that's a massive failing of the summer business.
Our summer loan signings have ended up more like the squad fillers we sign in January, who leave having barely played a game. The Matt Smith's, Levitt types.
Each of last few managers have "identified" squad weaknesses and know what they wanted to fix things.
Jackson, Garner, Holden and now Appleton all said it (can't remember if Adkins did) - Jackson, Garner and Holden even went out of their way through selections to prove they were disgruntled.
Methven has quoted financial fair play in the last window.
If you look hard enough, the clues are already there, sadly.
A question for me that arises out of @Henry Irving post is does Appleton have a direct access to the money men ? He presumably deals with Methven and Scott who approach the money or not. I suspect Henry’s first sentence is pretty close to being spot on.
For those who are unhappy with the level of investment, what would have been an acceptable amount of money for them to invest in fees in the summer window?
A question for me that arises out of @Henry Irving post is does Appleton have a direct access to the money men ? He presumably deals with Methven and Scott who approach the money or not. I suspect Henry’s first sentence is pretty close to being spot on.
Can't see why he would have contact with them apart from maybe a quick chat when they're at games. They're not really involved in running the club and clearly trust the structure they've put in place
A question for me that arises out of @Henry Irving post is does Appleton have a direct access to the money men ? He presumably deals with Methven and Scott who approach the money or not. I suspect Henry’s first sentence is pretty close to being spot on.
Can't see why he would have contact with them apart from maybe a quick chat when they're at games. They're not really involved in running the club and clearly trust the structure they've put in place
Then if the investors were spun a bit of a line we’re going to struggle. Our budget so far has looked woefully inadequate for a promotion push.
For those who are unhappy with the level of investment, what would have been an acceptable amount of money for them to invest in fees in the summer window?
I'd say at least 1-2m is required for us to get out of this league. And i don't mean on 1-2 players, i think it needs to be spent sensibly on at least 4-5 players (May of course was one).
To me it seems crazy to spend the money they did buying a loss making club and then spend hardly anything on players and then watch us stagnate in league one. If you're going to spend 10m+ on a club then i don't see why you wouldn't have an investment plan to get it promoted.
And yes of course i know they're funding the losses, but they knew they'd be funding the losses when they took over, and equally they probably knew that funding losses and not buying good players wouldn't get us very far.
A question for me that arises out of @Henry Irving post is does Appleton have a direct access to the money men ? He presumably deals with Methven and Scott who approach the money or not. I suspect Henry’s first sentence is pretty close to being spot on.
Can't see why he would have contact with them apart from maybe a quick chat when they're at games. They're not really involved in running the club and clearly trust the structure they've put in place
Then if the investors were spun a bit of a line we’re going to struggle. Our budget so far has looked woefully inadequate for a promotion push.
And there's the rub. Did Methven and co. persuade them that that budget would be sufficient? If the SMT persuaded the owners they could get a win on the cheap it could all start to unravel very soon. We are de facto a mid-table third division club, the squad is constrained by Legacy Duds, overpopulated with kids, disjointed and short on quality. Even before we get to injuries. Our ground is too big for us and the fanbase will continue to dwindle unless recruitement budget and quality is addressed. How long before the board see through the emperor's new clothes? Then what?
JCH is out of a contract this summer. He is out of favour. They have had a couple of other younger players scoring for them. When I saw him for the first time I thought he is a goal scorer but does very little else. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on him, given his age. He hasn't done it at Championship level.
I would be in 2 minds wether to sign him as a short gap for next 2 years for £500,000.
For those who are unhappy with the level of investment, what would have been an acceptable amount of money for them to invest in fees in the summer window?
I'd say at least 1-2m is required for us to get out of this league. And i don't mean on 1-2 players, i think it needs to be spent sensibly on at least 4-5 players (May of course was one).
To me it seems crazy to spend the money they did buying a loss making club and then spend hardly anything on players and then watch us stagnate in league one. If you're going to spend 10m+ on a club then i don't see why you wouldn't have an investment plan to get it promoted.
And yes of course i know they're funding the losses, but they knew they'd be funding the losses when they took over, and equally they probably knew that funding losses and not buying good players wouldn't get us very far.
No they were told the SMT would halve the losses because they are geniuses and then through player trading would break even, whilst assembling a squad to push for promotion too.
That, sadly, isn't possible. The money men didn't need to know that, they just needed persuading that it was possible.
A friend of mine (through my work) sat with me last week and he went to college with CM.
CM has told everybody what a bloody good job he did at Sunderland and my friend had no idea about using the Parachute payments to "buy" the club or in fact fail to get promoted using them too.
I'm not blaming CM for using somebody else's money (the Premier League) to buy Sunderland and not blaming him doing the same thing here to buy Charlton, but quite simply it really isn't possible, unless you are bloody brilliant and lucky in equal measure to reduce Charlton's losses, sell off players to achieve break even AND get promoted out of this Division with our cost basis and attendances.
For those who are unhappy with the level of investment, what would have been an acceptable amount of money for them to invest in fees in the summer window?
I'd say at least 1-2m is required for us to get out of this league. And i don't mean on 1-2 players, i think it needs to be spent sensibly on at least 4-5 players (May of course was one).
To me it seems crazy to spend the money they did buying a loss making club and then spend hardly anything on players and then watch us stagnate in league one. If you're going to spend 10m+ on a club then i don't see why you wouldn't have an investment plan to get it promoted.
And yes of course i know they're funding the losses, but they knew they'd be funding the losses when they took over, and equally they probably knew that funding losses and not buying good players wouldn't get us very far.
Agree but I think as Henry has intimated already. Methven might well have said that spending after purchase wasn’t a priority because it could be made to work by spending smarter and working better. We all know that’s bollox.
Remember the quotes that were floated in about us 'reaching our wage budget' even though we'd let go a bunch of high-paid players in the summer transfer window?
It'll be the same story about how big our budget is, but contrasted with how skint we are for transfers.
I honestly think that the people saying we haven’t spent decent money on transfers the last few years are wrong. We have spent more than enough money to get us out of this league if we had spent it better, Kirk, Chucks etc the list goes on. I think we need to look at our recruitment rather than our spending it would be very interesting to compare our spending to the clubs currently occupying the top slots in the league
JCH is out of a contract this summer. He is out of favour. They have had a couple of other younger players scoring for them. When I saw him for the first time I thought he is a goal scorer but does very little else. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on him, given his age. He hasn't done it at Championship level.
I would be in 2 minds wether to sign him as a short gap for next 2 years for £500,000.
worth noting JCH isn’t having a great season goal wise. 4 goals in 16 games, 12 of which were starts and hasn’t scored in the league since September
Been to see a few Posh home games this season (partner's son has a box). JCH not really the answer for us, even Posh supporters don't really rate him.
He scores goals but his all-round game is pretty poor. Would still be a good signing for the goals though
As Fenaddick states above - "worth noting JCH isn’t having a great season goal wise. 4 goals in 16 games, 12 of which were starts and hasn’t scored in the league since September"
Can't see the majority of fans being happy 'guaranteed goals' hasn't scored since September. Think the wages he would be on and the fee McAntony wants would be prohibitive.
Came on as a sub for one minute in a game I've tried really hard to forget about.
Doesn't sound too inspiring on paper, can't lie, well other than that he was born in the Bronx, that's pretty cool.
Based on how many minutes he’s played for them since, I’d imagine that was a conscious decision by their manager based either on him being a key player of theirs or him not getting a full pre season.
The clips I saw of him appear to show a player comfortable on the ball and can use either foot, hence him popping up at both left and right back as well as in midfield this season.
Played 100 League One games across four and a half years for Wimbledon and Morecambe.
Seems like he’d been a utility man more than a standout. But who knows.
Comments
I don't see a lot of games, from those I have seen I think our current squad can compete with middling and lower end teams but not with the decent and good sides in L1, we usually aren't able to get hold of a game by the scruff of the neck and when we go in front our lead can look too fragile to last.
I'm so fed up with disappointing results, lack of consistency on the pitch and poor general football club management so come on SMT make all those things go away......... and don't take too long over it please.
We have a lot of raw talented youngsters in our squad from our own academy, so I will repeat what I was saying in the summer, stop signing other teams young talent on loan unless they are a once in a generation far too good for this league like Rak-Sakyi.
Because of that the budget has not been sufficient. There is also an argument that what money has been spent has been spent badly, both under this regime as demonstrated by the loans and permanent transfers, other than May, Jones and perhaps L Watson, being underwhelming, and before the takeover (ie Kirk) leaving an unbalanced, unfit and underperforming squad.
The counter argument is that money has and will be invested by this regime (May, Jones, Taylor, Edun and the loan fees) but that it will take longer than two windows to turn around a squad and club that has been in the doldrums for many years so patience is needed and expecting a revival so soon is unreasonable.
The rumour mill is very quiet and so far it seems very little is being leaked to "insider" sources. That doesn't mean that nothing is happening just that the current regime are playing it close to their chest. Now they have their feet under the table they may feel there is less need to brief the media and certain fans behind the scenes to curry favour.
I'm sure Scott and the others can see the weaknesses in the squad just as we can.
Appleton has repeatedly spoken about having to "re-balance" the squad in January which I hear as management speak for "I need to clear half a dozen out and get some better players in".
For me the two variables will be:
1. Appleton's ability to influence the board's decision making both in terms of who to sign and how much there is to spend
2. The take of the beneficial owners. All other than Rosenfield have, IIRC, attended games and must be aware of both the results and the performances. They may not be bothered but I suspect that they hoped for and were promised more than a season in mid table. How keen will they to put more money in as equity, either at their own suggestion or if Charlie asks? I really don't know.
Since Holden left the league form has been good enough for the fringe of the play-offs so perhaps we're not that far away.
But the league didn't start when Holden left so we are mid-table, albeit with some games in hand, and we have a raft of injury issues and a number of players (Chem Campbell, Tedic, Abankwah, Kirk) that the manager is very reluctant, to put it nicely, to use. There are a number of other weaknesses in the squad that have been covered at length (over reliance on kids, inability to keep clean sheets, average keepers, poor away form, etc etc).
So all eyes will be on the management team over the next 7 weeks to see whether they have the money and nouse to improve on what has gone on so far this season.
Our summer loan signings have ended up more like the squad fillers we sign in January, who leave having barely played a game. The Matt Smith's, Levitt types.
Jackson, Garner, Holden and now Appleton all said it (can't remember if Adkins did) - Jackson, Garner and Holden even went out of their way through selections to prove they were disgruntled.
Methven has quoted financial fair play in the last window.
If you look hard enough, the clues are already there, sadly.
To me it seems crazy to spend the money they did buying a loss making club and then spend hardly anything on players and then watch us stagnate in league one. If you're going to spend 10m+ on a club then i don't see why you wouldn't have an investment plan to get it promoted.
And yes of course i know they're funding the losses, but they knew they'd be funding the losses when they took over, and equally they probably knew that funding losses and not buying good players wouldn't get us very far.
Did Methven and co. persuade them that that budget would be sufficient?
If the SMT persuaded the owners they could get a win on the cheap it could all start to unravel very soon.
We are de facto a mid-table third division club, the squad is constrained by Legacy Duds, overpopulated with kids, disjointed and short on quality. Even before we get to injuries.
Our ground is too big for us and the fanbase will continue to dwindle unless recruitement budget and quality is addressed.
How long before the board see through the emperor's new clothes?
Then what?
I would be in 2 minds wether to sign him as a short gap for next 2 years for £500,000.
That, sadly, isn't possible. The money men didn't need to know that, they just needed persuading that it was possible.
A friend of mine (through my work) sat with me last week and he went to college with CM.
CM has told everybody what a bloody good job he did at Sunderland and my friend had no idea about using the Parachute payments to "buy" the club or in fact fail to get promoted using them too.
I'm not blaming CM for using somebody else's money (the Premier League) to buy Sunderland and not blaming him doing the same thing here to buy Charlton, but quite simply it really isn't possible, unless you are bloody brilliant and lucky in equal measure to reduce Charlton's losses, sell off players to achieve break even AND get promoted out of this Division with our cost basis and attendances.
That's just facts.
It'll be the same story about how big our budget is, but contrasted with how skint we are for transfers.
Doesn't sound too inspiring on paper, can't lie, well other than that he was born in the Bronx, that's pretty cool.
Can't see the majority of fans being happy 'guaranteed goals' hasn't scored since September. Think the wages he would be on and the fee McAntony wants would be prohibitive.
The clips I saw of him appear to show a player comfortable on the ball and can use either foot, hence him popping up at both left and right back as well as in midfield this season.
Played 100 League One games across four and a half years for Wimbledon and Morecambe.
Seems like he’d been a utility man more than a standout. But who knows.
Send my best to Carmine will ya