What do people think of our transfer activity yesterday ? I can't say I am sorry to see serial underachiever and reported big earner Danny Green go to MK Dons, even if only for six weeks. Hopefully he will impress Karl Robinson at his natural level and will depart for good. Don't know much about Stewart, but he looks a like for like replacement. Personally I am surprised that Powell did not sign an experienced keeper on a freebie. There were over 20 free agent keepers looking for clubs on the PFA website. Even Bury managed to sign Brian Jensen, who could have done a job for us. We are also short in the striker department given the career fitness records of both Yann and Simon Church. Joe Pigott could be getting 20 games this season. The overall conclusion to draw from the lack of activity yesterday is, as dickplumb has said, our owners really are potless.
I don't think they can be described as potless. When you are underwriting losses each month which have been described as anything between 300 and 700k then they aren't really potless,more frugal. Absolute cack on the market yesterday and frankly this transfer window activity sickens me, a load of unwashed dirty rat children jumping in front of the sky tv cameras after hearing that their club has signed a washed up, overpriced, foreigner for a month reminds me of the looting at JD sports, quite glad we didn't get involved in all that nonsense.
Love it I was surprised to see so many Liverpool supporters milling around outside their training ground yesterday Sky Sports coverage of deadline day is getting beyond parody. Jim White had his latest Botox treatment especially for the Big Day
I imagine the reason we didn't sell any of our players was because nobody wanted to buy them, not that that will stop the usual rumours from resurfacing in January about Solly going to Wham etc. It shows that we don't actually have any real stars, just great team spirit and great fans(certainly on Saturday).
I reckon we are as a club losing money- how much who knows. I guess we have what ken Dodd's lawyer would describe as front door losses and forgot about back door income. It's hard to really tell unless your dicky how much this club has coming in and going out
When the owners came in they said that the club would be run on a sensible business format..... no business plans to lose £6m every year with no plan to reduce such losses. Under the banner of FFP the owners just want to reduce the amount of money they have to put in every year, it's THEIR money and they own the club so the decision is their's. This does not mean they have run out of money.... just decided that they don't want to put so much of it into Charlton.
Why would West Ham pay money for Solly now, when they know that they can pick him up for free soon ? Ditto, all of our other decent players who, in normal circumstances, might be expected to command a fee. It is simply ridiculous the way this group,contract situation has arisen.
No "sensible business format" that I know of allows over 80% of its players contracts to expire at the same time. Sorry, but with rumours of the staff being paid late, I buy the gone skint theory.
Out of interest, I thought out of contract players could sign anytime since there is no 'transfer' involved. As such, we were in no rush to sign an out of contract keeper as we could still do it tomorrow!
I doubt if our owners are so stupid that they can't see the risks which the club is taking by letting all the contracts run down. I would guess they were hoping to sell a player to sort it out, The Doctor's recent clear statement about us being a selling club seemed almost like an invitation to other clubs. If that was the case they will have to resort to Plan B, whatever that is.
Cameron Stewart could be a very good signing for you boys. When he first came to us on loan from Man U he had electric pace, loved the old step overs and could easily go past his man. We then signed him on a permanent deal for £300k, shortly afterwards he suffered a bad injury which kept him out for a long time, when he came back, in his first couple of games, he looked as sharp as ever, then our old manager, Nigel Pearson who had moved back to Leicester, came in with a bid of £1.5M which we flatly refused but unfortunately it appeared to have turned his head as he's never been the same player since. He's been on loan to a couple of Championship clubs who have both chosen to return him at the end of his loan period, maybe this loan will be third time lucky, he certainly has what it takes, he just needs to re-discover it and you will have a real player on your hands!
That came from Slater, follower of the multi million spending outfit, who in the same sentence said that "Football's not about throwing money about these days", or words to that effect.. Yeah right! The money his club has spent could buy a club like ours 10 times over, yet people say we aren't worth what Del & Rodney are supposedly asking for..?
They may be multi million, but they will get in more than £100m from television rights to the premier league probably another £20m from ticket sales to league games a large chunk of money from the sales of shirts with Tevez on the back to kids in Malaysia, China and Argentina, catering concession income, money from champions league matches and 10 times at least what we get in shirt sponsorship from Andrews before we get to match sponsorship etc etc. All that before being owned by a middle eastern potentate who needs a play thing to waste money on . Football in the championship is not about throwing money about unless you are Tony Fernandez. The level of spend excluding QPR in the championship this transfer window is beginning to show signs of the restraint that will be needed to comply with FFP. We may be ahead of the pack in the championship because we don't have a south east asian airline owner or the like to fund us but the FFP rules where they will have to pump in equity to avoid the annual debt limit will make many of them think twice about the real value of their investment. Yes our lot are looking to sell and I hope they achieve the sale before a lot more clubs come on the market when the rules begin to bite.
My overall feeling on our window is "meh" with a slight undercurrent of relief and a tinge of hope. The latter on the basis that our squad has not been ransacked as we feared and the opportunity for the board now to take stock and attempt to alleviate our ludicrous contractual situation to the extent that they feel able. As to green & Stewart I am disappointed as I was and remain just about Green's last remaining staunch advocate but its become a Nero fiddling situation that is dying a slow and inexorable death so my feelings are more meh than disappointment now. I have zero expectations for Stewart. He has been found wanting elsewhere but we are shopping at Lidl (quite right in times of austerity) and I'll give him a fair crack. All in all, it could have been a lot worse.
A frustrating & inconsistent player. Some natural ability there, but big question marks about whether the attitude/hunger is.
