With a two week break ahead I thought it would be a good time to take stock of where we are. On paper we had a very difficult start and to have won two, drawn two and lost one is well above my expectations. To progress in the Carling Cup with two resounding wins is also better than we usually do. But my joy at how well we have started is tinged with unhappiness with RDs support of Guy Luzon in the transfer market. The squad is unbalanced, we have no right back as cover for Solly. We need another big centre forward as competition for Makienok, we also could do with another winger. With decent additions in these positions I think we could be challenging for the play offs. Without these additions our squad is not strong enough to cope with the inevitable injuries. I was extremely disappointed to hear Luzon say after the Wolves defeat that there will be no new additions before the transfer deadline. Roll on mid table mediocrity.
We are short along the right hand side, not only at RB where Chris is trying to manage a potential career ending injury but also with JBG who, if he picked up a medium term injury, would be difficult to replace from the existing squad. My view is that we need cover in two positions, a Right Back/Right Mid player (you know...... a player just like Wilson!) and a Left Mid/Left winger. With a two week break I would hope that the Vet will be back to full fitness, Watty should be fit again, the Mak will be back and Rezza should be back in training.... with KAG that should be enough up front. If we want to take the risk, then Lookman could skip the U21's (like Gomez did) and be put on the bench for the final 20 minutes of games... he is such a confident lad that I am pretty sure he would take it in his stride and would certainly give us something extra against tiring defences
I might be the lone voice speaking in defence of Roland, but hey-ho. We fans always want the owners to pump more of their money into the club, easy, isn't it? Obviously we need a winger, but the two who have been mentioned are Pennant, who I don't really fancy, and Henry, who is apparently being valued at £1m. At the beginning of the season I would have bitten your hand off for a mid-table finish, but our early season form has raised expectations and this would not be a failure for my money. The players brought in, especially Bauer and Kashi, have exceeded expectation, and I'm also in the pro-Mak camp. The scouting has improved from the early shambles, my main worry was that we were bringing in another pile of cack, but this has not been the case. So for me there's nothing mediocre about mid-table this season
Made a couple of little corrections to your excellent post. Unless they surprise us on Tuesday, our last hope is the loan window. How about James Vaughan as another striker?. He is another who will be out unfit a lot, but between the six of them we should be able to find two fit ones a week. He is like Haynes and Fuller. When fit easily good enough for the Championship. Hard to believe we cannot pick up another RB on the cheap. Teams do not change their back four as often as midfield and attack, so lots of competent right-backs rarely get the chance to play and might welcome a fresh start, with the prospect of playing midweek and cup games to show what they can do. I really don't think we are trying very hard.
This season will be a mirror image of the last. A promising start will be undermined by injuries and suspensions to a too small, lop sided squad. We can all see it, but the owner apparently can't be arsed according to his fragrant mouthpiece , who told travelling fans yesterday that we won't be signing any players. We will finish in the bottom half this season, 100% guaranteed. That is not necessarily a problem.....unless you believed the owners previous statement that Premier League football was the ambition. The actions suggest otherwise. Where has the Gomez money been spent ? Certainly not on the Charlton team.
You have to remember that any money we spend on players isn't a gift out of Roland's accumulated wealth, it will be a loan which has to be repaid. How long ago is it that fans like me were sounding off at Murray for plunging the club into debt? The strategy of getting the club on an even keel by relying on affordable foreign imports and Academy products may or may not work, but what precisely are the alternatives?
I do not have a problem with that strategy. It has worked wonderfully up to now. Here in the Dominican Republic you see half-, or three-quarter-, finished buildings everywhere. They are started, then the developer runs out of money. Sometimes they are restarted, even finished, a year or three later. Obviously that is not a good strategy (though not as disastrous as it would be with English weather). But even in the DR, if the building is not sealed and secured, it deteriorates a lot before there is any hope of restarting work. But nothing can withstand the Dominicans' insane and groundless optimism that all will turn out well. With RD's very good foreign acquisitions, and the emergence of further youngsters, we now have five-sixths of a fine edifice. If we do not complete the construction now, it will gradually deteriorate. Fans, and then players, will start to drift away. Remaining players' values will deteriorate. We got peanuts for Stephens and Kemorgant because they were playing in a struggling and demoralised team. At present we are losing 5 million a year. With gates around 15,000 or less, I am surprised it is not more. Is the strategy to stay mid-table and go on losing 5 million a year? These super-rich guys buy football clubs because: (1) They are fans. RD is no fan of Charlton. (2) To make money. Normally you can only do that once, by asset stripping (or asset diverting) like the Oystons. Losing a steady 5 million a year does not satisfy that ambition. or (3) As an ego trip as owner of a successful side. Owning a side that ends mid-table each season, after finishing four points off the play-offs the season before you took over, is unlikely to inspire much admiration. The only plan that seems to make sense for RD is to sell the club for more than he paid for it. I think that is very possible, given our fine ground and location with a huge potential fan-base, even despite the rise of Palace and West Ham's Tory subsidy.
I like the analogy, B&M. Ifyou believe what Katrien says (Yes, I know), Roland's project is to reach the Premier League by sustainable improvement. Swansea are the perfect example of this, but if you could guarantee its success everyone would be doing it. Likewise the idea of buying your way into the Premier League. pardew tried that and Murray believed him. Isn't football unpredictable? At the moment I'm hugely relieved at the improved calibre of player we're signing, so something has changed with regard to the scouting system, which shows that Roland is prepared to learn from his mistakes. We're seeing players who actually want the ball. Sounds obvious, but in recent years we've seen players hide quite a lot. And the team spirit is very good, they seem to know what playing for the shirt means.
Bitter, The first sentence of your final paragraph hits the nail on the head. I personally believe that the Douche has blinked at the fees and salaries that will be required to get us promoted. Kevin Nolan for example - way past his best, but said to be asking for 50k a week plus a signing on fee. The RD way of doing things, as described by his Fibbing Femme Fatale, is to sell an Academy product to cover our running costs. Gomez this term, who next ? It also explains why our new signings always seem to arrive for undisclosed fees. This also explains why I am unable to partake in the orgy of back slapping when the likes of Bauer play well....it's truly a case of 'don't bother taking your coat off, you won't be staying long'
Something some corners forget to ask is - what if we won't always have academy players to sell? We'll be very lucky if we produce a £3million + every year.
Just watching Transfer Deadline Day on SSN, and Jim White is currently interviewing Reams from outside his caravan in Rhyl. Reams has told Jim that Charlton are signing 3 players today from Bournemouth ("no one can rival my contacts in football Jim")
That is a concern. If Roland is under the illusion that the likes of Gomez comes along every year, how will he react when the truth hits him?
Given that I thought we'd have one point (from the only game that we have lost) come the end of August, I'm actually optimistic about our start. However, looking at the depth of our squad is the one thing that does worry me, and "Taking Stock" is quite an accurate depiction of this. Last season we found ourselves in the same position in August, but faltered due to lack of alternatives when players got injured. This showed on Saturday after Big Mac went out, and our only striker being KAG. Good experience for some of our youngsters, though, but we don't want another season of struggling.
yes, but you need to start changing your opinions 180 degrees day by day ...only then will you be allowed back on ITTV.
