Lapslie was voted YPOTY in season 2018-19 (as I mentioned in my previous post). Who voted for him if not Charlton fans? Or was he just given that award by the Club, with no voting involved. I can't recall clearly how Roland used to run the player awards back then. Also, in 2018-19 the team performed marginally better when Lapslie was in the side than when he wasn't. I know it's a team game, and individual contributions are difficult to quantify. But how else could Lapslie prove his worth? I'm not saying he was our best player. But there is no evidence he was significantly poorer than others, or did not deserve the playing time he got.
Hairyhotdog on ITTV pointed out that George Lapslie did not have very much competition for the position of YPOTY in season 2018/19. In the interest of a balanced evidence based view I looked up the following information; HHD is right about our squad being a more experienced one that season. Few young players broke through. Apart from two or three youngsters who only started a game or two, there were only three other relatively young players in Charlton's 2018-19 squad; Tariqe Fosu ... (about 2 years older than Lapslie) 14 starts, 12 sub apps Anfernee Dijksteel ... (about 1 year older than Lapslie) 21 starts, 9 sub apps Joe Aribo ... (about 1 year older than Lapslie) 31 starts, 1 sub app ... YPOTY winner 2017/18 I'm not sure but I don't think players often win YPOTY twice, so Aribo can be set aside at this point. Fosu had a personal win rate of 50% (7% below the team average) and a loss rate of 27% (5% above the team average) Dijksteel had a personal win rate of 63% (6% above team average) and a loss rate of 13% (9% below team average) So of the three young players - Fosu, Dijksteel & Lapslie - Dijksteel had the best personal stats, Lapslie second best. Again, of the young players, only Dijksteel and Lapslie had personal result rates that were better than the team average in season 2018/19. So HHD's point is a fair one. Charlton did not win promotion in 2018/19 with a young squad. Also, Anfernee Dijksteel played every minute of Charlton's three play-off games. George Lapslie was on the subs' bench for all three, but never came on. As I mentioned before, I'm not claiming that George Lapslie is one of our best players, though he had a decent season on the fringes in 2018/19. But I'm not convinced he has gone backwards as a player so much that effectively excluding him entirely from our squad this season and selling him in January is the right call. Having said that, if Lapslie leaving frees up funds for a player to come in that Bowyer would prefer to have when pushing for promotion this season, that's his call and fair enough.
