Now Vol has my blessing to denigrate Charlton's squad here (I am doing plenty of that myself), but I think "journeymen" is the wrong word to use. A journeyman was originally a craftsman who travelled from one town or village to the next, looking for commissions. He would be of a certain level of competence. Any higher and we would call him "unrecognised talent" (like one or two Renaissance masters who started their careers that way). Any lower and we would call him a "con-man". Now all this translates nicely to football, and there are many players meriting that description. To qualify they: (1) Need to have many clubs where they have stayed for limited periods. (2) Need to be known quantities. They are not signed in the hope that they will suddenly reveal unrecognised talents but in the likelihood they will fill a particular need and do a competent job. Very likely they will sooner or later be improved on by a new signing or an emerging junior, whereupon they go on their travels once again. Or they may fade with age or injury and have to drop down one or two levels. It is very rare for a journeyman to suddenly blossom in mid-career, though it can happen.. Journeymen should have "plateaued" at a certain level of competence. You cannot call a young player who is gradually improving with experience gained a "journeyman" until he hits his individual ceiling. Similarly it would be wrong to call a previously distinguished player who is sliding down the tiers though age or injury a "journeyman". If you accept that definition, how many "journeymen" are there on our playing staff? Maybe Bikey, but we are not going to get rid of him, having just signed him. Morrison has plateued at this level, but has only had three clubs, so hardly qualifies yet, and a bit risky to get rid of him at this stage. Ben Haim is more in the "aging star" category. I don't think you can call anyone who has been first choice for Manchester City and Chelsea (however briefly) a "journeyman". Jackson has spent most of his career in long spells at three clubs, which rules him out. Same applies to Buyens. I can see Church becoming one, but so far he has had only two clubs. I really cannot see a single "journeyman" on our playing staff (except maybe Bikey). Feel free to insult the squad, Vol, but please use a different word. Maybe "dross"? More polite would be "players unlikely to attain a competent Championship standard". We may have plenty of those.
I stand corrected. I shall now refer to them as "Roly's foreign sh1te" Incidentally , I am gobsmacked at the amount of Charlton fans indulging in ritualistic hand shandies every time we sign the latest Borat.
It is not just CL, ITTV has also become a cult for people resembling lottery winners every time RD signs a Romanian on a free transfer. There is one poster in particular who is really starting to get on my t1ts. Someone who is very quick to feign hurt including on here, yet goes out of his way to get posters banned as well as insulting them personally. For the first time this week the R word has been thrown at anyone querying why CAFC is now being packed with non indigenous staff.
So it's worse than I thought, then. Either these fans know something we don't or else they've suffered a bout of collective insanity. Maybe we need Ian Dury to tell us some reasons to be cheerful. The OS tries its best to put a positive spin out, but doesn't do it for me I'm afraid. Funny that the one piece of really good news (Gomez signing) gets virtually ignored.
This site is a welcome haven of sanity in this regards. It is good that all of the RD sceptics/cynics happen to be on here.
i actually think you're right about this. no one should be 100% cocksure until after a few games in. the proof will be in the pudding, until then, people have their right to be skeptical -i am. i really doubt the players who have come in are good enough
Yes - i'll wait and judge them after the first 5-10 games. By the 10 game stage - we'll also have a keener view on how our season might pan out. Tucudean is only 23 and does have quite a good goals to starts ratio, so it'll be interesting to see how he does. It doesn't look like he was given much of a chance at Standard Liege - played 11 times for them and only 1 of those was as a starter. The Icelandic winger also looks an interesting one. Seems to be quite talented but will he settle. Like I read somewhere else in the last couple of days, wingers do tend to blow either hot or cold & that generally varies from week to week.
Our first team squad is resembling something out of "Escape to Victory"... the only problem is that in that film they had footballers trying to be actors (other than a certain Yank!) but in our case we may well have foreign actors pretending to be footballers!
I stopped reading CL recently because the mood of euphoric optimism was making my brain hurt.. It would be different if they had seen our imports and knew that they were good players, but they haven't, and all I know that they were scoutied by the same people who gave us Nego, Thuram,....................
5-1 against a Gibraltar XI! Roly, you genius, man. Even turning Churchy into a goal-a-game striker. OK, only for one game, but just goes to show that, when this standard of opposition starts playing in the Championship, we'll be right up there. Thank you for the memory. Now, can we start getting some decent players?
