Transfer Rumours Summer 2023

We still have a club to be proud of, shame abahrt the team.

 

If one was to follow a footy team in Edinburgh which one is better Hearts or Hibernian - asking for a friend

 

Always had a soft spot for the Jam Tarts, in the same way as I've got a soft spot for Sunderland. Killie beat the Jambo's 2-0 at Tynecastle in 1965 to pip them for the league title. The last team outside the 4 main cities to win the title.

 

Saturday, July 8th (3pm KO BST).

 

Another riveting pre-season looming

 

To be fair Dartford might be just our level by then

 

Pre-Season is all about getting new grounds in.
We had some belters as a Premier League side.

 

Is it summer already ? Doesn’t feel like it - it’s been bloody freezing and pissing down most days. Where’s all this global warming when you need it. We need to open some more coal mines, stoke up the log burners and return to massive 4x4’s with 4L engines if we are ever to get back to the summer temperatures we used to have in this country.

Bring back the UK rain forests and swamplands is what I say. And let’s drain the English Channel once more like it used to be, so that we can “build a waaaalllll” and let’s make the French pay for it so we can keep the illegal immigrants out more easily. Light beacons along its length so we can see the invaders at night whilst helping to warm our cold country up.

 

I did read once that Global warming might drive the Jetstream permanently South of the UK, and plunge it (along with Scandanavia) into a new Ice Age.
That would lower the sea levels in theory, so joining Britain back to the continent.
Giant glaciers might bury Scotland and we could re-introduce woolly Mammoths to graze on the grasslands of the current North Sea bed.
40,000 years ago apparently the Thames used to flow into the Rhine.

Such an Ice Age would be good for the Polar regions I assume, where the sea Ice would be permanent again.
But this all seems unlikely if the planet as a whole is supposed to be warming up.

Pity. Charlton owners would be forced to install under-soil heating at the Valley that actually works.

 

The norm for recent Charlton summers is that nothing happens until late August, when we start to pick up freebies and loanees. Throughout the next month or two the fans mood changes from "We need a big summer clearout" to "We need a big clearout in January". Maybe this year the demands for Sandgaard out will become demands for Spiegal/Methven to sell up. Meanwhile ESI will pop up at another club, having been more responsible than anyone for our mess before walking away scot-free.

 

I’m convinced there will be an exodus of players upon contract expiry. TS won’t want to pay them, and I doubt they would want to be here.

I think player sales will be dictated by season ticket sales. Leaburn will be sold, possibly another depending on how big the bills are compared to season ticket sales.

I don’t expect to see any incomings until mid July at the earliest, which will be just right to have a slow start to the season.

 

We needed a quick take-over, and the new owner to sweep away the back-room dross and install his own people (especially in recruitment) before June.

The latest word is supposedly that the situation has collapsed again.
No deal is about to be done, and a couple of new faces have popped up to begin the long process all over again.

So probably no take-over until most of the closed Summer window has passed.
Next season is therefore already as good as written off.
Charlton will be lucky to stay up in League One.
And ST sales could well end up not much higher than 3,000

 

It's here! (Summer 2023 that is). You know what happens- very little. We've learned to expect it, with a few freebies and loanees late on. Th consolation is that the present Academy crop looks exceptional. We'll need them.

 

Anyone seen any sign of the retained list yet?

I think most normal clubs have released theirs.

This is only a suggestion, but maybe ours is missing because we’re ****ing ****?

 

It must be, from a practical point of view, impossible to know who you are going to release if you don’t know who is going to be owning the club come August and therefore don’t know what your budget is going to be for players.

 

Paralysis is no answer.
The Club faces two possible futures;
1) Take-over
2) No take-over.

Nobody can plan for option 1 because everything about it is unknown.
But it should be possible to plan for option 2, even if we have to assume that no new owner = more of the same from the current one.
Option 3, which is to take no action while waiting to see what happens, is in effect the same as option 1; being unable to act because nothing is known.

So the only logical course of action is to proceed as if there will be no take-over. To take option 2.
This is just as true for all the Senior management team as it is for Dean Holden.
Waiting forever solves nothing.
All it does is diminish any chance the Club has of making progress during the Summer.
A take-over won't magically solve all problems. The most it will do is replace the old problems with a whole bunch of new ones.

And the clock is ticking.
The rest of Football won't wait for CAFC to sort itself out. We'll simply be left behind.

 

DEan Holden says he's had some difficult face-to-face conversations with players who will be released, so he must have some sort of idea what sort of squad he expects to have. If he thinks that's the difficult bit wait until the recruitment process starts.

 

Our first summer pipe dream...