Stating the obvious perhaps but it doesn't really matter if the squad is stronger or weaker than last season.
The reason for that is that CAFC 14/15 will never play CAFC 13/14.
So perhaps the question should be how strong relatively are we compared to the other 23 sides in the league and how well have they strenghthened their squads?
Blackpool appear very short of players full stop but most of other teams who finished around us and the three promoted sides seem to be spending. Will shall see how well.
Sheff Weds have new rich owners and we all know how massive that club is.
Leeds have a new mad owner and Hudds finished the season very badly.
Bolton have strengthened after a good finish.
The three new sides are unknowns at this level but our own 9th place finish two years ago shows the gap can be bridged.
Interesting times
No but it does matter if the squad is just plain weak. And at the moment, it is.
I disagree. The point being made by @Henry Irving is that what matters is our strength in relation to our twenty-three rivals. Look at Arsenal. They have a good squad, probably one you would call strong, but they are weaker than City, Chelsea, and Liverpool, so they are not strong enough for what their fans want, that being to win the league.
We may be weak on your scale of measurement but if three sides prove to be weaker, we will have been shown to be strong enough.
Of course, the salient question is, are we strong enough yet? I think all of here would say we are not, so then we have to hope the relevant transfer targets are landed to get us to the position in the league we want to achieve without placing us in financial peril. How strong that is compared to last year and how strong that is in absolute terms are both irrelevant.
You say what matters is our strength compared to our rivals then say the squad isn't strong enough. So you are agreeing with my point. One centre back, no back up goalie and three midfielders means the squad is weak - whatever way you look at it.
You say what matters is our strength compared to our rivals then say the squad isn't strong enough. So you are agreeing with my point. One centre back, no back up goalie and three midfielders means the squad is weak - whatever way you look at it.
Your first comment was that Henry was wrong to say the comparison with last year doesn't matter and that the squad is weak, you weren't saying too weak, i.e. not strong enough. I'm saying, and in this I'm agreeing with Henry, that weak or strong as an absolute is irrelevant, it's how strong or weak we are in comparison to our rivals that matters. We could play all season with a weak squad but still survive in this division if we were strong enough. Pretty much as we did last season, actually.
However, we all seem to agree that we aren't strong enough, so shall we leave it at that?
You say what matters is our strength compared to our rivals then say the squad isn't strong enough. So you are agreeing with my point. One centre back, no back up goalie and three midfielders means the squad is weak - whatever way you look at it.
Your first comment was that Henry was wrong to say the comparison with last year doesn't matter and that the squad is weak, you weren't saying too weak, i.e. not strong enough. I'm saying, and in this I'm agreeing with Henry, that weak or strong as an absolute is irrelevant, it's how strong or weak we are in comparison to our rivals that matters. We could play all season with a weak squad but still survive in this division if we were strong enough. Pretty much as we did last season, actually.
However, we all seem to agree that we are strong enough, so shall we leave it at that?
Eh? I'm definitely not agreeing that the squad is strong enough. I assume that's a typo? Look - I disagree with both you and Henry. We should be building a strong squad regardless of our rivals. Making sure we just have a stronger squad than the relegation candidates is a race to the bottom. I know what you're both driving at - that a weak squad doesn't necessarily mean relegation. But a squad as lightweight as ours is now will spell trouble. I'm sure there are signings in the pipeline. Let's see where we are when the full and loan windows close.
You say what matters is our strength compared to our rivals then say the squad isn't strong enough. So you are agreeing with my point. One centre back, no back up goalie and three midfielders means the squad is weak - whatever way you look at it.
Your first comment was that Henry was wrong to say the comparison with last year doesn't matter and that the squad is weak, you weren't saying too weak, i.e. not strong enough. I'm saying, and in this I'm agreeing with Henry, that weak or strong as an absolute is irrelevant, it's how strong or weak we are in comparison to our rivals that matters. We could play all season with a weak squad but still survive in this division if we were strong enough. Pretty much as we did last season, actually.
However, we all seem to agree that we are strong enough, so shall we leave it at that?
Eh? I'm definitely not agreeing that the squad is strong enough. I assume that's a typo? Look - I disagree with both you and Henry. We should be building a strong squad regardless of our rivals. Making sure we just have a stronger squad than the relegation candidates is a race to the bottom. I know what you're both driving at - that a weak squad doesn't necessarily mean relegation. But a squad as lightweight as ours is now will spell trouble. I'm sure there are signings in the pipeline. Let's see where we are when the full and loan windows close.
Didn't the well meaning but naive at this game Katrien suggest that our business would be done by the end of June? Err, big day coming up today in that case..........
You say what matters is our strength compared to our rivals then say the squad isn't strong enough. So you are agreeing with my point. One centre back, no back up goalie and three midfielders means the squad is weak - whatever way you look at it.
Your first comment was that Henry was wrong to say the comparison with last year doesn't matter and that the squad is weak, you weren't saying too weak, i.e. not strong enough. I'm saying, and in this I'm agreeing with Henry, that weak or strong as an absolute is irrelevant, it's how strong or weak we are in comparison to our rivals that matters. We could play all season with a weak squad but still survive in this division if we were strong enough. Pretty much as we did last season, actually.
However, we all seem to agree that we are strong enough, so shall we leave it at that?
Eh? I'm definitely not agreeing that the squad is strong enough. I assume that's a typo? Look - I disagree with both you and Henry. We should be building a strong squad regardless of our rivals. Making sure we just have a stronger squad than the relegation candidates is a race to the bottom. I know what you're both driving at - that a weak squad doesn't necessarily mean relegation. But a squad as lightweight as ours is now will spell trouble. I'm sure there are signings in the pipeline. Let's see where we are when the full and loan windows close.
That wasn't what I was saying
Yes, we should be building a strong squad. My point was that the measure of how strong or weak that squad is shouldn't be last years squad as we'll never play them.
The measure is the other 23 squads in the division.
Didn't the well meaning but naive at this game Katrien suggest that our business would be done by the end of June? Err, big day coming up today in that case..........
No, she didn't.
She was quoted as saying that she "hoped we'd do most of our business before the end of June"
Why would one rule out a comparison to last year's squad on the somewhat superficial basis that CAFC won't play last year's squad. Two thirds of the 2014-15 squad were at the club last season so surely last season's performances are a far more accessible and relevant benchmark than a brief assessment of the championship? The Championship doesn't change that much year by year and we know what it is to be a bottom 6 club. Surely the biggest variables will be: 1) The calibre of new players (signed and from the academy) compared to those departed 2) the improvement through age and experience of the retained elements of last year's squad and 3) how they are managed and how the team gels These factors will make far more difference to our prospects than the spending of our competitors.
As posted on here before, without seeing players arriving from Europe I would go by eye witness accounts and transfermarkt valuations. I think it fair to assume that a player valued at £2m will make a greater contribution than one at say £500k - there will be exceptions of course but just a simple assertion while we wait for the season to kick off.
As this is the day when contracts run out, has anyone heard about Gomez, Osborne or Muldoon yet.
Sky and SLP said Osborne agreed a new 1 year deal.
Gomez isn't out of contract (has another year as an u18) but is now old enough to sign a pro contract. Archie Edwards said on Twitter that signed his first pro deal. Perhaps that's not been announced yet as he's not 17 for another week or so. Presumably Gomez will have also been offered one, but he would necessarily mention it on Twitter, or even agreed to it.
Not seen Muldoon mentioned at all, but last year there was no mention of Cousins, Fox and others having contracts extended (but it wasn't clear if they were out of contract, so maybe they weren't).
As this is the day when contracts run out, has anyone heard about Gomez, Osborne or Muldoon yet.
Sky and SLP said Osborne agreed a new 1 year deal.
Gomez isn't out of contract (has another year as an u18) but is now old enough to sign a pro contract. Archie Edwards said on Twitter that signed his first pro deal. Perhaps that's not been announced yet as he's not 17 for another week or so. Presumably Gomez will have also been offered one, but he would necessarily mention it on Twitter, or even agreed to it.
Not seen Muldoon mentioned at all, but last year there was no mention of Cousins, Fox and others having contracts extended (but it wasn't clear if they were out of contract, so maybe they weren't).
Thank you, at least that has cleared some of it up
Why would one rule out a comparison to last year's squad on the somewhat superficial basis that CAFC won't play last year's squad. Two thirds of the 2014-15 squad were at the club last season so surely last season's performances are a far more accessible and relevant benchmark than a brief assessment of the championship? The Championship doesn't change that much year by year and we know what it is to be a bottom 6 club. Surely the biggest variables will be: 1) The calibre of new players (signed and from the academy) compared to those departed 2) the improvement through age and experience of the retained elements of last year's squad and 3) how they are managed and how the team gels These factors will make far more difference to our prospects than the spending of our competitors.
As posted on here before, without seeing players arriving from Europe I would go by eye witness accounts and transfermarkt valuations. I think it fair to assume that a player valued at £2m will make a greater contribution than one at say £500k - there will be exceptions of course but just a simple assertion while we wait for the season to kick off.
And yet last season's performances by, say, Reza and Polish Pete, would presumably be inconsistent with their valuation on transfermarkt, where Bradley Pritchard currently has the same valuation as Diego Poyet and Parzyszek - and Simon Church is worth half as much again as all three. I don't know how you can take this site seriously, never mind build an argument around the numbers it provides,
Yeah I know it all looks bollox if you look at Pritchard or Thuram - can't be right. Except there is a 60% correlation between squad value and league position! Yeovil, Barnsley and Doncaster have by far the lowest values and they were relegated whereas QPR and Leicester... Clubs like Burnley and Derby were fielding many, many players valued at £1.5M and £2M. Streets ahead of CAFC. The bottom eight or ten clubs have squads worth £14M or less whereas the top clubs' squads are worth double that. Therefore I don't think the difference between a £400K or £600K valuation is worth discussing. The simple fact is that CAFC squad was full of players worth either £200K or £500K. Higher than the three relegated clubs but not by much. As stated above "I think it fair to assume that a player valued at £2m will make a greater contribution than one at say £500k" - from your tone it appears you disagree?
Let's see the value of any more additions to the squad and then, more importantly see how they play as a team - if my theory is right and Peeters gets it right then we should play Brentford off the park in August!
What cannot be argued is that Duchatelet has shifted the age profile of the squad virtually overnight with more and more Academy players being played and all players over 25 except Morrison and Jackson leaving because they were released or not offered what they considered a competive contract. Transfermarkt might be wrong about Buyens and Vetokele but I sincerely hope it is a small error. It appears that Duchatelet is bringing in high value young players worth three times what we saw arrive in January. If this works on the pitch then Charlton has a very bright future as its trading losses will shrink and might even be covered by player sales?
I hope I am proved wrong and it is still early days, but as things stand at present the squad looks worryingly weak particularly up front and another season of struggle looks very likely.
So, didn't Katrien say she wanted the squad / transfer dealing completed by the end of June. Well it's 1st July and nobody would give us a prayer with the current squad, so is RD going to spend some cash for a change (transfer fee) or are we going to have some hand-me-downs, turn up the first week in August?
Yeah I know it all looks bollox if you look at Pritchard or Thuram - can't be right. Except there is a 60% correlation between squad value and league position! Yeovil, Barnsley and Doncaster have by far the lowest values and they were relegated whereas QPR and Leicester... Clubs like Burnley and Derby were fielding many, many players valued at £1.5M and £2M. Streets ahead of CAFC. The bottom eight or ten clubs have squads worth £14M or less whereas the top clubs' squads are worth double that. Therefore I don't think the difference between a £400K or £600K valuation is worth discussing. The simple fact is that CAFC squad was full of players worth either £200K or £500K. Higher than the three relegated clubs but not by much. As stated above "I think it fair to assume that a player valued at £2m will make a greater contribution than one at say £500k" - from your tone it appears you disagree?
Let's see the value of any more additions to the squad and then, more importantly see how they play as a team - if my theory is right and Peeters gets it right then we should play Brentford off the park in August!
What cannot be argued is that Duchatelet has shifted the age profile of the squad virtually overnight with more and more Academy players being played and all players over 25 except Morrison and Jackson leaving because they were released or not offered what they considered a competive contract. Transfermarkt might be wrong about Buyens and Vetokele but I sincerely hope it is a small error. It appears that Duchatelet is bringing in high value young players worth three times what we saw arrive in January. If this works on the pitch then Charlton has a very bright future as its trading losses will shrink and might even be covered by player sales?
Which you extrapolate from two signings, one of which is a network loan, while ignoring the "loss" of Sordell, who himself is ranked at £1.58m by transfermarkt. You don't need to do any significant analysis to see that the strategy is to reduce costs, of which reducing the average age of the squad is bound to be a likely component. However, there is no player sale dividend from Buyens, because he is a loan. Equally, if Vetokele is successful - and perhaps if he is not - then it will be no surprise to see him move to Standard Liege on loan. He would presumably retain resale value but then have no effect on performance.
There is nothing remarkable about a strategy of favouring players with resale value. It was something Charlton talked about and tried to follow during the 2000s and it's a sensible aspiration. Getting the mixture of youth and experience right, however, requires more than statistical analysis - even when it's based on performance rather than third-party valuations. Wigan and Derby will be more meaningful tests of that than promoted Brentford, but until we sign more players and we see who they are it's premature to even begin to predict outcomes.
Vetokele replaces Sordell; Buyens replaces Poyet; who replaces Hamer, Dervite and Ajdarevic? If we bring in £1M pound players (on loan or signed permanently) then the squad looks better on paper because those five players were worth less than £5m and replaced with 5 worth £7.5m. A 50% increase matched by an increase across the rest of the squad as players get older and better. Agreed there is nothing new about trying to bring the kids through. The difference is CAFC aren't just talking about it they're doing it! I see you sneak in a little scaremongering about Charlton's best players going to Liege - but that cannot be evidence based as there is none? Reducing costs on and off the pitch makes sense as long as the team retains and improves competiveness. Running the club as part of a network enables the club to run with a smaller squad. Last season's "mix of youth and experience" was interesting given the number of 30 something players who played a handful of games between them. Ffs we had 37 players on the books!
As I have posted before, CAFC losses are on a downwards trend and ahead of the FFP curve. This can only assist long term sustainability and competiveness. On a separate but connected note I see the Lallana move has been delayed - unless the deal was executed by end June then Bournemouth are due to be excluded from registering players as of 1 January 2015. They might expect to secure a £5-6m sell on bonus which would be enough to make them compliant but it comes too late for last season. The point is that they outbid us for Kermorgant by breaking the rules. Long term we win by standing firm and staying up.
Vetokele replaces Sordell; Buyens replaces Poyet; who replaces Hamer, Dervite and Ajdarevic? If we bring in £1M pound players (on loan or signed permanently) then the squad looks better on paper because those five players were worth less than £5m and replaced with 5 worth £7.5m. A 50% increase matched by an increase across the rest of the squad as players get older and better. Agreed there is nothing new about trying to bring the kids through. The difference is CAFC aren't just talking about it they're doing it! I see you sneak in a little scaremongering about Charlton's best players going to Liege - but that cannot be evidence based as there is none? Reducing costs on and off the pitch makes sense as long as the team retains and improves competiveness. Running the club as part of a network enables the club to run with a smaller squad. Last season's "mix of youth and experience" was interesting given the number of 30 something players who played a handful of games between them. Ffs we had 37 players on the books!
As I have posted before, CAFC losses are on a downwards trend and ahead of the FFP curve. This can only assist long term sustainability and competiveness. On a separate but connected note I see the Lallana move has been delayed - unless the deal was executed by end June then Bournemouth are due to be excluded from registering players as of 1 January 2015. They might expect to secure a £5-6m sell on bonus which would be enough to make them compliant but it comes too late for last season. The point is that they outbid us for Kermorgant by breaking the rules. Long term we win by standing firm and staying up.
I don't sneak anything in - the point is that you if you wish to include the value of loan players in an assessment of the squad then you have to remove any that leave on loan. You can't count them both ways, although on past evidence I'm sure you would try. Nevertheless, we already have a proxy for judging the value of players, which is the aggregate wage bill, and the information on that is more reliable and publicly available, albeit retrospective. You wish to substitute for that a third-party website with apparently random valuations, because it avoids the link with cost and therefore FFP. I think that's silly.
You'll have to take up what the club did in the past with Richard Murray. I'm sure he'd be surprised to learn that the club didn't actually focus on signing young players with potential - Darren Bent being a particularly good example and Danny Mills being an earlier one. The important difference is that the club didn't only do that, because it wasn't a practical option if we wanted to compete. You don't know if it will work this time and neither do I. Clearly the squad needs experience as well as talent. This comes at a price. RD clearly thinks he can beat the system. So did TJ, but RD can afford to try and fail.
The reason the club was "overstocked" with mediocre players was under-investment in 2012 and 2013. Had suitable replacements been acquired then some of them could have been moved on, because they wouldn't have been needed as back-up. Your argument that the network allows us to run with a smaller squad implies that players will flow both ways - which is precisely why Vetokele (or someone like him) going to Liege is a reasonable hypothesis, even if Duchatelet hadn't explicitly referred to this. which he did. In effect, he will see it as a pool of players for him to move around. We may get benefits, we may lose out.
In short, I agree it is not necessarily a zero-sum game. The network may add to the overall benefits, but if it does the distribution of them will depend on RD's priorities. The argument that this should be Charlton is based on PL revenues, but he may not be willing to make the net investment to get there. The idea itself may be of more interest to him. He may not see the success of the individual clubs as the primary objective. Equally, the attempt to maximise the benefits across clubs - in effect the experiment itself - may fail because it doesn't allow for other factors. There are too many things we just don't know.
@Airman Brown perhaps in your rush to get a dig in that you have failed to read my post correctly. I have quite clearly stated five out and five in, two of which were announced recently. The rest of the squad are the same as last season so I think that with the exception of Jackson (!) they improve with age.
Sure CAFC were a model club in the 90s in terms of attendance growth and the academy generating talent, some of which was sold to fund expansion. But the the club threw all all of this prudent management out of the window post Curbishley in an attempt to retain and then regain premier league status.
It has taken seven years, a number of coaches and a brand new management team to restore this ethos. I agree that after promotion from League 1 they went for quantity over quality and it looks like Rotherham are repeating this. The clear benefit of a network will be in the January window when permanent transfers can be expensive. Clearly the biggest benefit to the network will be for CAFC to attain promotion to the Premier League. For the revenues and the shop window for Reza and the like. If (and it's a big if) Duchatelet completes the five replacements with quality then we are taking a step closer. There are many things we don't know right now but the direction of travel feels right and we might be just a couple of years from a really good squad. I don't worry too much about the network because it operates at the fringes, I.e., a couple of players in or out. How many star players from any of the six clubs have been "stolen" from the fans and gifted to Luzon for that is what you imply.
On the other hand the arrival of Duchatelet makes things happen... Need a new pitch... Go out to tender... Ground looks scruffy then tidy it up. Catering a mess? Outsource it etc etc.
@Airman Brown perhaps in your rush to get a dig in that you have failed to read my post correctly. I have quite clearly stated five out and five in, two of which were announced recently. The rest of the squad are the same as last season so I think that with the exception of Jackson (!) they improve with age.
Sure CAFC were a model club in the 90s in terms of attendance growth and the academy generating talent, some of which was sold to fund expansion. But the the club threw all all of this prudent management out of the window post Curbishley in an attempt to retain and then regain premier league status.
It has taken seven years, a number of coaches and a brand new management team to restore this ethos. I agree that after promotion from League 1 they went for quantity over quality and it looks like Rotherham are repeating this. The clear benefit of a network will be in the January window when permanent transfers can be expensive. Clearly the biggest benefit to the network will be for CAFC to attain promotion to the Premier League. For the revenues and the shop window for Reza and the like. If (and it's a big if) Duchatelet completes the five replacements with quality then we are taking a step closer. There are many things we don't know right now but the direction of travel feels right and we might be just a couple of years from a really good squad. I don't worry too much about the network because it operates at the fringes, I.e., a couple of players in or out. How many star players from any of the six clubs have been "stolen" from the fans and gifted to Luzon for that is what you imply.
On the other hand the arrival of Duchatelet makes things happen... Need a new pitch... Go out to tender... Ground looks scruffy then tidy it up. Catering a mess? Outsource it etc etc.
I think the flaw with this logic is that I don't think these players are going to be good enough to shine in the Premier League, so they will be unlikely to attract interest from clubs that have serious money to spend.
@Airman Brown perhaps in your rush to get a dig in that you have failed to read my post correctly. I have quite clearly stated five out and five in, two of which were announced recently. The rest of the squad are the same as last season so I think that with the exception of Jackson (!) they improve with age.
Sure CAFC were a model club in the 90s in terms of attendance growth and the academy generating talent, some of which was sold to fund expansion. But the the club threw all all of this prudent management out of the window post Curbishley in an attempt to retain and then regain premier league status.
It has taken seven years, a number of coaches and a brand new management team to restore this ethos. I agree that after promotion from League 1 they went for quantity over quality and it looks like Rotherham are repeating this. The clear benefit of a network will be in the January window when permanent transfers can be expensive. Clearly the biggest benefit to the network will be for CAFC to attain promotion to the Premier League. For the revenues and the shop window for Reza and the like. If (and it's a big if) Duchatelet completes the five replacements with quality then we are taking a step closer. There are many things we don't know right now but the direction of travel feels right and we might be just a couple of years from a really good squad. I don't worry too much about the network because it operates at the fringes, I.e., a couple of players in or out. How many star players from any of the six clubs have been "stolen" from the fans and gifted to Luzon for that is what you imply.
On the other hand the arrival of Duchatelet makes things happen... Need a new pitch... Go out to tender... Ground looks scruffy then tidy it up. Catering a mess? Outsource it etc etc.
This is all guff though. All you are really saying is that we haven't had any money to spend for seven years, because of the decisions made in 2006. TJ/MS didn't go for quantity per se, they went for cheap. In any event, the reason the club was forced to try to get back in the PL as soon as possible is because a) we had the parachute payments for two years only and 2) we were bound to lose ticket/commercial revenue over time as the prospect of returning became more remote. It wasn't prudent to revert to long-term planning in 2007-09, because there was a short-term imperative to get promoted. In any event, Pardew was too powerful within the club for it to happen. The key decision was one that wasn't made, i.e. to remove him in the summer of 2008. But by then the board was at war with itself, Waggott had been appointed and all the wheels had fallen off.
TJ had a similar strategy to the one you set out, including the academy, but no resources to implement it and nothing else to bring to the table.
The catering has been out-sourced before and part of the reason it was brought in-house was the same volume of complaints. The other reason was that it made financial sense. As a supporter I rarely use it, but some of the problems - not all of them by any means - arise from the design of the units. Those are quite hard to overcome without significant investment.
If you look at retail, the outsourcing of that has been worth about £150k a year to the club, against a likely zero contribution before. It's better than losing money, but it's a long way sort of contributing at the levels of other Championship clubs. I am not sure that it has been transformed in terms of how fans perceive it, but perhaps others disagree?
Two years of parachute money plus sale proceeds Darren Bent all spent on trying to buy a return to the premier league with no plan B and the near destruction of CAFC. We know all that. TJ/MS did not have the money to top up the squad but there was one other resource missing - time! Losing less money buys time...academy players getting older and better takes time...rebuilding a rapport with fans and positive messaging takes time.
Going back to the subject of the thread Duchatelet has flicked the whole CAFC squad equation around thanks to the his decisions and the CAFC he bought. Instead of a team of journeymen with academy players coming through we now have an academy team supported by a handful of loans and acquisitions - "made in Charlton" as José Riga said. Big difference to the cost base and future transfers in and out. And if the core squad becomes good enough then not too expensive to push for the top six?!
Comments
We may be weak on your scale of measurement but if three sides prove to be weaker, we will have been shown to be strong enough.
Of course, the salient question is, are we strong enough yet? I think all of here would say we are not, so then we have to hope the relevant transfer targets are landed to get us to the position in the league we want to achieve without placing us in financial peril. How strong that is compared to last year and how strong that is in absolute terms are both irrelevant.
One centre back, no back up goalie and three midfielders means the squad is weak - whatever way you look at it.
However, we all seem to agree that we aren't strong enough, so shall we leave it at that?
Look - I disagree with both you and Henry. We should be building a strong squad regardless of our rivals.
Making sure we just have a stronger squad than the relegation candidates is a race to the bottom.
I know what you're both driving at - that a weak squad doesn't necessarily mean relegation.
But a squad as lightweight as ours is now will spell trouble.
I'm sure there are signings in the pipeline. Let's see where we are when the full and loan windows close.
That wasn't what I was saying
Yes, we should be building a strong squad. My point was that the measure of how strong or weak that squad is shouldn't be last years squad as we'll never play them.
The measure is the other 23 squads in the division.
She was quoted as saying that she "hoped we'd do most of our business before the end of June"
big difference
Surely the biggest variables will be:
1) The calibre of new players (signed and from the academy) compared to those departed
2) the improvement through age and experience of the retained elements of last year's squad and
3) how they are managed and how the team gels
These factors will make far more difference to our prospects than the spending of our competitors.
As posted on here before, without seeing players arriving from Europe I would go by eye witness accounts and transfermarkt valuations. I think it fair to assume that a player valued at £2m will make a greater contribution than one at say £500k - there will be exceptions of course but just a simple assertion while we wait for the season to kick off.
Gomez isn't out of contract (has another year as an u18) but is now old enough to sign a pro contract. Archie Edwards said on Twitter that signed his first pro deal. Perhaps that's not been announced yet as he's not 17 for another week or so. Presumably Gomez will have also been offered one, but he would necessarily mention it on Twitter, or even agreed to it.
Not seen Muldoon mentioned at all, but last year there was no mention of Cousins, Fox and others having contracts extended (but it wasn't clear if they were out of contract, so maybe they weren't).
The bottom eight or ten clubs have squads worth £14M or less whereas the top clubs' squads are worth double that. Therefore I don't think the difference between a £400K or £600K valuation is worth discussing. The simple fact is that CAFC squad was full of players worth either £200K or £500K. Higher than the three relegated clubs but not by much. As stated above "I think it fair to assume that a player valued at £2m will make a greater contribution than one at say £500k" - from your tone it appears you disagree?
Let's see the value of any more additions to the squad and then, more importantly see how they play as a team - if my theory is right and Peeters gets it right then we should play Brentford off the park in August!
What cannot be argued is that Duchatelet has shifted the age profile of the squad virtually overnight with more and more Academy players being played and all players over 25 except Morrison and Jackson leaving because they were released or not offered what they considered a competive contract.
Transfermarkt might be wrong about Buyens and Vetokele but I sincerely hope it is a small error. It appears that Duchatelet is bringing in high value young players worth three times what we saw arrive in January. If this works on the pitch then Charlton has a very bright future as its trading losses will shrink and might even be covered by player sales?
There is nothing remarkable about a strategy of favouring players with resale value. It was something Charlton talked about and tried to follow during the 2000s and it's a sensible aspiration. Getting the mixture of youth and experience right, however, requires more than statistical analysis - even when it's based on performance rather than third-party valuations. Wigan and Derby will be more meaningful tests of that than promoted Brentford, but until we sign more players and we see who they are it's premature to even begin to predict outcomes.
Agreed there is nothing new about trying to bring the kids through. The difference is CAFC aren't just talking about it they're doing it!
I see you sneak in a little scaremongering about Charlton's best players going to Liege - but that cannot be evidence based as there is none?
Reducing costs on and off the pitch makes sense as long as the team retains and improves competiveness. Running the club as part of a network enables the club to run with a smaller squad. Last season's "mix of youth and experience" was interesting given the number of 30 something players who played a handful of games between them. Ffs we had 37 players on the books!
As I have posted before, CAFC losses are on a downwards trend and ahead of the FFP curve. This can only assist long term sustainability and competiveness. On a separate but connected note I see the Lallana move has been delayed - unless the deal was executed by end June then Bournemouth are due to be excluded from registering players as of 1 January 2015. They might expect to secure a £5-6m sell on bonus which would be enough to make them compliant but it comes too late for last season. The point is that they outbid us for Kermorgant by breaking the rules. Long term we win by standing firm and staying up.
You'll have to take up what the club did in the past with Richard Murray. I'm sure he'd be surprised to learn that the club didn't actually focus on signing young players with potential - Darren Bent being a particularly good example and Danny Mills being an earlier one. The important difference is that the club didn't only do that, because it wasn't a practical option if we wanted to compete. You don't know if it will work this time and neither do I. Clearly the squad needs experience as well as talent. This comes at a price. RD clearly thinks he can beat the system. So did TJ, but RD can afford to try and fail.
The reason the club was "overstocked" with mediocre players was under-investment in 2012 and 2013. Had suitable replacements been acquired then some of them could have been moved on, because they wouldn't have been needed as back-up. Your argument that the network allows us to run with a smaller squad implies that players will flow both ways - which is precisely why Vetokele (or someone like him) going to Liege is a reasonable hypothesis, even if Duchatelet hadn't explicitly referred to this. which he did. In effect, he will see it as a pool of players for him to move around. We may get benefits, we may lose out.
In short, I agree it is not necessarily a zero-sum game. The network may add to the overall benefits, but if it does the distribution of them will depend on RD's priorities. The argument that this should be Charlton is based on PL revenues, but he may not be willing to make the net investment to get there. The idea itself may be of more interest to him. He may not see the success of the individual clubs as the primary objective. Equally, the attempt to maximise the benefits across clubs - in effect the experiment itself - may fail because it doesn't allow for other factors. There are too many things we just don't know.
Sure CAFC were a model club in the 90s in terms of attendance growth and the academy generating talent, some of which was sold to fund expansion. But the the club threw all all of this prudent management out of the window post Curbishley in an attempt to retain and then regain premier league status.
It has taken seven years, a number of coaches and a brand new management team to restore this ethos. I agree that after promotion from League 1 they went for quantity over quality and it looks like Rotherham are repeating this. The clear benefit of a network will be in the January window when permanent transfers can be expensive. Clearly the biggest benefit to the network will be for CAFC to attain promotion to the Premier League. For the revenues and the shop window for Reza and the like. If (and it's a big if) Duchatelet completes the five replacements with quality then we are taking a step closer.
There are many things we don't know right now but the direction of travel feels right and we might be just a couple of years from a really good squad.
I don't worry too much about the network because it operates at the fringes, I.e., a couple of players in or out. How many star players from any of the six clubs have been "stolen" from the fans and gifted to Luzon for that is what you imply.
On the other hand the arrival of Duchatelet makes things happen... Need a new pitch... Go out to tender... Ground looks scruffy then tidy it up. Catering a mess? Outsource it etc etc.
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TJ had a similar strategy to the one you set out, including the academy, but no resources to implement it and nothing else to bring to the table.
The catering has been out-sourced before and part of the reason it was brought in-house was the same volume of complaints. The other reason was that it made financial sense. As a supporter I rarely use it, but some of the problems - not all of them by any means - arise from the design of the units. Those are quite hard to overcome without significant investment.
If you look at retail, the outsourcing of that has been worth about £150k a year to the club, against a likely zero contribution before. It's better than losing money, but it's a long way sort of contributing at the levels of other Championship clubs. I am not sure that it has been transformed in terms of how fans perceive it, but perhaps others disagree?
TJ/MS did not have the money to top up the squad but there was one other resource missing - time! Losing less money buys time...academy players getting older and better takes time...rebuilding a rapport with fans and positive messaging takes time.
Going back to the subject of the thread Duchatelet has flicked the whole CAFC squad equation around thanks to the his decisions and the CAFC he bought. Instead of a team of journeymen with academy players coming through we now have an academy team supported by a handful of loans and acquisitions - "made in Charlton" as José Riga said. Big difference to the cost base and future transfers in and out. And if the core squad becomes good enough then not too expensive to push for the top six?!