I fear the final part of the season may be a struggle now, and momentum has been lost. All of our rivals have 'increased' their squads, look at Luton for arguments sake, and if they haven't increased numbers they have strengthened in the right areas. We let Ajose go out on loan, sell Grant, Igor is made of glass, RH-F is still learning his trade, Taylor out for 2 more games, Ward goes back to Forest is replaced by Williams, Purrington was needed as Page is still out and Maxwell replaced Steer. What did we do to strengthen up-front? We got Josh Parker from the Gills, who has hardly been tearing up trees. I hope he does well, because he will need to hit the ground running tomorrow, with Taylor still out for 2 more games. To me RD has now shown his hand yet again, best thing he SHOULD do now is sell and go, not keep saying he is going to and nothing happens. Also gotta say if we had put all our hopes in getting Mo Eisa, we should have had a Plan B and a Plan C, it seems we skipped both of those completely. Very disappointed in the outcome, but then why am I surprised after all its RD. I hope to be proved so wrong, but I fear we may struggle to keep up now, especially if Taylor gets two more yellows, he will be suspended again!! What a joke of an owner.
We brought in Williams , Purrington, Maxwell and Parker, Three of which we know strengthened the squad. . Losing Grant was shit. But we have strong defence, a strong attacking midfield and a striker who will score more then 20 goals this season, midfield needs to step up.. Cullens set pieces will get us more goals as he finds form . Charlton supporters seem to revel in a disaster this is not one. Get behind Lee Bowyers team , il be shouting my head off at Fleetwood as usual. We are in a strong position and need to keep up the momentum COYR.,
The problem is that how much will Bowyer and Gallen take? He’s already worked wonders with just loans, he’s now had his top scorer flogged and replaced with a winger that not even Gillingham fans rate. No it’s not a ‘disaster’ but if we lose the best thing that’s happened to this club in ages, along with a mass exodus of players in the summer, then it’ll be a lot more than that.
I fear the final part of the season may be a struggle now, and momentum has been lost. All of our rivals have 'increased' their squads, look at Luton for arguments sake, and if they haven't increased numbers they have strengthened in the right areas. We let Ajose go out on loan, sell Grant, Igor is made of glass, RH-F is still learning his trade, Taylor out for 2 more games, Ward goes back to Forest is replaced by Williams, Purrington was needed as Page is still out and Maxwell replaced Steer. What did we do to strengthen up-front? We got Josh Parker from the Gills, who has hardly been tearing up trees. I hope he does well, because he will need to hit the ground running tomorrow, with Taylor still out for 2 more games. To me RD has now shown his hand yet again, best thing he SHOULD do now is sell and go, not keep saying he is going to and nothing happens. Also gotta say if we had put all our hopes in getting Mo Eisa, we should have had a Plan B and a Plan C, it seems we skipped both of those completely. Very disappointed in the outcome, but then why am I surprised after all its RD. I hope to be proved so wrong, but I fear we may struggle to keep up now, especially if Taylor gets two more yellows, he will be suspended again!! What a joke of an owner.
What Luton have done is raise a red flag. They’ve been firing on all cylinders so it doesn’t make sense to bring that many players in at the last minute. They must have a problem that’s about to break.
And let’s be honest, Ajose isn’t the answer, if Grant wanted to go then he was going to go whatever was in his contract and after last week’s penalty I wasn’t that bothered to see him go. We’ve got a solid squad with strength in all positions and this season we only bring in players that add something extra. I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
As much as this hasn't been great, we've still kept most of a pretty good squad together. Evidently we are now totally reliant on Taylor for goals, but it's up to Williams, Reeves, Fosu etc to start chipping in with a few. If we keep Bauer, Taylor, Cullen fit, I still think we have a good chance of winning most of our games.
With 11 points from 5 games, January should have been the month where a serious promotion push gathered momentum; instead, it will now be remembered as the time that we hit the buffers.
We’ve replaced Ajose in the squad with a journeyman winger who has scored 34 goals in 10 years by taking over the remaining 5 months of his (doubtless modest) contract - technically a “permanent” but, in reality, equivalent to a short term loan, however some people might try to dress it up.
As to Karlan Grant, we were never realistically going to replace his goals and what he brought to the team but the budget given to Bowyer and Gallen for wages and any loan fee doubtless severely reduced their room for manoeuvre. As Bowyer said in the ‘Parker’ interview last night, “We’re trying, but it’s hard....We have a budget”. When he talked about the prospective loanee’s parent club “not being able to get what they want”, I wouldn't’ assume that they were necessarily talking about an incoming transfer; it’s just as likely to be the percentage of any loanee’s wages paid by Charlton.
The net result of all this is that we have ended up with no replacement for Karlan and have gone from having the best pair of strikers in the division to a disproportionate reliance upon Lyle Taylor. He is going to miss at least two, and probably more, of the last 16 games through suspension and we’d better pray that he avoids injury.
It is all so crushingly predictable and, as Lee Bowyer says, “difficult to take”. I would also not underestimate the impact on team morale - Duchatelet’s approach can surely only harden the resolve of players like Aribo, Fosu and others to exit in the summer.
The team may well still make the play-offs but I fear that it will be a similar story to last year. A failure to win promotion will see the break up of this very promising team and all the good work of Bowyer, Jacko and Gallen squandered. The work that Bowyer and Jacko have done under incredibly difficult conditions has not gone unnoticed in the football world and, faced with a total rebuilding job under this utterly hopeless owner, I would not be surprised if they explored other options.
I’m astounded by the naivety and delusion shown on this forum by some posters (not just this thread). What I’ve read this week:
Grant isn’t a penalty taker (after missing his first). Referring to him being sold: We’ll just get another striker. Players come and players go, get over it. He misses loads of chances anyway.
The transfer window: How on earth are some on here so shocked that we offloaded several players and brought in a nobody ? It happens every January. Many are taken in by the press leaks at the end of December regarding an impending takeover. Why ? How ? It’s as regular as NYE. This time around RD used his new friend, Jim White, as his media outlet. Yet still there are fans who can’t see that it’s his excuse not to invest in the transfer window.
Grant may have missed chances but he was a 14 goal striker in January. More importantly, we had a strike partnership - gold dust in football, in SE7 anyway. Yet people on here merely say, we’ll just sign another forward. That easy eh ? He’ll just fit in and click with Taylor, will he ?
Roland is a cnut but I wish people would wake up and realise that in SE7, January is one long month of Groundhog.
Sorry, Bowyer and Gallen have to take some responsibility. To put all their efforts into getting just one striker after already releasing players was naive. It was obvious after the Peterborough game we needed another striker, even an average one. A week later we’ve lost Grant and not replaced him let alone added another. We have an owner who won’t invest in the team anymore because of his cronies making catastrophic player recruitment decisions in the past. We’re still an unbalanced squad because of those decisions. What a disaster Vetokele has been, out of form, always injured, expensive and on a ludicrously long contract. Bowyer must look at him everyday and think what I could get with his wages. But despite our desperate plight with the owner Bowyer and Gallen should have done better in this window. They had the money for wages sitting there ready to go. Unfortunately those wages are still sitting there this morning and the team is considerably weaker than it was a week ago considering how our rivals all strengthened up front.
Only formation we’ve got the players to do is Robbo’s or 4-3-3 now. Roland please just have a cardiac already.
We’ll stick with the diamond with Igor or Parker in Grant’s place. We don’t have enough wide players to regularly play with wingers.
I was more looking overall not just this weekend. If we play 4231 or 433 we have two for every position.
I’m just trying to be positive to be fair.
That’s also the case for the 442 diamond. Can’t see Bowyer switching to a 1 striker formation, just isn’t his preference and I think we’re better for it.
its just bollocks really lets not pretend, no one can defend Roland his a , end of. the bloke asset strips, pockets the clash then inflates the price of his core product, us. his the biggest prick of a businessman ive ever come across. but until someone rescues us from this shithole situ this is what we have.
I for one will still be standing in the covered end signing my heart out hoping josh parker outperforms and fights with the heart of a lion like his boxing namesake. the only signing that can help out end goal of promotion is us, the fans. he, that prick we all hate, may not have invested as we'd hoped, in all seriousness we were foolish to think it would happen this time.
im gutted i really am, but it is what it is until that bastard either dies or sells.
If you had a house for sale you wouldn't rip our the fitted kitchen and put in an old fridge and camping stove and put a porta-potti in the bathroom and expect buyers to offer the same price.....would you? Business acumen is a strange concept I clearly know feck all about, bur tight arse does! Doesn't he???
We brought in Williams , Purrington, Maxwell and Parker, Three of which we know strengthened the squad. . Losing Grant was shit. But we have strong defence, a strong attacking midfield and a striker who will score more then 20 goals this season, midfield needs to step up.. Cullens set pieces will get us more goals as he finds form . Charlton supporters seem to revel in a disaster this is not one. Get behind Lee Bowyers team , il be shouting my head off at Fleetwood as usual. We are in a strong position and need to keep up the momentum COYR.,
The problem is that how much will Bowyer and Gallen take? He’s already worked wonders with just loans, he’s now had his top scorer flogged and replaced with a winger that not even Gillingham fans rate. No it’s not a ‘disaster’ but if we lose the best thing that’s happened to this club in ages, along with a mass exodus of players in the summer, then it’ll be a lot more than that.
That’s the bigger issue
The money for grant being used to fund a % of the loss although not how anyone would want the club to be run is understandable when you have a c@@t of an owner who is punishing the fan base for embarrassment caused , because he is rich enough for this to have little to no finiancial impact on him , if you think that this has nothing to do with vindictive spite then you’d be wrong
However the gamble by bowyer etc is lose grant Ajose and Clarke
One on fire
One not playing or looking like playing
One injured
Get in Williams Get in the goalie Get in the full back Then just for back up get in the Parker
Keeping
Taylor Bauer Pearce Cullen Solly Aribo
Was far more important and if the sacrifice was grant and Clarke then so be it
Bowyer also knows the realism of being a third division club with a tight fisted c u next tues of an owner
If you have the ability to make one loan you are a bit buggered. Probably a rule of thumb should be, if he isn't yours a day before deadline day, move on to plan B. This isn't the first time we have lost players in this way - in fact it happens in virtually every winter window to us doesn't it?
I think if Bent is available he might be worth a look. I can't see there is much to lose.
We brought in Williams , Purrington, Maxwell and Parker, Three of which we know strengthened the squad.
Do we know? Williams maybe, but have any of the other 3 have strengthened? I think Steer, Grant and Page were all stronger in their respective positions. Unlikely that any of them will be here beyond June so its a bit like putting sellotape on your broken glasses and saying they've been strengthened
There has been a lot of people talking about "if only Bowyer had gotten some of the Grant money." I've said this before, I don't think there is a 100-200k League One striker who makes us better. To get a good forward in, especially given teams know we just sold Karlan, I suspect it would have been in more of the 500+k range. And I don't even think there are many of those, I just think it's a very limited set of player.
So that leaves us with an out of favor championship loan, which it seems like what we were after. And I think that makes sense on a lot of levels. The problem is, with both Ajose and Grant, you need to get replacements in before you sell. It's apparently what Bristol City wanted to do, and why we couldn't get Mo Eisa in.
I don't know that there is much we could have done to keep Karlan this month, the mistake was made not tying him down to a longer contract. But even if he was destined to go, we should have had a deal done to replace him. It's just so frustrating.
Comments
To me RD has now shown his hand yet again, best thing he SHOULD do now is sell and go, not keep saying he is going to and nothing happens.
Also gotta say if we had put all our hopes in getting Mo Eisa, we should have had a Plan B and a Plan C, it seems we skipped both of those completely.
Very disappointed in the outcome, but then why am I surprised after all its RD. I hope to be proved so wrong, but I fear we may struggle to keep up now, especially if Taylor gets two more yellows, he will be suspended again!! What a joke of an owner.
And let’s be honest, Ajose isn’t the answer, if Grant wanted to go then he was going to go whatever was in his contract and after last week’s penalty I wasn’t that bothered to see him go. We’ve got a solid squad with strength in all positions and this season we only bring in players that add something extra. I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
We’ve replaced Ajose in the squad with a journeyman winger who has scored 34 goals in 10 years by taking over the remaining 5 months of his (doubtless modest) contract - technically a “permanent” but, in reality, equivalent to a short term loan, however some people might try to dress it up.
As to Karlan Grant, we were never realistically going to replace his goals and what he brought to the team but the budget given to Bowyer and Gallen for wages and any loan fee doubtless severely reduced their room for manoeuvre. As Bowyer said in the ‘Parker’ interview last night, “We’re trying, but it’s hard....We have a budget”. When he talked about the prospective loanee’s parent club “not being able to get what they want”, I wouldn't’ assume that they were necessarily talking about an incoming transfer; it’s just as likely to be the percentage of any loanee’s wages paid by Charlton.
The net result of all this is that we have ended up with no replacement for Karlan and have gone from having the best pair of strikers in the division to a disproportionate reliance upon Lyle Taylor. He is going to miss at least two, and probably more, of the last 16 games through suspension and we’d better pray that he avoids injury.
It is all so crushingly predictable and, as Lee Bowyer says, “difficult to take”. I would also not underestimate the impact on team morale - Duchatelet’s approach can surely only harden the resolve of players like Aribo, Fosu and others to exit in the summer.
The team may well still make the play-offs but I fear that it will be a similar story to last year. A failure to win promotion will see the break up of this very promising team and all the good work of Bowyer, Jacko and Gallen squandered. The work that Bowyer and Jacko have done under incredibly difficult conditions has not gone unnoticed in the football world and, faced with a total rebuilding job under this utterly hopeless owner, I would not be surprised if they explored other options.
What then Roland ?
Why are we the only club who gets rid of players before having the replacement in.
Then we get done over on that exact premise - the other club never got their player in
I’m just trying to be positive to be fair.
What I’ve read this week:
Grant isn’t a penalty taker (after missing his first).
Referring to him being sold:
We’ll just get another striker.
Players come and players go, get over it.
He misses loads of chances anyway.
The transfer window:
How on earth are some on here so shocked that we offloaded several players and brought in a nobody ? It happens every January.
Many are taken in by the press leaks at the end of December regarding an impending takeover. Why ? How ? It’s as regular as NYE. This time around RD used his new friend, Jim White, as his media outlet.
Yet still there are fans who can’t see that it’s his excuse not to invest in the transfer window.
Grant may have missed chances but he was a 14 goal striker in January. More importantly, we had a strike partnership - gold dust in football, in SE7 anyway. Yet people on here merely say, we’ll just sign another forward. That easy eh ? He’ll just fit in and click with Taylor, will he ?
Roland is a cnut but I wish people would wake up and realise that in SE7, January is one long month of Groundhog.
I for one will still be standing in the covered end signing my heart out hoping josh parker outperforms and fights with the heart of a lion like his boxing namesake. the only signing that can help out end goal of promotion is us, the fans. he, that prick we all hate, may not have invested as we'd hoped, in all seriousness we were foolish to think it would happen this time.
im gutted i really am, but it is what it is until that bastard either dies or sells.
The money for grant being used to fund a % of the loss although not how anyone would want the club to be run is understandable when you have a c@@t of an owner who is punishing the fan base for embarrassment caused , because he is rich enough for this to have little to no finiancial impact on him , if you think that this has nothing to do with vindictive spite then you’d be wrong
However the gamble by bowyer etc is lose grant Ajose and Clarke
One on fire
One not playing or looking like playing
One injured
Get in Williams
Get in the goalie
Get in the full back
Then just for back up get in the Parker
Keeping
Taylor
Bauer
Pearce
Cullen
Solly
Aribo
Was far more important and if the sacrifice was grant and Clarke then so be it
Bowyer also knows the realism of being a third division club with a tight fisted c u next tues of an owner
I think if Bent is available he might be worth a look. I can't see there is much to lose.
Williams maybe, but have any of the other 3 have strengthened?
I think Steer, Grant and Page were all stronger in their respective positions.
Unlikely that any of them will be here beyond June so its a bit like putting sellotape on your broken glasses and saying they've been strengthened
So that leaves us with an out of favor championship loan, which it seems like what we were after. And I think that makes sense on a lot of levels. The problem is, with both Ajose and Grant, you need to get replacements in before you sell. It's apparently what Bristol City wanted to do, and why we couldn't get Mo Eisa in.
I don't know that there is much we could have done to keep Karlan this month, the mistake was made not tying him down to a longer contract. But even if he was destined to go, we should have had a deal done to replace him. It's just so frustrating.