Jorge Costa by a distance. Honourable mention for Alan McDonald who we tried to sign. Doubt many of you remember him. Also Kernaghan from Middlesborough.
Jorge Costa by a distance. Honourable mention for Alan McDonald who we tried to sign. Doubt many of you remember him. Also Kernaghan from Middlesborough.
I forgot Jeppson. Not sure he was on loan though as he was still an amateur and maybe a free agent. He came over here to work for a short time. Signed a professional contract in Italy and pocketed a massive sum at the time.
Best - Cullen. Two whole seasons at the top of his game. worst - too many to mention but most frustrating was Antti Niemi. A good keeper and linked with us for what seemed like years. When we finally signed him on loan he never played 🤷🏻♂️
Incidentally, I imagine most clubs list of worst players, trumps their best.
God we've had some bad loans. Rhys Williams, Eggert Jonsson and Danny Seaborne will always stand out at being particularly terrible but I also tend to judge loan signings through context. Was there anyone better available and were we able to afford to get them in? With those two they were dreadful but we were also operating on absolutely no money and they were brought in in desperation to cover gaps.
The one who always stands out for me as an absolute disgrace of a terrible footballer is Martin Cranie. God he was awful. He was part of that season where we finished bottom of the Championship despite being in the Premier League two seasons before and he was absolutely dreadful. Too slow and ponderous to be a right back, too small and weak to be a centre half, I have absolutely no idea how he continues to steal a living at this level. I also always hated Greg Halford. He probably wasn't the worst we've ever had but he was a ridiculous footballer. He took the throws, took the free kicks, got sent off, scored goals, made assists, scored own goals, you name it, Greg Halford tried it and did it in the weirdest way possible. He was big, he could definitely run but no-one knew where to play him and he didn't know what to do with his limbs. I think I hated him mostly because we got him for six months as part of the deal that took Andy Reid to Sunderland, which just felt like insult to injury.
Oh, and Fredrik Ulvestad. Started off looking like a bit of a player and then progressively got worse every game until he was behind Kevin Foley and couldn't get in the squad for matches against Fleetwood. We Charltonised him so quickly
Best: Scott Carson | Alex Song | Zhi Zheng | Josh Cullen | Krystian Bielik | Yoni Buyens | Conor Gallagher | Sam Field | Nathan Byrne | Jay Dasilva | Francis Coquelin
Worst: Matt Smith | David Davis | Joe Dodoo | Sullay Kaikai | Conor McAleny | Anil Koc | Marcus Tudgay | Davide Petrucci | Yohann Thuram | Eggert Jonsson | Abdul Razak | Franck Nouble | Gary Borrowdale | Danny Butterfield | Danny Mills | Rhys Williams
I honestly believe that from our first season in the Championship (after being relegated from the Premier League) until the season when Chris Powell came in, all our loan players were just awful, plain awful that made fans wince whenever we signed a loan player because we instantly knew they were going to be a crock of shite - Under Roland and the network we actually got some good loans in like Buyens and Bulot but under Robinson (less so) and Bowyer the use of the loan market really has been used to our benefit, similar to a way that got Huddersfield promoted to the Premier League where you're not just filling the loan slots for the sake of it but because the players can make an actual difference
There are a good few players I've left out like Tresor Kandol | Akpo Sodje etc. because I dont think they were poor loans, yet just poor players in general
Same with the likes of Stephy Mavididi or Zyro, neither were bad loan signings as both made contributions when they were here... They just weren't outstanding either
God we've had some bad loans. Rhys Williams, Eggert Jonsson and Danny Seaborne will always stand out at being particularly terrible but I also tend to judge loan signings through context. Was there anyone better available and were we able to afford to get them in? With those two they were dreadful but we were also operating on absolutely no money and they were brought in in desperation to cover gaps.
The one who always stands out for me as an absolute disgrace of a terrible footballer is Martin Cranie. God he was awful. He was part of that season where we finished bottom of the Championship despite being in the Premier League two seasons before and he was absolutely dreadful. Too slow and ponderous to be a right back, too small and weak to be a centre half, I have absolutely no idea how he continues to steal a living at this level. I also always hated Greg Halford. He probably wasn't the worst we've ever had but he was a ridiculous footballer. He took the throws, took the free kicks, got sent off, scored goals, made assists, scored own goals, you name it, Greg Halford tried it and did it in the weirdest way possible. He was big, he could definitely run but no-one knew where to play him and he didn't know what to do with his limbs. I think I hated him mostly because we got him for six months as part of the deal that took Andy Reid to Sunderland, which just felt like insult to injury.
Oh, and Fredrik Ulvestad. Started off looking like a bit of a player and then progressively got worse every game until he was behind Kevin Foley and couldn't get in the squad for matches against Fleetwood. We Charltonised him so quickly
But then both Cranie and Halford both went on to have very good careers as Championship regulars. We might not have seen the best of them, but for the majority of their careers they've played at a higher level than we've been playing at...
God we've had some bad loans. Rhys Williams, Eggert Jonsson and Danny Seaborne will always stand out at being particularly terrible but I also tend to judge loan signings through context. Was there anyone better available and were we able to afford to get them in? With those two they were dreadful but we were also operating on absolutely no money and they were brought in in desperation to cover gaps.
The one who always stands out for me as an absolute disgrace of a terrible footballer is Martin Cranie. God he was awful. He was part of that season where we finished bottom of the Championship despite being in the Premier League two seasons before and he was absolutely dreadful. Too slow and ponderous to be a right back, too small and weak to be a centre half, I have absolutely no idea how he continues to steal a living at this level. I also always hated Greg Halford. He probably wasn't the worst we've ever had but he was a ridiculous footballer. He took the throws, took the free kicks, got sent off, scored goals, made assists, scored own goals, you name it, Greg Halford tried it and did it in the weirdest way possible. He was big, he could definitely run but no-one knew where to play him and he didn't know what to do with his limbs. I think I hated him mostly because we got him for six months as part of the deal that took Andy Reid to Sunderland, which just felt like insult to injury.
Oh, and Fredrik Ulvestad. Started off looking like a bit of a player and then progressively got worse every game until he was behind Kevin Foley and couldn't get in the squad for matches against Fleetwood. We Charltonised him so quickly
But then both Cranie and Halford both went on to have very good careers as Championship regulars. We might not have seen the best of them, but for the majority of their careers they've played at a higher level than we've been playing at...
I think that makes it worse in many ways. I interpret bad loans slightly differently to a lot on here; for me it's not the worst player, it's the one who does the most damage as part of your squad. Pouso might have been terrible for 45 minutes but that's all the harm he did. Borrowdale wasn't a very good player but we had no other left backs and he came in and shored up our defence to the best of his ability, which wasn't a lot but it was enough. Cranie however played 19 games for Charlton and I would say was rubbish in every single one. If he wasn't sliding the ball into his own net he was getting done for pace down the flank or getting out-muscled by his man. We ended up bottom of the league that season and he got progressively worse as it went on. We won two of the games he played in, and one of those was in spite of him scoring an own goal! He got hauled off at half-time two games in a row. He wasn't the only person to blame but my god he was a big part of the problem. I'm personally mystified that he's managed to carve out a career in the Championship, but while he has it's always been part of teams that aren't quite good enough. He signed for Coventry but got relegated with them, then moved to Barnsley where he was apparently well thought of but still got relegated again. He then moved to Huddersfield where he was used when they were struggling, and then was dropped for better players when they became quite good. He was a bit-part player from there and now is at Luton where, fingers crossed for our sake, he might be relegated from the Championship again. He's a defender you want to have in your team if you fancy getting relegated, and one that you can tolerate having in your squad as long as you don't actually need him to be an important part of your team. Well done to him for surviving at this level for so long but I'm not really sure how he's managed it. I will always remember him as a shining example of Alan Pardew's approach to taking a club that should have been able to return to the Premier League and populating it with players who would have looked ordinary in League One.
Best: Scott Carson | Alex Song | Zhi Zheng | Josh Cullen | Krystian Bielik | Yoni Buyens | Conor Gallagher | Sam Field | Nathan Byrne | Jay Dasilva | Francis Coquelin
Worst: Matt Smith | David Davis | Joe Dodoo | Sullay Kaikai | Conor McAleny | Anil Koc | Marcus Tudgay | Davide Petrucci | Yohann Thuram | Eggert Jonsson | Abdul Razak | Franck Nouble | Gary Borrowdale | Danny Butterfield | Danny Mills | Rhys Williams
I honestly believe that from our first season in the Championship (after being relegated from the Premier League) until the season when Chris Powell came in, all our loan players were just awful, plain awful that made fans wince whenever we signed a loan player because we instantly knew they were going to be a crock of shite - Under Roland and the network we actually got some good loans in like Buyens and Bulot but under Robinson (less so) and Bowyer the use of the loan market really has been used to our benefit, similar to a way that got Huddersfield promoted to the Premier League where you're not just filling the loan slots for the sake of it but because the players can make an actual difference
There are a good few players I've left out like Tresor Kandol | Akpo Sodje etc. because I dont think they were poor loans, yet just poor players in general
Same with the likes of Stephy Mavididi or Zyro, neither were bad loan signings as both made contributions when they were here... They just weren't outstanding either
No Jorge Costa?
I left some off as they'd been mentioned, although I also included some who'd been mentioned
But yeah he's definitely one of the best if not the best one - Used to love it when he had to run desperately back after a corner
Good to very good: Conor Gallagher, Josh Cullen, Neal Heaney, Shaun Bartlett, Jay Dasilva, Scott Carson, Krystian Belik, Jorge Costa. Alexei Smertin was good for us, so much so that Chelsea got the hump and pinched him off somewhere else out of spite, wankers. Fred Bulot and Yoni Buyens were the best of roly's gaggle of goons.
Worst: Conor McAleney is still the only professional footballer I have seen catch a ball on a pitch to take a quick throw but had not let it actually go off the pitch first so gave away a hand ball. For that one action alone he is the worst.
Saw Mark Robson do precisely that one Boxing Day at Southend where the touchline was so close to the stand there was barely room to stand off the pitch anyway - capped an awful afternoon when the comically bent referee gave him a straight red for doing so.
I'm gonna ignore most of the cast of roly's toxic pantomime that got dumped in SE7 but not Yohann Thuram - he was confirmation that whatever it was 🐀 was up to it had nothing to do with football at Charlton. In less fractious times: Danny Mills's return to the club was crap; Scott Sinclair was too immature and having the ponse as manager at the time couldn't have been worse; we should probably reappraise Marlon Sordell's time with us in light of what subsequently has been learned but on the pitch at the time it was poor.
Comments
Kept us in the top flight and scored a hat trick at Highbury.
Honourable mentions to:
John Hendry for scoring the winner v the scum.
Neil Heaney an unsung hero in 1998
Derek Hales came on loan originally. Scored a goal or two.
Worst?
Hard to look beyond Mike Small
Edit. Just remembered Alonso. A player so out of his depth he could barely run or pass the ball.
Ditto Lesley and Rhys Williams. Good players once who just weren't any more.
Honourable mention for Alan McDonald who we tried to sign. Doubt many of you remember him. Also Kernaghan from Middlesborough.
And does anyone remember Kenneth Wegner? Danish defender, trumpeted by Roger Alwen in an interview but did he actually ever join?
worst - too many to mention but most frustrating was Antti Niemi. A good keeper and linked with us for what seemed like years. When we finally signed him on loan he never played 🤷🏻♂️
Edit, having said that I don't recall him ever making the bench but I could be wrong.
Out of interest, who played in goal that day? I’m struggling to come up with anyone. Peterson maybe?
But yeah he's definitely one of the best if not the best one - Used to love it when he had to run desperately back after a corner
I doubt he cost us much dough
Athletico Charlton said: I'm gonna ignore most of the cast of roly's toxic pantomime that got dumped in SE7 but not Yohann Thuram - he was confirmation that whatever it was 🐀 was up to it had nothing to do with football at Charlton.
In less fractious times: Danny Mills's return to the club was crap; Scott Sinclair was too immature and having the ponse as manager at the time couldn't have been worse; we should probably reappraise Marlon Sordell's time with us in light of what subsequently has been learned but on the pitch at the time it was poor.