Charlton Owner, Thomas Sandgaard, sat down with the club's Fan Adviser, Lucy Bishop, last week to answer questions from supporters.
Supporters can watch the interview via this link https://www.cafc.co.uk/news/view/623dd82af029e/thomas-sandgaard-answers-questions-from-supporters
Comments
One of the most positive things is about 7 minutes in when TS says there might be a few out of contract players we’ll talk about extending. I’ll be concerned if we keep Matthews, Inniss, Pearce and Purrington, there’s a good case for releasing all four.
If we go beyond that signing up any of Matthews, Gunter, Inniss, Henderson etc then I agree. It would be a bad thing if he has said we’ve got a lot of out of contract players we’ll be offering new deals to.
He did seem to get annoyed with the £100m debt question
If our argument for ditching Inniss is his poor injury record then JFC has to go too.
We need an overhaul, maybe four of our current xi would walk into an autos team.
While i like Stockley and Washington, we are missing a goal scorer. Someone who will fire 20+ goals a season. I appreciate these players are at a premium. If we have one of the highest budgets in the league, why can't we attract one?
I don't want to be a doom and gloom merchant, but we have become a worse team under TS. I want to be proven wrong, i want this post to bite me on the arse, but i fear next season will be much like this. Poor recruitment, lacklustre performances and hope of the autos over by Christmas.
JFC has had two major injuries, other than that played plenty of games. Inniss on the other hand even when fully fit can’t play twice a week.
We’ll be letting so many go that there will no doubt be an overhaul, hard to see how we won’t need to make around 10 signings or close to it.
Agree we need a top striker, it’s a position where I’m sure we’ll be bringing someone in. I can’t see Burstow and Davison being here next season and it’s obvious getting a player of their level as back up isn’t enough.
With the budget we have, more time to bed in the new set up, Roddy gone and lessons learnt from this season I can’t see recruitment being as poor as last season. The question for me is will it be enough? That can come down to a few key signings, find our Yann or Taylor for example and it can lift the team up a level. Those players probably aren’t hard to identify but there will be a lot of competition to sign them. If Taylor had taken more money at Sunderland we probably wouldn’t have gone up that season. We were lucky that Yann was ignored and written off by others after struggling at Leicester.
He backtracked on what he said previously and said anyone can look it up.
We accrued £100M of debt in the 10 years prior to his takeover (or something like that for the pedantic).
Indeed if there are players we want to keep, it could be argued that we should have done it by now rather than waiting until late March
In terms of Purrington, he scored at Wembley when we got promoted a few years back and absolutely could contribute to a League One promotion winning side, even as a back up. We do need to look at the whole squad, not just our best eleven.
JFC can be kept around to see how he is in pre-season and make a judgement there.
We really should be doing better than the rest. Did people forget the season we've just had?
In terms of progression on the pitch, he separates the goal from the plan. So, laudable ambitions from Thomas (stable Premier League Club) but we will do that via improvements in infrastructure and individual coaching. Our future (and current?) U23s represent a significant part of that progression.
From the Fans' Forum notes, I discover that the buzzphrase he has introduced into the Club is 'Premier League ready'. I'm glad that we have a three-word mantra ... I mean, it works for Boris and Trump.
Others will critique the whole interview, I'm sure, but my overriding feeling has not changed. Sandgaard is well-intentioned, but naïve in football terms. His reluctance to delegate will prove (is proving) costly in financial terms and with regard to timescale. But he is picking up that tab and recognising that his ambitions will take longer to realise, so that's fine, isn't it?
I applaud him for his enthusiasm and single-mindedness, but I feel frustration at his inability to gather the perfect team around him (and that includes the power of the fanbase).
I hope that some of our representatives who communicate with him on a regular or infrequent basis can inspire sufficient confidence and that he can start to back off and listen to those around him who know the unique (sorry!) business of football much better than he does.
If Darren Pratley didn't score against Doncaster, we wouldn't even have been there. Should he have stayed.
Jonny Williams changed the game against Sunderland and now plays in League Two. Should he have stayed.
Come on, it's not a reason. If anything it highlights the lack of reason that we're having to go that far back to find one.
And it's dubious really, as to be genuinely PL ready you'd need to spend a fortune on the stadium which won't be happening imminently. Various elements aren't up to scratch, e.g. the dugouts and a lot of the media facilities.
Self-belief is one thing. Arrogance is another.
nothing much learnt there apart from the facts things really aren’t going to plan ….
A completely new squad with 20 signings would be an exciting summer but the gap isn’t so far that we need to do that.
Re Purrington, fine in a back four, but not a wingback. We can be fairly confident that Jackson will stick with 352, i'll go as far to say we will rely on loans for our wing backs.
In my opnion we should be building for the future and not relying on loans for positions we have struggled to fill. It's been a major flaw in our xi over the past two seasons.
Would we sign these players on a free?
Jason Pearce, CB who will be 35 next season, up-and-down form over the past few years, battler but legs declining and will continue to decline. Available, should we sign him?
Ben Purrington, solid 'steady eddy' left-back who struggles getting forward in the traditional 'wide play' sense. Should we sign him as a backup wing-back?
Adam Matthews, 30-year-old who hasn't really looked good since 19/20 and cost his team a good few goals this year. Questionable attitude. Again he is a full-back, should he be signed to play as a backup wing-back?
The likes of Matthews, Gunter, Pearce, Famewo, MacGillvary, Leko, Lee, Jaiyesimi, Aneke (I could go on) should be nowhere near next season's squad if we are serious about promotion.
In 2011/12 we had hardly any injuries, and a core of players most of which were nearly ever present. Powell could pick the same players game after game, including midweeks, whereas in recent years we've needed a big squad to cover players who physically can't cope with 2 games a week or have a history of injury problems.
A fit Ryan Inniss would be the first name on the teamsheet, but he's so rarely fit that he's sadly wasting a place in the squad
The problem is he is our best left back, our best left sided center back (in a 3) and our second best left wing back.
6 loans, Watson and Souare is 8 already. If we sign 10 new players and they are the same quantity as the 10 we signed last summer we won't go up with, or without, any of the current ones resigning.