TS wants out, I’m convinced of that, not just because of today but because of the serious cost cutting going on that really does beggar belief. If any more cuts are made it will seriously affect our ability to function as a proper football club off the pitch.
we are getting asset stripped
That isn’t what I’m saying at all is it? I’m talking of cutting operating costs to the bare, bare bones. It started with the likes of Mumford etc but has worked its way down the pyramid. It shows with TS, MS and Raelynn running the show. It’s a family affair and soon it’ll be just them and a barely functioning skeleton staff, plus burger boy of course.
I don't agree with the comments from Gallen about only wanting players who will improve the team, as in the case of the centre back position in particular, we need an extra body. Obviously it would be great to sign a CB better than our current 3, but we don't NEED that, we just need someone who can play the position when we have injuries and suspensions, which will happen.
That 4th choice loan player only NEEDS to be better than Ness and Elewere.
Thought exactly the same as I was listening. I think that applies at CB and up top to be honest.
I don’t even think the CB needs to be better than Deji. It’s just better if he’s getting game time elsewhere and our 4th choice CB is just a reserve. Although with Inniss it’s probably better to pick up someone who is essentially a 3rd choice option.
I don't agree with the comments from Gallen about only wanting players who will improve the team, as in the case of the centre back position in particular, we need an extra body. Obviously it would be great to sign a CB better than our current 3, but we don't NEED that, we just need someone who can play the position when we have injuries and suspensions, which will happen.
That 4th choice loan player only NEEDS to be better than Ness and Elewere.
I've not seen the video but trying to get in a CB more mobile and better on the ball than Inniss and Lavelle is a laudable aim. I don't think either suit the system that well.
Ness has looked pretty good to me so far, and I know he's highly regarded. Deji looks like a potentially quite good but still raw defender. If you'd told me midway through the summer that the two of them would be co-fourth choice I wouldn't have been that bothered by it really.
I'm still more concerned at fullback. Clayden looks good going forward but still raw positionally. Chin looks promising. But I don't think either are as ready as Ness and Deji.
The CB situation would be okay if we looked deeper at other positions, namely fullback and striker. As it stands, I think we're 2-3 light.
We NEED a centre half and centre forward, even if just on loan.
Bonne was a loan.
The money pit is empty. We face facts. Time for TS to just face reality. I really do think until the last month, we've done ever so well but we cannot get out of this division without speculating to accumulating.
Our threadbare squad of youth players and regulars can't cut it over 46 games. Not because they aren't good enough but that they simply aren't equipped to make it over 9 months.
TS wants out, I’m convinced of that, not just because of today but because of the serious cost cutting going on that really does beggar belief. If any more cuts are made it will seriously affect our ability to function as a proper football club off the pitch.
we are getting asset stripped
No we're not.
I know people are disappointed, and rightly so, but we brought in a new manager and seven players who all seem like they could be good additions in this window. Did we come up short? Yes. But asset striping means selling off anything that can be sold. And we didn't sell, we bought.
We didn’t buy anyone (other than Garner and Marshall) but yeah asset stripping is way too far. We’ve kept hold of a few first team players we could get fees for and the likes of Leaburn/Henry.
Sorry I meant buy in the business sense, as in we're acquiring assets. Right we didn't buy anyone with a fee this summer. But we still have quite a few on the books who cost a fee, especially for this level (Aneke, Lavelle, Stockley, Clare, JFC though Pre-TS, Gilbey pre-TS and on loan, DJ, Kirk, Fraser).
When did the Transfer Window business judged by fans/pundits/media become the definition of a successful season rather than what is actually happening on the pitch? See social media fans celebrating what a great transfer window club has had..... After 5 games said team has 4 points
Good start to a season totally wasted by not adding just another couple of players.
Now watch Stockley or O'Connell get injured on Saturday, leaving us short of players where it's most needed.
And yes, I will laugh when this happens because we have all seen the writing on the wall but the club have done nothing to plug the gaps. You just can't help some people & Sandgaard will see on a weekly basis his "investment" reduce in value as our quest for promotion hits the buffers once again. He ain't getting out with a profit, just like RD. So he cuts costs to the extent that you wonder if he actually has a brain, let alone a business one.
Really seriously thinking about not going much more. Total waste of money.. I have a ST for this season but it may well be my last. Not just footballing reasons but all will become clearer in time.
The CB free agents market looks quite bleak. Guessing we'll end up with Thomas or the glorious return of a 35 year old Martin Crainie.
Gary Cahill and Michael Hector are available at the upper end of the market - would be interesting to see if we can tempt them for a year of thrills down at the valley if no one else wants them.
Been out all day and just catching up. No matter what way you try and spin it, we've fucked up. We're no way near promotion ready. We're undercooked. Disappointing.
As @Airman Brown pointed out weeks ago, only time would tell on Sandgaard - but I think the transfer window and our previous business in the market now tells you exactly what Sandgaard is doing, he wants to turn tap water into fine wine.
Nice idea Thomas, but I think you'll find that virtually every other Chairman in the country wants to do that but long ago realized that with the very, very rare exception, it doesn't work.
With the squad that he has been allowed Garner will be doing reasonably well to get us into the top ten, let alone the Play Offs.
Like most owners Sandgaard seems to have dreadfully underestimated the costs of running a club so now wants to put a complete cap on expenditure and hope - against all reality - that he can substantially increase revenues.
what a depressing read that was, I’ve been supportive on TS so far, but leaving us this short in two key positions is criminal and beyond forgiveness, it will come back to bite us on the arse.
As I’m not an absolute wrongun, I won’t be laughing when any professional athlete gets injured. Especially one of our own.
To be honest i'm not disappointed that we didn't sign Bonne, i'm disappointed that we knew we needed a striker all summer and we left it right up until deadline day and he was our only option.
The very fact that Sandgaard felt the need to put a statement out explaining it, tells me he also knows they've fucked up.
I’m honestly not sure it was ever part of the plan over the summer to sign a striker. Chuks’ injury and, possibly to a greater extent, the clamour from fans (because we know Sandgaard wants to be loved by the fans and he’s a bit of a weather-cock for public opinion) has changed the plan towards the end of the window. I hoped, but never believed, the budget was there for a transformational signing up front. Bonne wouldn’t have been the worst signing we ever made but I don’t think he’d have been a difference maker either. Is he really better than even a raw Leaburn? I’m not convinced either way. So if he was the best we could get for the money we could afford, then I’m not upset we’re saving the money for another time when maybe the market is more in our favour, or we can afford more than we can now.
I do think it was clear all summer long that a further centre back was needed and that could and should have been addressed much earlier. It doesn’t seem it was even really being addressed today. A decent free agent centre back might be easier to find though, I suppose. I hope it’s not because we spen too much budget on midfielders like. McGrandles looks a bit of an unneeded signing right now, even if he turns out to be decent.
I’ve also got a bit more faith in Stockley than some, but we do need to figure out how to get more out of him in this system.
I finally feel like we have a manager who can get us out of this division. All Sandgaard had to do was back him with a couple of signings today & we had a good chance.
What a Muppet!
I just hope that Garner hasn’t been badly affected by the lack of support he’s been given. Not wishing to stir the pot but managers have walked for less. At the very least I suspect he’s thinking……WTF is going on!
I finally feel like we have a manager who can get us out of this division. All Sandgaard had to do was back him with a couple of signings today & we had a good chance.
What a Muppet!
I just hope that Garner hasn’t been badly affected by the lack of support he’s been given. Not wishing to stir the pot but managers have walked for less. At the very least I suspect he’s thinking……WTF is going on!
Over dramatic to say Garner hasn’t been backed. He’d have liked a couple more, I’m sure, but he’s been given 7 new signings all of whom he wanted, as far as we can tell.
In the real world managers know they must work within the constraints of budget and player availability and I don’t sense he’s not an active part of the decision making on playing staff.
If he’s as good a coach as he’s made out to be he should be able to get a decent tune out of this squad.
To be honest i'm not disappointed that we didn't sign Bonne, i'm disappointed that we knew we needed a striker all summer and we left it right up until deadline day and he was our only option.
The very fact that Sandgaard felt the need to put a statement out explaining it, tells me he also knows they've fucked up.
Well said. The issues with Aneke and Stockley were entirely predictable. And, we've seen more from Leaburn than I think any of us realistically expected. And yet it was still glaringly clear we needed another striker. And here we are.
TS, MS, and Gallen fucked up. They fucked up in paying big money and big wages for Stockley and Aneke when neither can be relied to play up front on their own regularly. And they fucked up both in not bringing in another forward, but also in not trying to move on a forward who doesn't fit the system or can't play regularly. I get that moving Stockley on (if that was even possible) was scary in June or July because you can do worse at this level than Stockley. But at some point, you have to speculate to accumulate.
You take a chance that you move on Stockley (or Aneke, but who would buy him?) and get a worse striker. But you also risk not moving him on and being stuck with him as your only fit experienced striker. And here we are.
The end of the window will make it feel worse than it actually was. I think it will turn out to be a good window. Sess, Wallacott, Egbo, JRS, O'Connell, and Payne look like good signings at this level. I haven't seen enough of McGrandles yet, but he seemed highly regarded at this level. But I'm not convinced it was good enough.
Anyway, don't let this ruin the football, at least not yet. We play nice football. We've got a bright, young, progressive coach. There are some very promising youngsters getting a look in, and none of them have looked out of their depth. There's a lot to be positive about as well.
Shouldn't we be happy that they're only (apparently) going for signings of players who would improve us? Whatever your feelings on Bonne? All our other signings seem like they're of that constructive quality (once McGrandles and Egbo get up to speed).
Would you rather we'd signed anyone - literally anyone - just so we could say we made a deadline day signing?
In a few weeks, none of you will remember this, Aneke will be fit, and NURSE! NURSE!
Martin had his new improved black box, you know the one that identified Fraser as a signing ( even though we tried to sign him before he went to Ipswich) they had 3 months to identify a decent striker & a CB that we desperately need to fit into the makings of a decent team that has been assembled that could have been the final parts of the jigsaw. Instead the sandgaards chose to wait until the end of the window because apparently the price of players will drop & so we get to the last few hours of the window to be told that we are considering making a move for Bonne. I don't think many wanted to wait to make a deadline day signing. It's been obvious since Washington was kicked out that we were 1/2 strikers light even putting aside the fact that Stockley doesn't fit in to our "new" system, we should have had an additional striker signed up a couple of months ago. Aneke will never be fit, just the mention of his name has you crying for a nurse
So the defender reported as a done deal that just needed announcing....*
Disappointing end, we've had two big glaring holes that needed filling and they haven't been (yet) the free agent market isn't exactly filled with quality either.
Personally, think we stuck all our striker eggs in one Tyreece Simpson shaped basket, can see the worth in spending a fee there, tried to play the game and back fired.
Very weak at CB.
Proper Charlton
*That's not a dig at all before you start fun police, but a done deal falling through would be peak us.
History on the cards , 4 seasons in the third tier is something we’ve never done before having been relegated in to it .
let’s face it Golfie nailed it and even some of the level headed and even overly rose tinted know that it’s not good enough , never mind a miserable twunt like me .
good news is our “we’re better than last year crew “ should still end up happy ….aim low and you shouldn’t miss bad news is we’re not going up , which is pathetic considering the time we’ve spent in this division historically
good news less people at The Valley means less agro getting too and from and getting served there , every cloud and all that .
0% Automatics 25% Play offs 73% 7th-12th 2% 13th-20th
Relieved we haven't got Bonne. We all know he isn't up to it and saw at the QPR game that was the case. It would have been dreadful signing him on a perm as I would rather go with Leaburn. Saying that where is the CH? £0 spent in the window combined with the redundancies like Olly confirms that TS doesn't have the money to take us forward. I'm genuinely worried now that he doesn't have the funds to keep us running. I think he is well meaning and wants the best for us but promotion will be a massive task. We really have to support the team now. The time to slag off TS will be when the season ends. Doing it now will shred Ooh Ah Mortimer's 25 per cent chance of reaching the top 6.
To be honest i'm not disappointed that we didn't sign Bonne, i'm disappointed that we knew we needed a striker all summer and we left it right up until deadline day and he was our only option.
The very fact that Sandgaard felt the need to put a statement out explaining it, tells me he also knows they've fucked up.
Well said. The issues with Aneke and Stockley were entirely predictable. And, we've seen more from Leaburn than I think any of us realistically expected. And yet it was still glaringly clear we needed another striker. And here we are.
TS, MS, and Gallen fucked up. They fucked up in paying big money and big wages for Stockley and Aneke when neither can be relied to play up front on their own regularly. And they fucked up both in not bringing in another forward, but also in not trying to move on a forward who doesn't fit the system or can't play regularly. I get that moving Stockley on (if that was even possible) was scary in June or July because you can do worse at this level than Stockley. But at some point, you have to speculate to accumulate.
You take a chance that you move on Stockley (or Aneke, but who would buy him?) and get a worse striker. But you also risk not moving him on and being stuck with him as your only fit experienced striker. And here we are.
The end of the window will make it feel worse than it actually was. I think it will turn out to be a good window. Sess, Wallacott, Egbo, JRS, O'Connell, and Payne look like good signings at this level. I haven't seen enough of McGrandles yet, but he seemed highly regarded at this level. But I'm not convinced it was good enough.
Anyway, don't let this ruin the football, at least not yet. We play nice football. We've got a bright, young, progressive coach. There are some very promising youngsters getting a look in, and none of them have looked out of their depth. There's a lot to be positive about as well.
I like the optimism. But the reality is that Egbo hasn’t played at all and may not get in the side. Sessegnon is injured and we are left with a totally untested option, who looks excellent in a confident side, but it would be naive to expect him to be an option there in the long term if things turn in the other direction, purely because he has never played there in his life before this season. We have been left with only 3 senior central defenders, one of whom is always injured. Midfield and wide areas look excellent but we have a striker that plainly cannot play in a 433 and another that is worth half an hour every so often. We must hope and pray that Leaburn and Kanu can step in, but chucking in kids if we do have a downturn wouldn’t be ideal.
In essence, if our aim is steady improvement, it MAY turn out to be an improvement on last season; clearly Garner is a significant upgrade and for that we must be grateful but he’s been hamstrung by not being given the centre halves and strikers that we need to be a force in the division. I do hope he wasn’t promised more and that he doesn’t become disgruntled.
This is nothing to do with Bonne - it wouldn’t have been perfect at all, but we left it so late that clearly he was the only option that we were looking at yesterday.
Comments
Ness has looked pretty good to me so far, and I know he's highly regarded. Deji looks like a potentially quite good but still raw defender. If you'd told me midway through the summer that the two of them would be co-fourth choice I wouldn't have been that bothered by it really.
I'm still more concerned at fullback. Clayden looks good going forward but still raw positionally. Chin looks promising. But I don't think either are as ready as Ness and Deji.
The CB situation would be okay if we looked deeper at other positions, namely fullback and striker. As it stands, I think we're 2-3 light.
Bonne was a loan.
The money pit is empty. We face facts. Time for TS to just face reality. I really do think until the last month, we've done ever so well but we cannot get out of this division without speculating to accumulating.
Our threadbare squad of youth players and regulars can't cut it over 46 games. Not because they aren't good enough but that they simply aren't equipped to make it over 9 months.
Sadly.
shitty - but what can you do? Charlton til I die.
COYA!
Gary Cahill and Michael Hector are available at the upper end of the market - would be interesting to see if we can tempt them for a year of thrills down at the valley if no one else wants them.
Nice idea Thomas, but I think you'll find that virtually every other Chairman in the country wants to do that but long ago realized that with the very, very rare exception, it doesn't work.
With the squad that he has been allowed Garner will be doing reasonably well to get us into the top ten, let alone the Play Offs.
Like most owners Sandgaard seems to have dreadfully underestimated the costs of running a club so now wants to put a complete cap on expenditure and hope - against all reality - that he can substantially increase revenues.
The very fact that Sandgaard felt the need to put a statement out explaining it, tells me he also knows they've fucked up.
hopefully some movement in them, but wonder who that os
I do think it was clear all summer long that a further centre back was needed and that could and should have been addressed much earlier. It doesn’t seem it was even really being addressed today. A decent free agent centre back might be easier to find though, I suppose. I hope it’s not because we spen too much budget on midfielders like. McGrandles looks a bit of an unneeded signing right now, even if he turns out to be decent.
I’ve also got a bit more faith in Stockley than some, but we do need to figure out how to get more out of him in this system.
Not wishing to stir the pot but managers have walked for less.
At the very least I suspect he’s thinking……WTF is going on!
of whom he wanted, as far as we can tell.
In the real world managers know they must work within the constraints of budget and player availability and I don’t sense he’s not an active part of the decision making on playing staff.
TS, MS, and Gallen fucked up. They fucked up in paying big money and big wages for Stockley and Aneke when neither can be relied to play up front on their own regularly. And they fucked up both in not bringing in another forward, but also in not trying to move on a forward who doesn't fit the system or can't play regularly. I get that moving Stockley on (if that was even possible) was scary in June or July because you can do worse at this level than Stockley. But at some point, you have to speculate to accumulate.
You take a chance that you move on Stockley (or Aneke, but who would buy him?) and get a worse striker. But you also risk not moving him on and being stuck with him as your only fit experienced striker. And here we are.
The end of the window will make it feel worse than it actually was. I think it will turn out to be a good window. Sess, Wallacott, Egbo, JRS, O'Connell, and Payne look like good signings at this level. I haven't seen enough of McGrandles yet, but he seemed highly regarded at this level. But I'm not convinced it was good enough.
Anyway, don't let this ruin the football, at least not yet. We play nice football. We've got a bright, young, progressive coach. There are some very promising youngsters getting a look in, and none of them have looked out of their depth. There's a lot to be positive about as well.
Aneke will never be fit, just the mention of his name has you crying for a nurse
Disappointing end, we've had two big glaring holes that needed filling and they haven't been (yet) the free agent market isn't exactly filled with quality either.
Personally, think we stuck all our striker eggs in one Tyreece Simpson shaped basket, can see the worth in spending a fee there, tried to play the game and back fired.
Very weak at CB.
Proper Charlton
*That's not a dig at all before you start fun police, but a done deal falling through would be peak us.
let’s face it Golfie nailed it and even some of the level headed and even overly rose tinted know that it’s not good enough , never mind a miserable twunt like me .
good news is our “we’re better than last year crew “ should still end up happy ….aim low and you shouldn’t miss
bad news is we’re not going up , which is pathetic considering the time we’ve spent in this division historically
good news less people at The Valley means less agro getting too and from and getting served there , every cloud and all that .
0% Automatics
25% Play offs
73% 7th-12th
2% 13th-20th
expect him to be an option there in the long term if things turn in the other direction, purely because he has never played there in his life before this season. We have been left with only 3 senior central defenders, one of whom is always injured. Midfield and wide areas look excellent but we have a striker that plainly cannot play in a 433 and another that is worth half an hour every so often. We must hope and pray that Leaburn and Kanu can step in, but chucking in kids if we do have a downturn wouldn’t be ideal.