Diego Poyet's contract situation **DieGONE - Signs for West Ham)**

Spoke to him a couple of times near and at the end of the season and he clearly hadn't made his mind up then , cos I asked if he would leave the Charlton circus and he spoke well and said how much he liked it here and enjoyed working under SCP initially and then under Riga
He was polite , courteous ,quietly spoken and showed a professional attitude considering I was outta my nut on both occasions

Can't say I'm happy he left and I'm gutted with the fact we're not gonna get any dough from it but if we had got £3m would that make any difference to RD's plans for us?

SINK - very keen to move on

oohaahmortimer said:

Spoke to him a couple of times near and at the end of the season and he clearly hadn't made his mind up then , cos I asked if he would leave the Charlton circus and he spoke well and said how much he liked it here and enjoyed working under SCP initially and then under Riga
He was polite , courteous ,quietly spoken and showed a professional attitude considering I was outta my nut on both occasions

Can't say I'm happy he left and I'm gutted with the fact we're not gonna get any dough from it but if we had got £3m would that make any difference to RD's plans for us?

£3m would have paid the wages of Jan in the office and many like her for the rest of their working lives.

Strange how perceptions of value differ when it comes to millionaire football players.

Carter said:

Henry, don't be ridiculous. You are comparing apples with ribeye steak

Of course Bury were not happy with losing him, but Pope will now be in with a really good chance of playing 40 league games in the next 12 months and in a division that is one below the top table in England if not Europe if you believe the hype.

Poyet won't. Unless a healthy spot of nepotism comes into play

I know you are trying to be rational but you cannot honestly believe what you have just said?

But Pope is only in that position after three years and seven loan spells.

Blue is the colour.

Glad you have told us what we are asking for as it doesn't bear any resemblance to what we actually have been asking for.

Mundell Fleming said:

@Airman Brown‌

Reflecting further on your comments above, it's become clearer to me why a confident and ambitious young footballer might, justifiably be very reluctant to sign a medium term contract with any club, not just Charlton Athletic, because if he does so he immediately loses control of his future. Moreover, that's the case whatever the level he ultimately plays at, whether he makes the grade or not.

In the scenario we find ourselves in, i.e. where Diego got to play twenty first team games last season and began to look like the next Graeme Souness, he is now free to choose who to sign for. Had he signed a four year deal last summer that would not be the case. His options would be limited by Charlton's approach. Maybe Poyet senior sensed that might be a challenge were Jimenez involved?

Alternatively, had he not made his debut last season, he'd also have had more options given that he is now out of contract. This might have included moving to a smaller club so that he could get game time, but this would have been one of his choice, not simply one prepared to pay the fee Charlton were demanding or to whom we were happy to send him on loan. An extreme version of this scenario might even have included going to University and playing part-time. 

Whilst kids from a more "traditional" football background might jump at a seemingly attractive contract because it offers them and their families a form of security, it may be that for an "educated, middle class" boy, for whom money is not an immediate concern, it makes much more sense to keep options open. However things turn out, for better or for worse, your life is then your own. 

Perhaps Gus simply said to his son, "You have potential Diego, but you can never know how things will turn out, but whatever happens you need to make your own decisions. Don't sign anything. We'll decide what to do next summer". Poyet senior would not have needed to be sure his son was going to make it to give him this advice. Either way, it may have made sense.

Having seen poor old Jon Obika exploited by Tottenham and passed from pillar to post when he clearly needs to find a place to settle, at an appropriate level and of his own choosing, then were I in Gus Poyet's position, I think that's probably what I'd advise my own sons to do.

We may just have been a little unlucky here.

Just a personal reflection, that's all. 

I think it's certainly the case that Diego's background and his father being Gus was influential on the situation, for a number of reasons, and this would always have weakened Charlton's position. However, all sorts of contingencies can be built into contracts and it wouldn't be beyond the wit of either party to craft a deal that gave Poyet opt-outs, as long as there was value in it for Charlton too.

The nearest comparison I can make is Gavin Peacock. Keith's empathy with Charlton is beyond question, but as he and I discussed in preparing his book he wouldn't have entertained Gavin coming through the ranks at The Valley because of what was going on at the club at the start of the 1980s.

I don't warm to Gus because of the way he treated Steve Brown at Brighton, but given everything that went on at Charlton last season it's hard to see people in the game in general currently regarding us as a model of good practice. More likely they talk to Powell, read what Dyer said, note Paul Hart has gone, now look at Riga and will be wary. Diego will have seen the issues with the January signings first hand and inevitably they go beyond what has been reported.

Perhaps we move on from that, but the perception of an unstable club with an intervening owner can only be changed over time. However, I don't see that any one individual is to blame for Diego leaving, including Duchatelet. It's much more complicated than that, as life usually is.

In the opinion of the fans, (not just your own opinion) you are the best player at a struggling championship club even though you played for less than half a season. The club is at best in transition, some would say starting out on an experimental path that necessarily involves nurturing then selling youth players. Why would you want to stick around so you, at 19, could be the player the team is built around? You would be attracted by playing with better players at a higher level.

There is no way Poyet will be stuck in a reserve team. surely he will get a loan. What sickens me is that I can see Chelsea paying him a small fortune then lending him to Palarse. I can hardly bear to look.

What we need to do is rally round Jordan Cousins. His body language was not great towards the end of last season and seeing Poyet whoosh past him in the pecking order and being played out of position in consequence can't have helped. Then Poyet gets POTY while Jordan, the senior player by any standards, gets YPOTY. The boy needs our love or we will end up with him fecking off too. and we don't need that because right now we wouldn't get much for him in a Scott Parker (want to leave hissy fit) situation.

But this is Charlton and there will be mugs at the first home game slagging him off won't there? All very sad.

Another good young player hoarded at a Premier League club with little or no sign of how they'll progress to playing regular football.

cafctom said:

Is our new manager classless and lacking loyalty for telling his former club to shove it as he was off regardless of him being under contract? Or is it different because, as Henry puts it, we are the shark in that situation too?

Yes he is. I wage a hefty sum that there are fans of Waasland-Beveren who are dishing out some similar abuse online and in pubs, and who can blame them? BP has treated them like shit in this move.

Official Chelsea twitter has followed him this morning

If he goes to Chelsea that will be his career stalled before it's taken off.

kentaddick said:

It's inevitable Poyet was going to leave if we didn't get promoted to the prem in the next 12 months, what we want is for the club to get a return on their investment. We've spent 8 years developing Diego and he leaves 6 months after making his debut. If you can't see that that stinks, then I guess we're happy being a complete walkover. No ones denying we're a selling club, but that's just it, a selling club, not a "develop players for free" club.

I've said it before and said it again, if you had some one you had trained in your company for a specialist job for 7 and a half years and 6 months after their completion of the training they go to a much larger firm, you'd be furious after investing so much into some one.

Yes, I'd be furious at myself to not have the foresight to make sure they didn't leave after 6 months.

I am sure he was tapped up as others have and will be....just goes to show that players just want money and not play regular football.

I put the blame squarely on the previous owners and on Poyet who thinks he is a world beater already.

John Bostock played four games at the age of 16 and buggered off from Palace.

19 year old Diego Poyet has played 20 games and won Player of The Year award, and was Man of The Match in the majority of games he played.

Big difference.