Is Thomas Driesen Gone? - he popped in on p16, and back out on p26

aliwibble said:

KBslittlesis said:

aliwibble said:

 I think he's likely to have a better idea than most of us, given he was working at the club at the time.

Because people who have worked at Charlton Athletic always tell the truth 🤔

Fair point, but I'd trust @BDL's word over various others I could mention.

ThomasD said:

Hi Charlton fans,

First I would like to say that I will only post in this topic and not on any other topics. It's your forum and some poeple will not want me here and I respect that.

I will explain what my role was for Charlton throughout the years and how recruitment worked and changed throughout the years under Roland. Some fans will find it interesting. Others will say 'im obsessed' or 'live rent free'

Whatever you think, one thing is sure and that is that I worked my ass off for Charlton and gave everything I had for the club, especially in the last years when I was given final say on the transfers. I was asked many times by different people from the press to explain things, but every time I gave the exact same anwser and that is that I didnt want to say bad things about other people in the press. With this post here it will stay here.

Lets start at the beginning, and that is before Roland bought the club. I was an unexperienced new scout for Standard Liege and worked together with 5 other experienced scouts under the supervision of a director of sports. Roland was interested in buying Charlton but they were in a bad situation and he asked all the scouts to make a report about the Charlton squad: who are the best players, which positions do we need to add, who can we sell or let go, which players we could replace with players from our other clubs etc. Some of the scouts went to come watch live games at the valley, I only watched on video as I prefer. I still have all these reports from all scouts so I can say exactly who said

what about which player. One of the things I see people say about me is that I told Roland to sell fan favorite Yann Kermorgant. I have no idea where this came from (Airmanbrown or Jimmy Stone maybe)?
In my report I highlighted him as our best player. But 3 of the other scouts said he was getting old and we could probably find better. So Roland listened to these poeple who were far more experienced then me and who did a very good job at Standard Liege in the years before. These same people also suggested Reza te come to Charlton, I didn't say 'no' but I said I had my doubts about him adjusting to English football.

I did gave my 'ok' for Astrid Ajdarevic and Loic Nego to come in. Not because Nego 'was better then Chris Solly' as people seem to think I said. I don't know where that came from either, but because he was a very talented full back who could play both right and left and also as an attacking winger, a position he now regurly plays for the Hungary national team. Solly had many problems with his knee, so Loic would be a good young cover. He played one bad game and people judged him on that saying he was out of his depth. But the reason he did not play anymore had nothing to do with his quality, there was a conflict between him and Jose Riga and I will not get further into this as its a personal matter for them.

Now, about Polish Pete. He wasn't a player from the network but he was new signing. To understand this signing you have to know how the recruitment worked at that time. There was a method for signing new players and that was that 2 of the scouts must agree on the signing of a player. Because you get so many players being proposed by agents (and scouts) not all scouts can watch every player so work was divided and then Katrien had to make the decision when she would get the reports.

She would sent the proposed players to 2 or 3 scouts and she would sent the proposed players from scouts/managers to 1 or 2 other scouts. From the moment Bob Peeters came in the managers would also count as one of the scouts so if the manager plus one scout would agree then she would also proceed with negotiations. So with Polish Pete, two of the french speaking scouts agreed

on him and Katrien signed him. I had never seen him play for one minute, nor did 2 other scouts. Only the 2 people who watched him were responsible for him. And that happened with all the players coming in. Igor Vitokele, most on here would agree it was a very good player before his injuries, I also never had anything to do with. I'm Belgian, Igor is Belgian, but I was never consulted for this tranfer.

Bob Peeters plus one scout agreed on him so Katrien signed him. That's the way it worked. Many fans say I don't take responsibility for the failed signings during Rolands time, but why on earth would I take responsibilty for players I didn't even watch for one second. Sometimes I was involded but then it was me against 2 other scouts or me against a scout and the manager and then Katrien would follow the majority. This was the case for Christophe Lepoint and Zakarya Bergdich, both I didn't think were good enough. I will never say I was not involved in any bad signings. The poeple who follow me on twitter have seen me name many times the players I was involved with and

that where not a succes (Ceballos, El Hadji Ba, Franck Moussa, Roger Johnson). I probably am forgetting a few.

And sometimes it was more nuanced then just saying yes or no for a player. I did say yes for Naby Sarr, but not at the transfer fee and wage he was getting. I told in my report he was a raw talent but should only sign him when he would be 'cheap'. Which he was not.

When we got relegated from the championship, things changed. Roland and Katrien made a evalution of the scouting and the poeple who made most of the mistakes were not consulted anymore.

So now it was just me and the manager - Russel Slade. We also had a change in strategy to bring more Englisch players in. Like some people already stated here I quickly had a fallout with Slade over signings.

He wanted to sign Crofts and Foley and I didnt. Instead of Crofts I wanted to sign John Mcginn who was at that time in the 2nd division of Scottisch football. Slade then sent me an e-mail with Katrien attached that this was ridicilious and Mcginn is no leader and we needed a leader like Crofts. Katrien followed Russel and I was little bit angry with how this all happened, especially the way Russel acted. Roland bought back Belgian first division club STVV and I started to work more and more for them

and less and less for Charlton. After some time I was given the final say of all transfers for STVV. 

But then it all changed again when Katrien left. Roland no longer had his person who he could trust in Charlton to deal with signings. Because I did very well in STVV having final say on transfers he gave that role to me now in Charlton and the poeple in Charlton (Steve Gallen and the manager) would do the negotiations and propose players from agents, and propose players themselves but I had to give the 'go or no go'. If we would have multiple targets for one position, I got to say who the most important was. This worked very well.I would give the ok and then Steve would make the negitiations.

Like I already said many times before, and like Mr Sandgaard said himself some time ago, Steve is the very best in negotiating and Charlton is very lucky to have him. What Steve does not have, is the time to analyze all potential signings.Same for the manager.
So you will never hear me say that I am better then Steve or Lee in analyzing players, but I did have the time to watch 10 games of a player where as Steve or Lee only had time to watch some highlights. Steve also went to watch some players in live games, but again, he did not have the time to really really analyze.

I had to say no to many players and I know that frustrated them, but I think I made the right decision every time and they would agree on that now. We would have not had such a great squad if I didn't say no to those players.

It was just very good teamwork. If Steve, Lee and the agents only would propose bad players, then my hands where tied also and we would have signed only bad players. 

But because they sent some really good players and I filtered out the bad ones, it was very succesful. The only player that I proposed myself was Josh Cullen who was fantastic against us with Bradford.

All the rest came from Steve, Lee and agents and then I had to watch them.

This is the only truth. Everything else that comes from people like Airmanbrown or Jimmy Stone is just hear say bullshit from frustrated people. I have hundreds of emails and whatsapp messages that can verify everything I say.