Conor Washington - now at Derby (p26)

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

Sport is littered with 'prickly' characters who don't necessarily get on with their team mates. 

Aussie cricket is full of 'em.  In fact, work in general is like that - and what about rock music - where anger and animosity seems to almost be a prerequisite for great music happen? 

From a selfish point of view, I want to see Charlton win over the 90 minutes of my involvement.  Yeah, great if they get on, but if not, just go and play well and win on a Saturday afternoon and Tuesday evening. 

Garrymanilow said:

I do find the way people's attitudes to players changes based on their current mood with the club and who else they sign for fascinating. I was always someone who defended Washington. He works hard, scores 10 goals a season and runs the channels. I would have been happy with him as a backup striker to someone new but not as a first choice. I also don't know what purpose he would serve in a 1 striker formation as he's not a lone striker and he didn't like playing wide under Adkins.

We also don't know what kind of contract he wanted. He's just turned 30. That's when players are looking for a contract with proper security, probably 3 years; does anyone think a 33 year old Conor Washington is a top investment for us based on his goal return and general level? Probably not. Really, the ideal would be for a player like Washington to have one year left on his deal in a promotion season, and then unless he has a total transformative blinder you could release him with thanks as you go up a division. Not here though. We also don't know what money he asked for. Almost certainly a payrise. I believe he was already one of the higher earners, certainly top ten, do you want to give a payrise on top that would probably make him around our highest earner to a player who even his biggest supporters were saying is a good backup option? Doesn't sound like great business. There's plenty complaining about giving 28 year old Chuks a 3.5 year deal, Washington is older than Chuks and hasn't had a fantastic injury record for us either.

Then you look at Rotherham. A league up, newly promoted, Conor is exactly the kind of signing I would expect them to make. They're not flush with cash, they need to bring in new players and they need hard workers. They'll likely be willing to pay him what he asks and he'll likely be backup there as well. I would be truly shocked if they swapped Conor in for Ladapo, I reckon Conor is there as the backup to a better striker, which is what we were hoping to do at L1 level. They lost Ladapo for nothing, so it's not like they've sold a good player for a good fee and can reinvest it. They've got gaps to fill and Conor is a good gap-filler. Conor is also, sadly, proven to be not quite good enough at Championship level. His highest return in 4 seasons there was 7, and in two of those (though one wasn't full) he scored 0 goals. 13 goals in 107 appearances. Is that worth a  longer, more expensive deal when we're looking to go up? I don't really think it is.

Mostly though, I think people need to have a word with themselves about this obsession with Martin Sandgaard. It's become, from the perspective of someone who spends a lot of time on here and is now feeling the need to reduce it, quite embarrassing. Every football-related thread on every page someone has to pop up with a fresh new comment about him. It's happening. It's weird. Will it work? Don't know, let's see who we bring in. There's very little to be gained by using the quiet period to create yet another bogeyman within our own club. I'm beginning to think that post-Roland if there isn't someone to shriek at about destroying the club then people can't function. Can we not just give the Martin stuff a rest until we've actually gone through a full summer transfer window with the new system in place? To be honest, I know what the answers to that will be, but at least consider what good the whinging constantly on here does