Jonny Williams - now at Gillingham (p47)

Ollywozere said:

cafctom said:

When we won promotion in 2019 he chose to become a free agent after the final whilst he assessed his options, but ended up staying. 

Not quite true. He desperately wanted to stay and was heartbroken when he was told he was to be released as we simply couldn’t afford it.
Things changed later in the summer which allowed us to sign him within the budget with him taking a significant pay cut to stay.

Scoham said:

killerandflash said:

He's actually had a decent season in terms of attacking returns, finally delivering the goals a player like him should deliver. 

So has he found his level? 😉 

Cafc43v3r said:

soapboxsam said:

Cafc43v3r said:

CafcSCP said:

NabySarr said:

Wrexham or Colchester with Garner I would guess

He’s not welsh  although he played for them and wasn’t known to garner.
His family are in SE London / Kent 

He has known Garner for about 20 years.  The main reason he signed for Swindon.

Correct:
Not only does Ben Garner and Willians both come from Pembury in Kent but Ben Garner was coaching the youngsters at Palace so will know Jonny well despite not coaching his age group very often.

So it could be Colchester, Bromley or will he go back to his roots and play for Tonbridge Angels with the bearded Waggy ?

Wrexham would be his best pay offer now and Jonny would accept cameo roles.

A smashing guy who is the friendliest professional footballer I have ever chatted to on a few occasions. 

Charlton is history and if anyone suggests that JW is coming back can they be banned for a couple of weeks 👍😤

As I understand it, and happy to be told otherwise, the 18 months before he signed for Swindon had been very difficult on and off the field.  He was told Cardiff want to keep him only to end up being released.

He might have packed it in, or at least taken a few months off but was, understandably, desperate to keep his place in the Wales squad.

Garner, and the fact league 2 football didn't effect his Wales career, were the reasons he signed for Swindon on a lot less money than he was on at even Charlton.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess where he ends up next, could be league 1, league 2, SPL, non league.  He is lucky because he was set for life at 25 and has been able to not worry about it since.

Ollywozere said:

cafctom said:

When we won promotion in 2019 he chose to become a free agent after the final whilst he assessed his options, but ended up staying. 

Not quite true. He desperately wanted to stay and was heartbroken when he was told he was to be released as we simply couldn’t afford it.
Things changed later in the summer which allowed us to sign him within the budget with him taking a significant pay cut to stay.

thickandthin63 said:

Loved Jonny,I would have him back in a heartbeat.

soapboxsam said:

thickandthin63 said:

Loved Jonny,I would have him back in a heartbeat.

We all love Jonny, but please don't.
We need a type of player who can play 100 minutes if needed. Jonny Williams was down to 60 minutes on a good day when at Cafc. He has been released from Swindon, a league two club for a reason; unlikely to be wages as has been mentioned Jonny earned a great wage at Palace and hasn't squandered it. 

As we have released Morgan, Clare and Inniss who were good enough to help Cafc achieved 10th which may be piss poor but I can only assume we are bringing in half a dozen players that are top six quality ?

If we don't we will be bottom six again by the time November comes around. History keeps repeating itself over the last few seasons.

Off_it said:

thickandthin63 said:

soapboxsam said:

thickandthin63 said:

Loved Jonny,I would have him back in a heartbeat.

We all love Jonny, but please don't.
We need a type of player who can play 100 minutes if needed. Jonny Williams was down to 60 minutes on a good day when at Cafc. He has been released from Swindon, a league two club for a reason; unlikely to be wages as has been mentioned Jonny earned a great wage at Palace and hasn't squandered it. 

As we have released Morgan, Clare and Inniss who were good enough to help Cafc achieved 10th which may be piss poor but I can only assume we are bringing in half a dozen players that are top six quality ?

If we don't we will be bottom six again by the time November comes around. History keeps repeating itself over the last few seasons.

Totally agree with your comments,perhaps my judgement is clouded by his game changing contribution at Wembley when he came on for the last 25 minutes.This year we have had no one on the bench who could come on and make a difference,Jonny is only 29 ,and I think used used sparingly could give us the edge in tight games,especially late in the day when the lesser talented teams begin to slow down and become vulnerable.

There's a reason he was on the bench that day. But that was years ago now, and so he's only got older since.

killerandflash said:

Cafc43v3r said:

soapboxsam said:

Cafc43v3r said:

CafcSCP said:

NabySarr said:

Wrexham or Colchester with Garner I would guess

He’s not welsh  although he played for them and wasn’t known to garner.
His family are in SE London / Kent 

He has known Garner for about 20 years.  The main reason he signed for Swindon.

Correct:
Not only does Ben Garner and Willians both come from Pembury in Kent but Ben Garner was coaching the youngsters at Palace so will know Jonny well despite not coaching his age group very often.

So it could be ColchesterBromley or will he go back to his roots and play for Tonbridge Angels with the bearded Waggy ?

Wrexham would be his best pay offer now and Jonny would accept cameo roles.

A smashing guy who is the friendliest professional footballer I have ever chatted to on a few occasions. 

Charlton is history and if anyone suggests that JW is coming back can they be banned for a couple of weeks 👍😤

As I understand it, and happy to be told otherwise, the 18 months before he signed for Swindon had been very difficult on and off the field.  He was told Cardiff want to keep him only to end up being released.

He might have packed it in, or at least taken a few months off but was, understandably, desperate to keep his place in the Wales squad.

Garner, and the fact league 2 football didn't effect his Wales career, were the reasons he signed for Swindon on a lot less money than he was on at even Charlton.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess where he ends up next, could be league 1, league 2, SPL, non league.  He is lucky because he was set for life at 25 and has been able to not worry about it since.

Surely he wasn't set for life though? Yes he was on very good money at Palace, but 3 years say of decent money at a lower PL club as a squad player is hardly superstar money. And footballers have lifestyles that burn much of it anyway

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

Has he actually been released or is it a case (as was rumoured with us & Inniss) that he was offered lower terms to chose to go?

I'm struggling to believe that after 37 league games and 10 goals this season they didn't think he was worth a new deal. 

North Lower Neil said:

CafcSCP said:

NabySarr said:

Wrexham or Colchester with Garner I would guess

He’s not welsh  although he played for them and wasn’t known to garner.
His family are in SE London / Kent 

Garner signed him for Swindon mate, Williams was there 2 seasons.

Garrymanilow said:

Cafc43v3r said:

Off_it said:

thickandthin63 said:

soapboxsam said:

thickandthin63 said:

Loved Jonny,I would have him back in a heartbeat.

We all love Jonny, but please don't.
We need a type of player who can play 100 minutes if needed. Jonny Williams was down to 60 minutes on a good day when at Cafc. He has been released from Swindon, a league two club for a reason; unlikely to be wages as has been mentioned Jonny earned a great wage at Palace and hasn't squandered it. 

As we have released Morgan, Clare and Inniss who were good enough to help Cafc achieved 10th which may be piss poor but I can only assume we are bringing in half a dozen players that are top six quality ?

If we don't we will be bottom six again by the time November comes around. History keeps repeating itself over the last few seasons.

Totally agree with your comments,perhaps my judgement is clouded by his game changing contribution at Wembley when he came on for the last 25 minutes.This year we have had no one on the bench who could come on and make a difference,Jonny is only 29 ,and I think used used sparingly could give us the edge in tight games,especially late in the day when the lesser talented teams begin to slow down and become vulnerable.

There's a reason he was on the bench that day. But that was years ago now, and so he's only got older since.

Yeah because he had been injured for months and it was a race against time to get him to be in a situation to do half an hour.

I am probably Johnny's biggest fan.  He is a uniquely gift footballer, who, for what ever reason isn't actually that effective at football.

Put him in the right place, with the right players and he is a good to decent championship player.  Take any of those variables away and he is lower league 1.

If you have a pair of split strikers that have pace, movement and can score goals another midfielder that can run past him and someone that can give him the ball, he is brilliant.  Ask him to do "a job" he is really quite poor.

Compare him to Fraser, I know people will sight goals and assists, but Williams has a much higher ceiling but a much lower floor.  Add in the fact he is very fragile he is a luxury, even if you have the right other ingredients to make it work.

I think he is a much better player than a lot of people give him credit for, I also think I could never actually justify signing him.

I think people misremember a lot of the 18/19 season. If you ask fans they'd tell you that we had this unstoppable midfield of Bielik, Cullen, Aribo and Williams, but the reality is we were pretty poor at times before January and we didn't see that combination all that regularly. Williams didn't sign until January but even before that Cullen dislocated his shoulder and Bielik went through phases of form and Bowyer outbursts. We used a really wide combination of midfielders. Ward, Lapslie, Pratley, Fosu, Marshall and Reeves all played more than I think most people realise, often due to Williams' fitness. Aside from that being a good argument for why we need squad players, Williams did alright that half season but he only got one assist. It was the start of the 19/20 season that he was brilliant and I think that little run is what people picture when they remember him for us. Absolutely unplayable, made us look like a really dangerous team every time we got the ball. 4 assists in the first 5 games and 5 in 12 overall when his fitness was already starting to come up as an issue again. He was injured after that and that really was the end of his time as an effective Championship player. After Covid when we were short on players and needed to grind out results (which we didn't) Bowyer didn't trust him to get things done and he was pretty poor when he played. As you say, in teh right spot he was excellent, and that brief period where we were newly in the league, confident and playing without fear he was incredible. It was just all too brief

Cafc43v3r said:

Garrymanilow said:

Cafc43v3r said:

Off_it said:

thickandthin63 said:

soapboxsam said:

thickandthin63 said:

Loved Jonny,I would have him back in a heartbeat.

We all love Jonny, but please don't.
We need a type of player who can play 100 minutes if needed. Jonny Williams was down to 60 minutes on a good day when at Cafc. He has been released from Swindon, a league two club for a reason; unlikely to be wages as has been mentioned Jonny earned a great wage at Palace and hasn't squandered it. 

As we have released Morgan, Clare and Inniss who were good enough to help Cafc achieved 10th which may be piss poor but I can only assume we are bringing in half a dozen players that are top six quality ?

If we don't we will be bottom six again by the time November comes around. History keeps repeating itself over the last few seasons.

Totally agree with your comments,perhaps my judgement is clouded by his game changing contribution at Wembley when he came on for the last 25 minutes.This year we have had no one on the bench who could come on and make a difference,Jonny is only 29 ,and I think used used sparingly could give us the edge in tight games,especially late in the day when the lesser talented teams begin to slow down and become vulnerable.

There's a reason he was on the bench that day. But that was years ago now, and so he's only got older since.

Yeah because he had been injured for months and it was a race against time to get him to be in a situation to do half an hour.

I am probably Johnny's biggest fan.  He is a uniquely gift footballer, who, for what ever reason isn't actually that effective at football.

Put him in the right place, with the right players and he is a good to decent championship player.  Take any of those variables away and he is lower league 1.

If you have a pair of split strikers that have pace, movement and can score goals another midfielder that can run past him and someone that can give him the ball, he is brilliant.  Ask him to do "a job" he is really quite poor.

Compare him to Fraser, I know people will sight goals and assists, but Williams has a much higher ceiling but a much lower floor.  Add in the fact he is very fragile he is a luxury, even if you have the right other ingredients to make it work.

I think he is a much better player than a lot of people give him credit for, I also think I could never actually justify signing him.

I think people misremember a lot of the 18/19 season. If you ask fans they'd tell you that we had this unstoppable midfield of Bielik, Cullen, Aribo and Williams, but the reality is we were pretty poor at times before January and we didn't see that combination all that regularly. Williams didn't sign until January but even before that Cullen dislocated his shoulder and Bielik went through phases of form and Bowyer outbursts. We used a really wide combination of midfielders. Ward, Lapslie, Pratley, Fosu, Marshall and Reeves all played more than I think most people realise, often due to Williams' fitness. Aside from that being a good argument for why we need squad players, Williams did alright that half season but he only got one assist. It was the start of the 19/20 season that he was brilliant and I think that little run is what people picture when they remember him for us. Absolutely unplayable, made us look like a really dangerous team every time we got the ball. 4 assists in the first 5 games and 5 in 12 overall when his fitness was already starting to come up as an issue again. He was injured after that and that really was the end of his time as an effective Championship player. After Covid when we were short on players and needed to grind out results (which we didn't) Bowyer didn't trust him to get things done and he was pretty poor when he played. As you say, in teh right spot he was excellent, and that brief period where we were newly in the league, confident and playing without fear he was incredible. It was just all too brief

I think the play off final was only the 2nd time that team had ever played together  the first being the second leg of the semis.

Aribo, Grant and Williams never played in the same team together.

One of the contributing factors to him getting injured was he was getting kicked all over the place because he was playing so well.

When he came back from injury Gallagher had gone, Leko was injured and the emergance of Doughty ment we scrapped the diamond.  We never really played it again, which finish Williams and Ozumers Charlton careers.