Summer Window 2026 - Rumours and Discussion

Braziliance said:

Not sure about Karlan Grant, left on pretty bad terms and whenever we have played him since you can tell there's a bit of animosity there. 

Didn't work when Bonne came back. Grant is of course a better player by a mile, but still. 

I have him in the same camp as Bonne, Lyle and Roger Johnson. 

We shouldn't be turning our noses up at players that cost 15 mill and also have to bear in mind that West Brom offered him a new contract.

MartinCAFC said:

ProperCharlton said:

NJ just confirmed to Cawley that we're interested in Karlan. Not that keen on us signing him but I'll have to get over it if he joins. Can't be worse than when Bonne rejoined tbf

Very happy with that, West Brom wanted to keep him which says a lot as well. And we know he can play in that hybrid role up front and drift wide. Also any previous ill feeling it's time to let go tbh, I was there at Huddersfield that day he simply just gave it back to our fans after he was getting pelters, no issue there, and we are basically a different club to the one he left. Hopefully it goes through and no injury issues identified if/when a medical happens.

Were you at Peterbourough when he missed a penalty & looked disinterested all game. Then jumped ship the next week in the middle of our promotion season. 

Left us scrambling around for a striker on deadline day to partner Lyle Taylor. We ended up with "no goals" Josh Parker.

His off-field past is nothing to be proud of either. Ever wondered why he dropped the "Ahern" from his surname. 

DamoNorthStand said:

West Brom offered Grant a new contract in May which is a good sign 

Thats not saying much - we offered Dykes a new contract 🤷‍♂️

Braziliance said:

Not sure about Karlan Grant, left on pretty bad terms and whenever we have played him since you can tell there's a bit of animosity there. 

Didn't work when Bonne came back. Grant is of course a better player by a mile, but still. 

I have him in the same camp as Bonne, Lyle and Roger Johnson. 

I am not sure either. I'm hoping he comes with the right attitude and he doesn't actually hold any animosity towards this club. But it always felt like he did. I remember even his manager talking about it at some point, saying this fanbase never liked him or something. 

MartinCAFC said:

mart77 said:

Worth noting that a deal for Dykes wasn’t ruled out by NJ when he spoke to Louis.

Suspect if Dykes signs it then means either Leaburn or Mbick goes out on loan and if Dykes doesn't sign then we keep both.

Yeah NJ made it clear a striker wouldn’t join with forward departures

redbuttle said:

Braziliance said:

Not sure about Karlan Grant, left on pretty bad terms and whenever we have played him since you can tell there's a bit of animosity there. 

Didn't work when Bonne came back. Grant is of course a better player by a mile, but still. 

I have him in the same camp as Bonne, Lyle and Roger Johnson. 

We shouldn't be turning our noses up at players that cost 15 mill and also have to bear in mind that West Brom offered him a new contract.

I was about to ask you who on earth is a 15 million pound player, checked, and I cannot believe West Brom paid 14 million quid for him. That is outrageous. 

Either way, he isn't that price now, and you could apply the same logic to Redmond who has moved for a similar fee, and been worth twice as much at some stages of his career. 

It's not the ability I am concerned about with Grant, I think he's a much better signing on paper than Dykes for instance. It's his attitude towards us and in general I am concerned about. 

Let's see if he signs first anyway

Edit: to be clear, I am not just blaming Karlan. I heard some of our fans chant at him "she said no" etc. 

Just don't think there is any coming back from that, but we will see

MartinCAFC said:

cabbles said:

Not sure about Redmond.  I might be incorrect in where he’s likely to play, but I always thought of him as an attacking midfielder and taking the game to opponents.  If we get him in, I feel like we’re not going to bother with anyone else and for me, along with more a pacey brick shithouse and rwbs, this is a key position 

Carey and Knibbs I see as the goal scoring midfielders, but unless we get a pacey/attacking RWB, TC is still the only player we have that can take on players and run at them, plus Redmond.  We need stronger in this position imo 

Grant also does this. He and Taylor both used to drift wide when playing for Bowyer.

Taylor and Grant were a mustard partnership that first bit of the 18/19 season.

Taylor could probably be persuaded to come back. Should we try and reunite the two of them ? :-)

Braziliance said:

redbuttle said:

Braziliance said:

Not sure about Karlan Grant, left on pretty bad terms and whenever we have played him since you can tell there's a bit of animosity there. 

Didn't work when Bonne came back. Grant is of course a better player by a mile, but still. 

I have him in the same camp as Bonne, Lyle and Roger Johnson. 

We shouldn't be turning our noses up at players that cost 15 mill and also have to bear in mind that West Brom offered him a new contract.

I was about to ask you who on earth is a 15 million pound player, checked, and I cannot believe West Brom paid 14 million quid for him. That is outrageous. 

Either way, he isn't that price now, and you could apply the same logic to Redmond who has moved for a similar fee, and been worth twice as much at some stages of his career. 

It's not the ability I am concerned about with Grant, I think he's a much better signing on paper than Dykes for instance. It's his attitude towards us and in general I am concerned about. 

Let's see if he signs first anyway

I am not concerned with his past,  only in his future. 

wolfgang said:

ShootersHillGuru said:

golfaddick said:

charltonbob said:

golfaddick said:

CafcSteve said:

Heard a few whispers about there hardly being any interest in some of the players we’re trying to loan out and sell.

The likes of Apter & Tanto only attracting interest from League Two clubs who aren’t willing to pay any wages.

I wonder if we need to let some go before we bring in some players & hence why no signings lately. 

If so we might have to take a haircut (see what I did there) on a few like Tanto & Apter just so we start the season with the players we want. 

We need to bring in signings asap if possible irrespective of letting whoever go or we risk missing out on targets. I'm sure loaning out/selling players before the end of the window will be easier the later into the window we get whereas our targets will be getting a nice pre season with their new clubs.

Maybe the owners don't trust NJ with their money. What would you do if your employee came to you this summer & said "boss, we need another 5 or 6 players as the current ones are no good"..?. Would you hand over another £10m and say..." here you are, spunk that lot up the wall" Or would you question why those players are no good & what the manager was going to do about it ?

I’ve been as critical as anyone about the signing of Olaofe and Apter but to think the owners don’t trust Jones is plain crazy. He’s the man they’ve given a long extended contract to and in his relatively short time has kept us up. Got us promoted and kept us up. He’s massively in credit and I’d suggest the owners are more concerned that he’s wanted elsewhere and could be tempted away rather than worrying about two footballers who haven’t cut it. 

Never thought I would post to defend Golfie, but you are being obtuse. Golfie clearly means that they do not trust Jones to have a free hand with buying players, not that they do not trust him generally. If so, I would agree with them.

What are you on about ?

NabySarr said:

Chunes said:

Braziliance said:

Not sure about Karlan Grant, left on pretty bad terms and whenever we have played him since you can tell there's a bit of animosity there. 

Didn't work when Bonne came back. Grant is of course a better player by a mile, but still. 

I have him in the same camp as Bonne, Lyle and Roger Johnson. 

I am not sure either. I'm hoping he comes with the right attitude and he doesn't actually hold any animosity towards this club. But it always felt like he did. I remember even his manager talking about it at some point, saying this fanbase never liked him or something. 

I mean there’s not many blokes that wouldn’t have any animosity towards a crowd of people chanting that he’s a rapist. Honestly have no problem with how he reacted to that 

Football is fickle though, our fans will now get behind him and he will I’m sure be here with the right attitude. I doubt we are paying more than West Brom offered, maybe we’ve matched them, but that to me says he actually really wants to be here 

Also, remember we have a new generation of fans who may have never seen him play for us before.

sam3110 said:

Anyway all the charges against KG were dropped weren't they?

They were but so were all the charges against Mason Greenwood and the whole internet saw the evidence there. You can't assume guilt but you can't really assume innocence either as those charges are very hard to prove. 

Was playing cricket for Old Colfeians today. Had a good chat with a footballer who lives local, who mentioned he and Karlan have been at the David Lloyd in Kidbrooke at the same time a few times recently. Was keen to stress that he knows KAG lives down the road so don't read loads into it - and I couldn't draw much from him on if he knew if there was any movement. But this guy's usually relatively tight lipped and our chat make me think it could well be happening/has already happened.

I also found out that Bristol City have not signed their top striker target (based in England), who is very unhappy it didn't go through (not sure why it fell through), and we don't think they're going back in for him yet.

PaddyP17 said:

Was playing cricket for Old Colfeians today. Had a good chat with a footballer who lives local, who mentioned he and Karlan have been at the David Lloyd in Kidbrooke at the same time a few times recently. Was keen to stress that he knows KAG lives down the road so don't read loads into it - and I couldn't draw much from him on if he knew if there was any movement. But this guy's usually relatively tight lipped and our chat make me think it could well be happening/has already happened.

I also found out that Bristol City have not signed their top striker target (based in England), who is very unhappy it didn't go through (not sure why it fell through), and we don't think they're going back in for him yet.

This was Dom Ballard, Richie Wellens confirmed it over the weekend. They moved on to Tolaj from Plymouth 

Braziliance said:

Not sure about Karlan Grant, left on pretty bad terms and whenever we have played him since you can tell there's a bit of animosity there. 

Didn't work when Bonne came back. Grant is of course a better player by a mile, but still. 

I have him in the same camp as Bonne, Lyle and Roger Johnson. 

Isn’t the animosity mainly because of the songs our ‘fans’ direct at him?

NabySarr said:

superdulvertonred said:

My grandson has now been shown a recent photo of Karlan Grant and says it his him which is not surprising given Nathan Jones post match comments 

If you’d shown him one yesterday it would have saved us 3 pages of haircut related puns 

Could have been a close shave