Pin Sticker Recruitment

By any measure, the recruitment of players at Charlton this season has been shockingly awful. I really can’t imagine how Andy Scott has kept his job. It’s reminiscent of the scene in the film ‘ Mike Bassett England Manager’ where he has to explain to the press why he has selected two players from the 4th division Benson & Hedges when he’s jotted down the squad on the back of a cigarette packet. To be frank, I’m not much of a fan of Gillesphey, REG and Coventry either and they are a few of the better ones. Small and Ramsey look OK but pretty much all the rest have been awful.

The whole Dobson fiasco is just gross incompetence in the player management department and whoever let that happen should be fired or resign immediately.

If Charlton are to get anywhere next season ( which will be much harder because the 3 promoted teams look very strong and the ones dropping from the Championship will be good too) they need to take recruitment away from Andy Scott and give it to Nathan Jones. They will also need to give him a decent budget too because out of form and the team Championship players are not the answer.

The Coventry conundrum

I think Coventry is a good player , I think Anderson is a good player, I think Dobbo is an excellent player. The problem with this midfield is not enough goals. I’m sure Coventry was acquired as a replacement for Dobbo and whilst we are getting away with playing them together, I’d be surprised if it’s a promotion winning combination. Dobbo is actually so good , he’s almost playing as a left winger now and still got Man of the Match last night. Replacing Dobbo will be a big problem.

It is funny to see that Gillesphey has reintroduced the Miguel Llera ball to Lloyd Sam. He immediately looks up and launches it left to the right wing where Watson ( Ramsey) and Anderson challenge. It’s effective although we don’t have a winger of LLoyd Sam’s quality to make the most of it.

Nathan Jones has a lot of player decisions to make in the next few weeks, but I hope ( if it’s possible) that his first decision will be to rip up George’s Hungarian pre contract.

Who stays and who goes at the end of the season ?

I thoroughly enjoyed the game yesterday . Somewhat amazingly my wife agreed to come to the game with me ( a once every 2 year or Wembley experience ). Just as an aside, I treated wifey plus my brother and his son to the Vista Lounge. The cost of 4 tickets for seats in the West Stand but no food included even though I already have 2 East Stand season tickets was £350 which for one game is more than I paid for my season ticket. It seems incredibly expensive – you always slightly get the feel in the West Stand lounges that with all the VIP’s , complimentaries etc you are probably the only person paying full price ??

Anyway , turning to football matters , deciding who to keep at the end of the season is going to be very tricky for Nathan Jones. Ironically this 11 game unbeaten spell is going to make it trickier still. In defence for example, Terrell Thomas is a bit limited but he has played very well in this period and is versatile. Michael Hector is a class act but just like last year, contract pending , he plays like Beckenbaeur for the last 10 games and Frank Spenser for the first 10 games. Tennai Watson has improved and been an ever present but Ramsey looks a better long term bet. I’m a fan of Lucas Ness, I think he is underrated but it seems he is likely to leave. Edun is likely to be a leaver given Small’s arrival. I actually prefer AMB to Isted , but neither of them give me huge confidence for a promotion chasing squad.

Midfield and up front will need reinforcements but the biggest question will be who / how do we replace Dobbo ? Obviously he is not irreplaceable, BUT we know he is good , we know what he can do and he is our captain. He was excellent again yesterday. I’m not being negative about Coventry because he is decent too, but so far he hasn’t shown himself to be better than Dobbo. I guess Dobbo is going at the end of the season but it seems like a mistake to me

Whatever happens, it’s been a good run and I think we can be opimistic about the future ……………

Route 1 or another route

I have no claim to be a football tactician, but watching Charlton over the last few weeks, the football has been ( how shall I put it ) a bit ugly. In order to get us out of the mess we found ourselves in, Nathan Jones decided to go a bit direct. The ball seems to spend a lot of time in the air and passing on the floor has taken a back seat.

Don’t get me wrong, I really couldn’t care less how we play , so long as we win, but I wonder if now , having almost put the relegation threat behind us we could experiment with playing pretty football and using the grass rather than the air.

The next few games will be very interesting , particularly since playing at The Valley is more conducive to nice passing football rather than a windy Fleetwood, Cheltenham or Exeter. It should also tell us how Nathan Jones wants to play next season. I don’t really care if we play like Stoke rather than Swansea to get promoted, but I would have thought it will be difficult to play 2 different styles.

CAFC To Infinity & Beyond

I’ve had a couple of enjoyable sunshine holiday weeks in Mexico followed by a few days at the Cheltenham Festival, so I’ve missed a few games. Obviously, I should do it more often because in that short space of time we’ve climbed from peril to relative safety. All hail Nathan Jones. Its funny because we seem to have done that by reverting to a traditional League one, rather physical, direct long ball approach. No more tippy tappy around the pitch. Let’s just bang it forward and work for the drop downs etc. Its not very pretty , but who cares.

Once we get over the line to avoid the drop which should come relatively soon now , our attention will turn to the retained and released listings. I’m assuming that with the exception of Zak Mitchell, all the other loanees currently away from the club are toast regardless of whether they come back for a little while. Dobbo , Tyreece and Hector look set to leave. Its a real shame with Dobbo because he has held the team together for the last 3 seasons and just at the point where the owners are investing and things are looking up, then for some inexplicable reason ( probably his agent’s fee) he is off to Hungary.

I don’t really think any of the loanees in our building are worth retaining so Nathan has a fair rebuilding job to achieve in the summer. However, unlike quite a few of our managers in recent times, he does appear to know what he’s doing and there are positive signs that the investors are prepared to support him with new players and backroom staff. ! It would be silly to declare that the miserable years are coming to an end bearing in mind our current league position is still a its lowest point since World War 2 – BUT , it just feels like we have finally turned a corner.

I’m backing Nathan Jones to take us to infinity and beyond ………………………

Encouragement at The Valley

Although the 1st half was dire , overall I enjoyed the game last night. The team lacks creativity . Dobbo was generally magnificent and in my mind his defensive mates had time to intervene and help him with the wayward header that led to the goal. If it is true – and I have no idea- that Andy Scott is the one trying to get rid of him , the club should sack Scott for gross incompetence.

The January recruitment remains both shocking and baffling. Jones dropped Coventry for Dobbo ( hurrah) and Gillisphey to the bench. Both REG and Bakinson were poor. I have no idea what Bakinson is good at or what position REG was bought to play. Anderson had a very good game. Ladapo’s goal was brilliantly taken and given his overall track record, it would be great and helpful if he pushed on from here. What we really needed in the window was a threatening winger to replace CBT or a creative midfielder to break down defences. What Scott gave us was a load of out of form lower championship defensive midfielders.

Anyway, it looks like Nathan Jones knows what we know which is progress !!!

Really nice to hear the atmosphere cranked up in the 2nd half with some real crowd noise. Chuks came on and caused absolute havoc and provided the assist for Ladapo who took his goal well. A word for Lincoln , they defended heroically, the goalie in particular was taking no prisoners . If we had defended like that this season , we’d be mid table at worst.

We have a hillock to climb but there were some signs of a revival in the 2nd half yesterday. The Valley wasn’t built in a day. Come on you rip roaring goal scoring Addicks ……………..

George now staying until the Summer

Thank God for that , but someone at the club woke up today and they have withdrawn from the agreement to let George go to Hungary until the end of the season. Hopefully Andy Scott will have disappeared by then and we can keep him.

Maybe Nathan Jones watched a couple of videos of previous matches and told the Board that letting him go would be madness. I hope he is playing on Tuesday and we can all sing his name and we can only hope that he is still as motivated as ever despite all this nonsense.

Maybe we will buy him back in the summer – …………………..

Message to Nathan – where is George ?

Nathan- you won’t know this although you might work it out after today. This season we’ve had only 3 really good players, Alfie May, Corey Blackett Taylor and our captain, George Dobson.

CBT left in the window, Alfie is struggling now after CBT’s departure partly because Ladapo has been awful since his arrival and CBT’s service has disappeared. Who knows what’s happened to George Dobson ? George is our captain and the reason he is the captain is because he has been consistently our best player for the past 3 seasons. None of us have any idea – other than rumours – why our captain and mostly our best player is not playing

There is a rumour that he is going to Hungary ( He would have to be completely mad to go there !- it would be a terrible personal and career move) – but the additional rumour is that George just wants a reasonable increase in pay – as would merit the best or one of the top 3 players at the club and Andy Scott has fallen out with him. I have no idea what’s true but the club needs to tell us what’s going on with George because he could keep us up .

Andy Scott won’t keep us up, in fact with his player acquisitions so far, he is danger of single handedly sending us down.

The trouble with changing managers all the time is that the new manager hasn’t been watching for the past 3 years , but we have and no supporter in the right mind would drop Dobson from this awful team.

You need him, we need him , the team needs him.

Welcome Nathan – Please make us happy again

I think the appointment of Nathan Jones as manager is an excellent one and very well done to the owners for providing the investment funds and a long term contract for him. Without a crystal ball, no one can be sure what will happen, but his appointment is a statement of intent and that’s great. We’ve had to watch a relatively long term decline and certainly since the magic day at Wembley , its all been downhill since.

I was talking to a fellow football fan yesterday who was commenting that for the Liverpool fans and the Newcastle fans, supporting their clubs is everything – well do you know what ? – its a massive part of our lives too and we’ve been starved of success ( and good luck) for far too long.

The team will get huge support at Reading on Saturday for what is already a crunch game. I really didn’t think we played too badly against Derby, but Nathan will have to unearth some creativity.

There is a great opportunity at Charlton for a passionate manager like Nathan Jones to build a really bright future for the club and the fans will be desperate to get behind him.

Dart Board Recruitment from Andy Scott

First of all, I didn’t think we were that bad today, but as per usual we made one shocking mistake at the back and that was it. The point I would make is that a number of the new recruits look – well how do I put it – just as bad if not worse than the people they replaced. Chief culprits are Ladapo , Bakinson and Fiorini ( the last one looks as bad as Tedic and I just didn’t think that was possible) who all look poor and certainly no better than Fraser and McGrandles ( neither of whom were good enough either). Ladapo looks hopelessly out of form and Bakinson slows the game, lacks pace and doesn’t get stuck in. Maybe Gillesphey will be OK and he shows promise but so far he has gifted goals to Northampton and Derby in his short spell to date.

Coventry looks like he should be a good acquisition but George Dobson was already playing there and he is just as good, so we didn’t really need him anyway. REG was anonymous in the first half today and slightly better in the 2nd half when they moved him into defence.

The best Charlton player today was Lucas Ness who showed signs of returning to last years form.

We are in trouble and Nathan Jones will somehow have to make sense of Andy Scott’s dreadful “throw loads of darts and hope they stick” recruitment to find a formula with some creativity. Maybe he will fancy the Eskimo , Louie Watson, I would play him instead of Bakinson every time.