Undisclosed Fee – but only in SE7

The management at charlton don’t really seem to understand the meaning of the word ‘ undisclosed’ – maybe the word has no direct translation in Walloon. it doesn’t really work if one party to the transfer disclose it , that way it becomes disclosed rather than undisclosed . According to the entire city of Liverpool and every informed and respectable journalist , apparently they paid £3.5m for a bloke who is quite frankly going to be the best defender in England since Rio Ferdinand , John Terry and Des Walker .

When  I read Katriens words on the cafc website , I am also struck by what a load of nonsense it is – frankly joe might well be a lovely boy who buys his mother flowers at the weekend and we all love him – but as a charlton fan – or chief executive- I’m not joes mate and all I care about is what does it mean for our club , how will it affect our team , what does it mean for our finances , how will it help finance player recruitment.

when people leave my business , I might briefly comment on how great they are but mostly I concentrate on how great everything else will be in the future and how the new people will be so much better.

Even though the fee is derisory and a fraction of his worth , I don’t think the wailing and gnashing of teeth is sensible yet until we see who comes in over the next few weeks . Admittedly , the new owners have made lots of awful player recruitment decisions , pub player lepoint being the latest , but they’ve also made some decent acquisitions too and it wouldn’t take a lot more luck and decent player acquisition to move us up to play off contenders .

keep the faith – and make sure you disclose that to your mates.

He who would valiant be

In the ultra competitive world of the Championship, Charlton pulled a stroke of genius today by announcing that from this season onwards the club’s mascot would be armed.

Weve seen some mascot punch ups over the years , but I would suggest that Cyril the Swan will be running a mile to avoid retrieving 3 foot of sheffields finest honed steel from the rear end of his plumage.

And if I was the bloke wearing the armour and holding the sword when we next play this lot , it would be difficult to decide who to go for first .

 

No Likey Bikey

As a spectator , I must say that I’m rather baffled by the apparent reported desire to offload the ‘beast’,  Andre Bikey.

For the first 20 games or so last season , when we had an outlet up front before Igor got crocked or lost his form ( who knows which) , the defence , notably Henderson, Ben Haim & Bikey were absolutely brilliant.They only started to look a bit shaky because the ball kept arriving back to them with monotonous regularity because the forwards couldn’t hang on to it.

The 2 away wins at Norwich and Reading stood out for me as games where Bikey was a man mountain stemming the tide of opposition attacks. When Luzon arrived , he obviously didn’t fancy him and drafted in Roger Johnson , who , whilst he gave his all , was no better than Bikey and probably made more individual mistakes.

If I was playing centre forward for a Championship team and I got on the pitch and worked out that Bikey was marking me- I’m sure I wouldn’t have been the only No 9 to decide that perhaps today I don’t fancy it as much as normal.

There were certainly a few games in the 1st half of the season last year at The Valley where the  opposition star forward was rather less committed than expected.

Anyway, managers make these decisions and IF it is true and he is not part of the plan for next season , we can only hope that his replacement is going to be as formidable. I think its going to be a very tough ask.