Richer Than Us

One thing that is certain in life its that there is always someone richer than you, however flush you might feel and that is always true in football ownership. Most seasons , as a Charlton fan, it’s virtually every other team owner than ours, although the one time we got a fabulously wealthy owner with Roland Duchatelet he turned out to be a miserable miser who celebrated his 70th birthday in the front window table at Nando’s.

This season, it is evident that Ipswich are the big spenders on transfers and although there are no guarantees in football, they also have a good manager and it would be a surprise if they don’t waltz through to promotion.

Worryingly, Wigan and MK Dons appear to be assembling good teams with extravagant recruitment. Other teams like Pompey, Sunderland, the Massives and ourselves appear to be stuck in the slow lane on recruitment.

It is a bit difficult to really understand what is happening but whatever business we are still hoping to do is going to be very late indeed. Sparrows Lane and The Valley have become the Marie Celeste for rumours.

Some reassurance that we are going to add more quality players to give it a go this season would be very welcome. I know that we all owe Thomas a big debt of gratitude for saving us from extinction but the thought of a mid table or worse finish in the 3rd division is certainly not my idea of fun.

Unfortunately for football club owners the other perpetual truth is that football fans have very short memories and very little patience for failure.

Striker Short

I thought we played pretty well today. I quite like Nigel’s 4-3-3 system and we finally have some energy and legs in the middle of the park, the lack of which I moaned about all last season. If we can keep Ryan and Akin fit we have the best central defensive pair in the division, although admittedly Akin made quite a few mistakes today.

I think all these ‘kids’ like Dempsey, Vennings, Davison and Henry when he plays are all starting to look the part , benefitting from that terrible spell 2 seasons ago when we had to play them too early in the Championship.

The biggest potential problem is that we are a striker light. Josh Davison tries really hard and he’s definitely going to be helpful off the bench this season but we need another established striker. Ronnie is very unlikely to be successful , particularly in the 4-3-3 system because his style works in a 4-4-2 when he can feed off the knockdowns etc.

Really nice to see a very young Charlton team finishing as the stronger, fitter team.

Recruitment certainly seems slower and more difficult this season but lets hope Thomas and his team can deliver us Another goal scoring striker to alternate with Jayden and we should have a decent season.

Wembley Shambles

Whoever had any part in organising the security plan for Wembley and managing the event last night should be sacked this morning.

Forget the result, we played cautiously throughout the tournament which got us to the Final in the first place so in a way its difficult to be critical that we continued to play that way last night. I’m not sure we had a meaningful attack in the 2nd half, did we ? Really not sure what Mason Mount added at all, but the rest of them put a shift in and Harry Kane was magnificent given the attention he got from the Italians.

Inside the Stadium, it became increasingly chaotic and there were hundreds ( and probably thousands) of people who appeared throughout the game and were obviously ticketless. All around the Stadium both before and after the game was like a War zone. In the section where we were the tickets cost £850 each and all the gangways/walkways were crammed with people who arrived steadily throughout the game. Depressingly, I know drug taking is rife in all society now but most of the people falling all over me and wandering about seemed off their heads.

How on earth are we not able to police and manage large crowds including those intent on vlolence and mayhem at our National Stadium ?

Also this of all years when COVID has been rampant , if you had a ticket , evidence of your negative test was required, I don’t think that applied to those who stormed the barricades !

It was a shambles and the management at Wembley and the FA should launch an immediate enquiry.

Worried of Albury

Hope all you guys are enjoying your summer, even if the weather feels like Autumn and every COVID day feels like groundhog day- however, Engeeerlaand are filling the void and cheering us up , let’s hope it continues tonight too.

Apart from Wigan who seem determined to drive through the division next season with a host of newly acquired experienced and talented League 1 players, none of the other League 1 clubs have done much business. However, I’m still a bit worried that we still have so much recruitment to do even as the first friendly fixture looms into view this Saturday.

If we are to live up to Thomas’s hope to blast through this division and Nigel Adkins promise to emulate the end of season Hull celebrations, we will need a lot of new players.

Apart from the Goalkeeping position, we need strengthening all over the pitch in every area and are well behind where we finished last season in terms of squad talent.

There seems to be a real shortage of rumours and whispers from Sparrows Lane. The arrival of Thomas this week should surely start to break the new player logjam and start to get us excited, otherwise my worryometer will continue to rise