Charlton’s Bermuda Triangle

Great to get Elliot Lee on board yesterday but the comment I picked up on was that the deal all came together yesterday ( i.e in one day)

I don’t know about you but I find this whole recruitment/transfer of footballers game more than a bit perplexing. I am sure that Nigel has told us that our entire recruitment team, that’s Thomas, Ged, Steve and Nigel have basically been working 24 hours a day,7 days a week since we beat Hull in the last game of last season- that’s the 9th May until 26th August. If you include holidays of 3 weeks it still leaves them with around 344 man days or 2,752 man hours concentrating on player recruitment.

After all that, we do a deal for a bloke in a day who it seems had no idea we were interested the day before yesterday. Do you think our Elliott was target number 37 on our list of potential creative midfielders and the other 36 turned us down or were out of reach.

I’m not suggesting I could do any better and I’m not trying to be critical but the whole process does seem to be very strange indeed.

We can only be delighted that Elliot Lee emerged unscathed from the Bermuda Triangle of Charlton’s recruitment process and wish him well for Saturday. We certainly need him.

Whooppee – a creative player finally arrives

There will be dancing in the streets of Albury tonight !

Finally, we have a decent creative midfielder arriving. Elliott Lee is an experienced professional – not too old at 26- with a very good goal scoring record in League 1 with c 30 goals in 80 appearances. We need goals, goals , goals to win matches and so far we’ve created hardly any chances, chances, chances – let alone goals.

Lets hope he can take a free kick too because without JFC, noone else knows how to.

The list of needs in the squad is still long with a Left Back and experienced Striker highest amongst them but Lee’s arrival is a cause for celebration. The inability to fill the left back slot is particularly frustrating and puzzling.

We can only hope further reinforcements are imminent.

Catastrophic Failure of Recruitment at Charlton

I told my wife on Thursday that I was going to have £100 on Wigan to win at The Valley. In 50 odd years of going Ive never backed the opposition but it seemed to me that it was a banker bet. Anyway, she persuaded me not to do it because it would be ‘disloyal’.

I have no idea what the problem has been with recruitment – we can only speculate but the most likely explanation is that we haven’t got a sufficient budget to be competitive. The temporary acquisition of Corey Blackett Taylor speaks volumes about our problems. He was a bit part player for Tranmere in League 2 last year, maybe he’s a diamond in the rough but he very probably isn’t – he did nothing today to suggest he is any kind of answer and its a pretty safe bet to assume that he will disappear in January. Although it was close today until Wigan scored, they could easily have won the game by 4 or 5 goals given the fantastic saves our goalie made.

Ben Amos had zero saves to make all match and despite all the huffing and puffing we didn’t create a single goal scoring chance in the 90 minutes. The current team carries no attacking threat at all apart from poor old Jayden Stockley who tries his hardest and must end up with a king size headache after each game.

I never boo the team and I cannot see the point in the abuse at the end of the game. It’s hardly likely to give the players confidence for the next game. However, the frustration is understandable. It’s all very well pointing to the impending availability of loan players , but like Maatsen & Miller they go back and we need a stronger core of permanent players.

The current team is very poor and without 3 or 4 new experienced top League 1 players we will carry on losing. It wont be 5 years to Europe but more likely 3 years to Conference football.

Thomas, Nige, Steve – when are the cavalry arriving ?

We looked woeful again last night and bear in mind this is just the lowly 3rd division. I know it’s only 3 games in but it’s 3 defeats on the trot if you include Wimbledon. With this team I would expect the 4th defeat to arrive against Wigan on Saturday.
I’d also be pretty confident that our current League position is our lowest ever since the club was formed in 1905?

I know it’s early days and no one gets promoted or relegated after 3 games – the problem is not just the results it’s also how we are playing – it’s unattractive, predictable and limited. We have looked clearly 2nd best in all 4 games.

Our midfield is just awful and goal-less. I always recall Peter Varney telling me that when he and SCP built the title winning team they prioritised goal scoring midfielders because you can’t go up without them – hence we had Jackson and recruited Hollands and Stephens.
I can’t really see any goals coming from Clare, Morgan and Dobson.
Up front we need a striker to play alongside Stockley and in the current squad if Stockley gets injured we might as well all send back our season tickets.
Finally we need to recruit not just young “bodies” who might turn out OK – Blackett- Taylor looks like another one in the Dobson and Clare mould – we need to recruit talented relatively experienced footballers like Stockley and Kirk.
If the cavalry aren’t about to arrive over the hill I fear a Little Big Horn at The Valley

Holed in the Middle

It’s still early days but I don’t think we will get anywhere with the current midfield. I don’t think that Clare or DJ are good enough and although Albie has talent he’s not strong enough to build the midfield around.

The addition of Kirk is very welcome and he is a good player at League 1 level. However, in order to be competitive, we badly need more creativity in the middle and an alternative tactic than hoofing the ball up to Stockley all the time. Good as Stockley is, we desperately need a Plan B and that requires another talented striker.

Adkins has stated that there will be more incomings and we need 4 or 5 really good players in with the emphasis on midfield and up front. For me, Clare and DJ are squad players not first choice. It probably says everything you need to know that Karl Robinson decided that Sean Clare wasn’t a midfielder and played him at full back.

To be honest, I’m not a fan of Gilbey either and whilst JFC is really good , we wont see him until January.

I suppose this is just terminology but I don’t like it when the manager talks about extra “bodies” because we’ve got enough “bodies” already – What we need is talented League 1 footballers and we haven’t got anywhere near enough of them.

Lets continue to hope that a few talented creative reinforcements are on their way, otherwise its going to be a very tough season

Weve only got 11 players

I’m not complaining and I understand that there are still 3 weeks before the Transfer window closes but we are woefully short of capable players to compete in this league.

The fact that Adkins couldn’t bring on any subs until a cameo for Clayden in the last couple of minutes said it all. We played OK in a tight game but we are only an injury away from struggling at the wrong end of the table with the current squad. Jayden Stockley was outstanding on Saturday and if he gets injured heaven knows what happens to our season.

All this can change with some good loan signings and in recent years, Cullen, Bielik, Millar, Maatsen and Stockley have all arrived that way but we are certainly leaving it late and we appear more threadbare than ever, particularly in the attacking and creative player department.

Despite the current hoohah surrounding Thomas and his ambitious plans which are most welcome, ultimately fans will only come if we have a (mostly) winning team. The attendance numbers will quickly dwindle if we start losing.

Lets hope that major reinforcements are arriving soon otherwise we are going to have a very difficult season.