Is Dean Holden an idiot ?

What on earth was that starting line up ? The minute I saw the line up, I posted on Charlton Life that it was the worst I’d ever seen. The result was a forgone conclusion. I could have saved Sandgaard 2 managers salaries this season. Firstly Garner insisted on playing tippy tappy football playing across the back 4 without having the talent to do it successfully. He also played Stockley up front on his own while he waited for the ball to appear which it never did.

Now we have a bloke who realises you have to play 2 up front but plays Kanu who is not ready and Stockley who is presumably leaving and disillusioned. In the middle he plays Henry who is not good enough or not ready yet. Chin is not good enough or not ready yet. Lavelle is not good enough and has to be partnered with someone experienced, ie not Thomas returning from injury or Ness who also may not be good enough or ready yet.. Payne and Henry are not strong enough to support Dobbo.

It’s a shambles and if Holden didn’t realise that before kick off – presumably he does now.

Fantastic night at The Valley

Isn’t football great ? If I’m honest, I’ve been so fed up with Charlton recently that I only went last night because Peter Varney told us to !! What a reward I got, it was a buzzing atmosphere. Only football can take you to the (many) lows and then the highest high. Brighton are obviously a class side and the differential in class was there for all to see, but we found a way to win. Who would have thought that was possible. Wonderful stuff.

The team put in a lung busting shift and great credit must go to Anthony Hayes and Pearcey for the way they set the team up. Hayes has had great success with the younger age teams at Charlton and I think he has every chance of becoming an excellent 1st team manager in time. Obviously tippy tappy football wasnt going to work against this lot so Inniss, Lavelle and Ness defended properly and when necessary launched it into Row Z. Everyone played well but special mention goes to the youngsters. Maynard Brewer who will soon become 1st choice goalie, Ness and Chin , who defended heroically and of course Captain Fantastic, George Dobson.

They need to find a way to translate this to League form and ending tippy tappy, telling the back 4 to clear it quicker and going direct with both Leaburn and Stockley would get my vote. We are in the 3rd division not the Premier League. One sour note was the sight of Aneke limping off with what looked like a hamstring pull.What is it with him ? When the warm ups take place he hardly does a stroke either in the running or passing drills. Only the club will know his full medical issues but if ever there was a case for a static bicycle warm up on the sideline, its him.

I cant claim to be ‘in the know’ on the club’s future but I think there are some grounds for optimism. I understand there are definitely 2 parties interested and that some investment has already been made hence the appointments of Andy Scott and the COO ad CFO. Aopparently, Dean Holden was Sandgaard’s choice but he has a good reputation . Lets hope we get lucky on a new owner ( for a change)

Thomas declares its Panto season at Charlton

Does anyone know what’s really going on ?

On the football side, we appear to have the latest fresh faced managerial victim and Ben Garner lookalike in Dean Holden , i.e young, relatively well regarded and Andy Scott as Director of Football who has done reasonable job at Brentford, Watford and Notts Forest- so nothing inspiring but probably progress given the state we are in.

On the business side we have Jim Rodwell as COO who whilst sporting a very natty barnet appears to have had a pretty chequered career with a variety of short stay appointments, mostly unsuccessful and hated by the fans at Scunthorpe, Boston, Notts County, Peterborough and Sunderland.

Finally, we have a guy called Ed Warrick, who has been appointed CFO even though he has no accounting qualifications and has no experience as a Finance Director ( unless his Linkedin page is wrong) . Ed is a one man business called Applegate Partners, see https://applegarthpartners.com/. So he is effectively a consultant who advises property investors.To cap it all he looks about 12 years old.

Finally, Ed has set up a company with Charlie Methven ( idiot star of Sunderland till I die laughing) called SE7 Partners. This is the same Charlie who Sandgaard has never met but who has been coming to matches recently and suddenly became a Charlton fan having abandoned his lifelong love for Oxford United and more recent love Sunderland.

So who knows what is going on ? Sandgaard has obviously accepted some investment from Methven and whoever is backing him. Methven isnt really wealthy so its somoene else’s money.

If I am a pessimist, I would say that they are all in it to profit from some kind of property deal involving the sale of The Valley, which would mean some kind of agreement has been struck with Duchatelet.

If I’m an optimist, I would say Sandgaard has accepted a limited investment from Methven in order to stay home in Colorado forever now and Methven’s team, ie Rodwell and Warrick’s job is to flip the football club to new owners and make a profit on the deal for all of them.

Only time will tell and in the meantime, despite Peter Varney’s call for a passionate non protesting night tomorrow, if I was Thomas I’d stay in my hotel.

I am a Charlton fan

It’s a bit like admitting you are an alcoholic at one of those meetings. However, I’m never going to be a fan of any other club. It’s tribal, I know I was born with it, as were my kids and their kids too. But its very hard at the moment – as hard as its ever been. We’ve had almost 15 years now of bad decisions and bad owners and Thomas Sandgaard is just the latest.

I don’t doubt his intentions, but he underestimated the scale of financial investment involved and made a succession of bad decisions – and frankly anyone who puts his son and partner ( neither of whom had any experience of either sports management or running UK businesses) to run an English football club is just arrogant and stupid. A continuation of the Sandgaard ownership will see us dropping to the 4th division for the first time in our 117 year history.

I didn’t go on Saturday because I am fed up with watching a very poor team. The club will have recorded my 3 season tickets as part of the 12,000 plus crowd even though none of us went. Ive bought 5 tickets for the Brighton game because Peter Varney made a direct appeal and I trust him and if there is any chance that my support will make a difference I want to help – but I can only persuade my son to come.

I am a Charlton fan and I will always be a Charlton fan but its never been this difficult in my 55 years of going.

I have no idea why clubs like Palace, Watford, Fulham, QPR, Brentford and even Millwall have been luckier with owners but surely we all deserve a break.

Sandgaard is definitely looking for an escape route …maybe this time we will be lucky too !

Don’t tell Thomas your name.. Pike

It seems the one certainty about working for Thomas Sandgaard at Charlton is that you aren’t going to be working for him for very long before you get fired. We’ve had managers galore, Bowyer, Adkins, JJ and now poor Ben. We’ve had Chris Parkes, Ged Roddy, Brian Jokat, Wayne Mumford, Olly Groome, Nathan Chapman, etc, etc the list is almost endless. You just about get introduced at the training ground and before anyone really knows your name you are reading your own compromise agreement. He sacked Rich Cawley before he realised that he didn’t work for the club.

What next ? The job spec is for a manager who plays attractive possession football and scores lots of goals with a squad of players to work with who play a combination of hot potato kamikaze possession football and who forgot to play our striker.

The transfer budget is zilch, the owner is batshit crazy, his son picks the new players from the League 2 free transfer list on his laptop, while the owners partner is experimenting with catapulting hot dogs into the Covered End. What’s not to like ?

I am sure there will be the usual flood of out of work managers declaring undying love for the club and kissing the badge in the folorn hope that they get a decent pay off before the Spanish Archer arrives……..

It’s a shambles yet again……………..Welcome to being a Charlton fan.

No investment, no strikers, no points

It’s not complicated is it. I couldn’t go last night but I WhatsAppd my Charlton mates before the game that we couldn’t possibly win with that line up.

We all know that the failure to get another decent striker in the Summer or put another way, the stupidity of letting Davison and particularly Washington go without replacements was a recipe for disaster.

Personally, I don’t like the style of play either. We are a 3rd division team with 3rd division players. We should be getting the ball into the opposition box as quickly and often as possible and hope something happens. We are trying to play like Man City or England but without the talent on the pitch.

The owner needs to invest in some talented footballers in the January window – not League 2 free transfers or 18 year old premier league loanees but proper relatively experienced players.

If he cant or wont he needs to step aside quickly IF there is anyone out there with an ambitious plan and the funds to support it.

Otherwise we are going to be in a very grim battle to avoid relegation to the 4th division for the first time in our 115 year history.