The silence of the transfer klaxon
Worried yet? I’d hate to think how much Bow’s and Gallen’s phone bills are. Yet still we wait for additions, and it looks more and more that we will head to Lancashire with a squad very short of numbers, with Lewis Page and Chuks Aneke injured, and a bench full of kids. Deji vu.
You may be able to give yourselves a slow start in League One, but I worry that The Championship is less forgiving. Our start, on paper, isn’t the worst, which is handy in that we will spend the first two games adding players, apparently as many as five or six, and then the following four to six weeks integrating them.
This is not Bow and Jacko’s first rodeo, but Bowyer in particular is very fastidious in new players understanding our way of playing, the profits of teamwork and being fitter than any other team. It will take time. Partnerships take time, especially strikers.
All through last year’s pre-season Lyle Taylor and Karlan Grant had time develop their relationship, and we benefited from that from the off. Despite being slow to add points to the board Taylor and Grant had already scored 8 goals by the time we had got to mid-September. Taylor needs a partner, and he doesn’t even know who that is yet.
It won’t be John Marquis, who Portsmouth have just paid £1m for him. So we were never in for him. It won’t be Krystian Bielik as Arsenal, desperate to raise transfer funds, looks like going to Derby County for £10m. How much was he worth before he was coached by Bow and Jacko for a a season? Come on Arsenal, that must be worth you at least chucking us one of the other promising youngsters. Unlikely to be Josh Cullen, who looks like making West Ham’s first team squad.
But it’s okay, our owner has been honing his sales techniques.
Chicago Addick 
Indeed it is a worry, it has become obvious I think to Bowyer that he has gone shopping at Waitrose, when he should have gone to the poundshop, it seems pretty clear now, that the last thing the “light bulb salesman” wanted was promotion, we can’t even compete with league one clubs in the transfer market, Wigan tonight signed Tom Williams from Everton, Wigan will probably be competing with us in the survival stakes, have been trying to find positives in our situation, if we can’t strengthen the squad before the 8th to a degree the pressure will be off, I think expectation levels will be low, but the nightmare of the January window will loom large, now if we are not in the bottom three by a small margin I fear our best remaining players will be sold, we are in a bad position, where it just might be the case, by where, the “light bulb salesman” just genuinely doesn’t give a flying, can’t think of the right word, anyway, about the Club.
Extremely worried and not sure it was smart politics to put out in the press how impossible our situation is with agents…..very curious what we will end up with. Pretty sure they will sign Cousins in desperation..
Cousins ( ex QPR) went to Stoke . Did you mean Harriot?
Alan – Cousins is at Stoke. Think you mean Harriott.
The prospects for the first team are looking bleak unless we get some bodies in quickly. Ironically the U18s and U23s look to have good squads for the coming season and the youngsters playing in the STATsport Super Cup in Ireland have several very promising players who will be U15 and U16s this season. Last night they beat Man.Utd. 2-0 to reach semi-finals.So the academy pipeline continues to produce players for the future (if we have one).
At the end of the day it’s all about money, even the youngsters are “playing” us to a degree, they make the first team, stick around for a season or so, say wonderful things about Charlton and the fans, then move on to 30 grand a week, without really even finishing their apprenticeships, and we are supposed to then follow their careers with loving fondness, other academies don’t have to try so hard when they can just nip down to good old Charlton, find a youngster with one year to go and bobs your uncle, we’ll my future love of these “players” is wearing a bit thin, I can see no future, the odds are so stacked against us, the business accumin at the highest level beggars belief, in a way its like our time in the Premier League, “good old Curbs he will pull another rabbit out of the hat”, now it would appear poor old Lee has also joined the magic circle. So hope I’m wrong, but the vulchers are circling already and we haven’t even kicked off yet.
You are absolutely right – we have lost young players at the point of joining the U18s for little compensation. 20yrs ago we lost Defoe to West Ham and since then have lost others including O’Brien to Man Utd and Timmy Abrahams to Fulham,Kasey Palmer to Chelsea Sarmiento to Benfica..
I don’t blame the players or their parents I blame the system which allows big clubs to poach players for minimal compensation. Of course at this time having RD as the owner makes things worse. The older players who reach the first team and then move on after a year or two cannot be too heavily criticised as the club lacks serious ambition under RD.If we were a top Championship or Premiership team retaining young talent would be easier,
I sense the frustration in Bow and Gallen, but they have their loanee targets lined up and these come in late as they spend pre-season with their parent clubs.
It’s become clear why Bowyer and Charlton nearly parted in the summer. Roland secretly furious that he got us promoted and made the club harder to sell. I suspect he’ll be sacked if he keeps us in the championship then.