River Nile
The Addicks have signed Tottenham’s Nile John on loan until the season-end. The 18-year old is an attacking midfielder and was recommended to us by Sir Chris Powell. If only Powelly could have a word with that Harry chap as well!
We have been desperately short of midfield creativity in recent week’s mostly since we’ve been singing that stupid ‘white Pele’ song.
John has played in two of Spurs’ European games this season and has been a regular in their U23’s scoring 7 with 4 assists.
Described on Tottenham’s website as “a central midfielder who is predominantly right-footed but is skilled with both feet, Nile John was born and raised in White City, Shepherd’s Bush.”
Welcome to SE7 Nile.
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Chicago Addick 
In a perfect world this, plus the fella from Chelsea, would look great short term additions.
But as usual with CAFC it is very much an imperfect world.
Not yet in Feb, and with 3+ months of the season to go, we have absolutely nothing to play for (except the only potential to get relegated).
So it begs the question – what on earth is the point of signing young loanees for 3 months to benefit their parent clubs by giving them playing time, and then for them to wave goodbye at the end of the season?
How the heck does this benefit our Club?
Surely better to use the rest of the season to try some of our own younger players.
And of course only Charlton could let a fella leave for nothing, and then sign him back for £300k!!
👏 👏 Comment of the week
Spot on Houndal, we have Kanu who has already scored 30 goals and a real prospect in Henry midfield, in the under 23’s! Surely as promotion is off the radar this would have been a great time to try them out, but no lets get another 18 year old instead and give him some first team game time, so he can go back to Spurs a better more rounded player! Makes perfect sense, then we can rush around for next pre season to check on unwanted &/or injury prone players that are available to sign, whilst trying to off load, if we can, the poor signings and has beens of this season!
Totally agree with houndal and Mike we should blood our own youngsters, as I said recently on one of CA’s blogs we have a very strong academy and risk losing the best youngsters to clubs in higher divisions. Today Fulham, Palace and West Ham are showing interest in Adigun who plays the same position as John. Frankly Chris Powell’s opinion has to be taken with a pinch of salt as he thought that Pigott was a better prospect than Michael Smith.
You’d expect me to jump on this bandwagon wouldn’t you CA – and I won’t disappoint. Absolute ridiculousness for all the reasons above. Don’t tell me either of these players will be signing for us so why in God’s name are they taking precedence over our own youngsters – who are doing really well this season. With the exception of Costa I’ve always hated the loan system but this is just babysitting for rich premiership sides who have too many youngsters on their books. If these boys want playing time – go and play for your local team.
And rierti – watch it – you don’t diss Sir Chris.
At last. Where have you been LP?
This party 🎉 started ages ago. Take your coat off and get yourself a drink 🍷
LP says don’t diss Sir Chris, but even the best managers get some things wrong. Is Pigott better than Smith I have never thought that was the case and I watched them both regularly in what was then the U21 league. But if John doesn’t work out, at the end of the day, it will be Jackson’s fault as the the demoralising effect on our young players can’t be discounted.
I agree with the previous three. As a longstanding member of Valley Gold I get very angry when our best youngsters are poached by teams in higher divisions. Why should I continue to pay to support a nursery for the benefit of other teams higher up the scale?
If Premiership teams recognise the quality of some of our young players, why can’t Charlton see what is under their noses?
I watch MOTD regularly and see ex Charlton players doing well, if we had them back we would be in the Premiership in no time! But that will never happen.
Hi, thanks for commenting.
I also count ex-Addicks playing in every Premier League game I watch. There’s many more playing for clubs at the higher level of The Championship, which lets face it is where we should be.
Trouble is as others have commented, we have a lot of talent in our youth systems, especially U18, but us floundering in L1 is not going to help us keep them beyond playing a handful of games.
John and Castillo have been performing well in higher standard matches than our promising youngsters. Our lot ‘compete’ in the 2nd division of academy football. Spurs and Chelsea’s academies are top tier. It is naive to believe that Leaburn, Adigun, Henry would all still be turning out for our 18’s and 23’s if they had consistently shown the quality that Spurs or Chelsea’s scouts look for. Add to that the potential for damage to young’uns who get blood(i)ed too early. Better that risk is taken on someone else’s investment
Endless is the list of exciting teenagers who have subsequently not progressed.
Charlton’s league position isn’t so assured that we can risk a patched up squad with untested teenagers as makeweights.
Mason Burstow is the exception not the norm. Charlie Barker was the same age when he was blooded but his development continues in the academy system 2 years further on.
As for poaching, it’s a fact of life at every level. We got Nick Pope and Josh Davison from non-league, we got Ademola Lookman from even lower, recent hot topic Jermain Defoe was barely in “our” academy system a couple of years. Railing against it is fanciful, and you’d not want to stand in the way of the progress of the best, regardless how young they were when “we” picked them up. Lee Bowyers, Scott Parkers, Paul Elliotts, Robert Lees are once a decade phenomena.
The current situation is far from perfect perhaps but we are necessarily living within our means.
Would you rather Derby’s options, or Bury’s?
Case very well put for the other side SCN. Thank you.
As Ca says case well made but Castillo and John won’t be here next season so I still favour giving our youngsters a chance to show what they can do. The situation would be different if we had a realistic chance of reaching the play-offs but we don’t .The FA youth cup game against Brighton in 10 days or so should indicate whether the current academy can compete at the highest level. I have watched the U18s since the 1960s and the current U17 and U16 groups are significantly above average. The U18s team frequently only has 4 U18 players the rest are U17 and U16 age group players.
Good insight rierti. Thanks.