Sam Cosgrove deal unlikely
Left wing back, centre-half, creative midfielder, winger, striker, striker.
Oh, sorry, I was dreaming of one of those cheesy memes announcing a new signing on the Charlton social media outlets. Then I woke up.
Instead on Charlton’s X page today they had Alan Curbishley rallying fans to attend The Valley on Tuesday. On CATV on Saturday afternoon Curbs was sending out a rallying cry for a strike partner for Alfie May.
I understand that the transfer window has become very backloaded and the majority of the activity will be in the final week particularly loan deals, but if conversations are being had then are we not able to accelerate some of these deals?
Who is the salesman and negotiator now?
I am sure Andy Scott is working long days, but he has a lot to prove as do the ownership. Nothing much either from mouthpiece Charlie Methven, other than having a few beers in Newport with some fans last week.
Every fit player in the building was in the playing squad on Saturday at Peterborough. Since then we have picked up a ‘couple of knocks.’
We, and perhaps you are, need to be patient, and what we don’t want is place-fillers, but first team players that can improve and effect team performances. Nonetheless we have 9 points to play for before the window and the need for a striker at least is now.
Sam Cosgrove, who was linked over the weekend now seems to be heading to Blackpool. if not a loan I suspect wages for the Birmingham City striker would be a roadblock.
Likewise any hope of offloading Kirk, Jaiyesimi and McGrandles this month will circle around how much of their wages we will still need to swallow. We paid the majority of both McGrandles and Kirk’s weekly salary when they were respectively at Cambridge and Burton on loan last season.
Back to dreaming of memes.
A wise Frenchman once said “the more things change the more they stay the same” . Give it another week and we’ll all be praying for an Omar Bogle.
Fear not CA , waking to the news of an inbound goalie…prayers answered🤦
I feel sorry for Alfie at present he clearly is capable of banging in a hatfull of goals for us in this division but to do so he needs a strike partner to hold the ball up and create space until then we will see him chase heavily weighted long balls which will destroy his confidence.
The disappointing thing for me is that we knew from the Welling game that Miles Leaburn would be out until September, by then we knew that Chuks Aneke was carrying a knock which left us with one fit senior striker. Even if Leaburn hadn’t been injured we needed re-inforcements in that department, especially as Chuks is at best a bench player and never more than a game or two away from another injury layoff. I’m sure that will be resolved but the risk is that we lose ground over better organised rivals. We weren’t that far off Peterborough on Saturday in terms of our overall play, but they took all three points away which is what matters.
In the absence of fresh blood we need to adapt our playing strategy to what we have. There’s no point in long balls to Alfie May if he’s going to be outjumped or just isolated and robbed of possession.
Still the premier league has started so we should see a few squad players going out on loan and hopefully one or two coming our way.
We need a ‘lump’ up front who can weigh in with a dozen goals or so, who would be a foil for Alfie May….Cosgrove would have been ideal but it seems he will now be playing against us instead. Never mind, it seems we have signed another goalkeeper…..that’s the answer to all our problems !!!!!!
Spot on, a new 19 year goalie who has been released by Chelsea is just what we need at the moment, especially as Chelsea don’t let any of their decent youngsters go for free!!!
At present this appears to be going to end up similar to all the past seasons, where we can’t get any of the players we really want and there will be a made rush to sign any old Tom, Dick or Harry, who can kick a ball just to make up the squad, which at present is even smaller than last season! Plus we will still be saddled with the likes of Kirk, Jasemi, Mc Grandles etc, as it appears we can’t even off load them for free.
Little wonder there are only 8,000 season tickets sold, compared to other sides similar to us in this division!