Get off the Pottsy
Sorry, it’s been a long week.
A no brainer this one and long in the pipeline, Dan Potts(y) signed a short term contract today until January. The 30-year old is a left sided centre-half.
Son of Steve, he came through the ranks at the Boleyn but played the majority of his games for Luton Town. Signed by John Still, who was responsible for returning the Hatters to the football league, Potts was then inherited by Nathan Jones.
Potts was hugely influential in moving Luton through the divisions and scored the vital penalty winner in the 2022/23 play-off final .
Last season he suffered three separate injuries and didn’t make one appearance sadly in Luton’s Premier League swing.
Jones makes no secret of his like of loyal warriors. In everyday life I always raise my eyebrows at job’s for the boys, but on the face of it Potts does make a lot of sense and it is hard to find fault with the decision.
Potts is able to play tomorrow and has been training with the squad for many weeks. I assume the wait was solely on the freeing up of budget.
I’m less sure on the rumour that Danny Hylton will also join. His career has been essentially over I thought after just 4 games for Northampton last season. His last goal coming for Luton 29 months ago.
Another FOJ (friend of Jones) possibly he will bring him in as a coach working with our young strikers, of which there are many. Hylton has been coaching and is doing his badges, but I can’t see how he gets in above the strikers we have now.
Sorry have to disagree with you on this one CA. Jones has been waxing lyrical about another of these two old boys how great they are etc, so it was a forgone conclusion he would eventually sign them!
Jones describes Potts as one of the great centre backs, has played in the premier league and so on. Yes he did play in the Premier league as a youngster for West Ham, about three games in all two as a sub and that was that! Over his carrear he has been injury prone and has mosty played less than half the games over each season, with last season not playing at all as he had three seperate injuries, so there is no way at 30 years old he can be fully match fit in such a short time training with Charlton, especially the way Jones expects players to play with his all out pressing game. This looks like another Aneke, waste of space and wages, who struggles to play about 15minutes before he is knackered, but in defence!
Surely if he required more backup, it would have been better to retain Ness at 21years old, who Jones has never actually really seen play as he has been out injured for the second half of the season with a long term injury, but obviously preferred one of his old boys and what about the other Mitchell, who Jones himself has implied has looked great, is he also now further down the pecking order?
As for Hylton, that’s a complete joke at 37 Jones still thinks he can do the business for him, even at Northampton, as you said he only managed 4 games, so is he now in front of Kanu to get a game? Still I suppose he can’t be any worse than Jone’s star buy Ahadme to replace May!!!
I defintely think, as you have mentioned, these two are jobs for the boys as can’t see how either improve the squad whatsoever.
However, if you’d done your homework properly, think you will find he’s left footed, and with Gillesphey the only other left footed CB in the squad, it actually makes perfect sense to have that cover, unlike all the other stuff you’ve spouted above.
Yes fully aware he is left footed, but if you had done your homework, you would have seen that Josh Edwards, though out for fortunately not too long, is also left footed and can also play as a CB if required! Plus if you read, my main issue was, he is an injury prone player throughout his carrear and quite honestly if you have been a Charlton supporter for many years, you would have seen how many of those we have wasted our money on! Aneke a prime example, yet we bought him back from Birmingham after originally getting shot of him, knowing that fact and hes hardly played any games since.!
As for the other stuff you say I spouted about, apart from a weak header by Ahadme into the goalies arms, neither of our currently first two so called strikers, have even had an effort on target between them in four games, so presumingly Hilton is also going to fill that gap when required?
Thats why its a short term deal until January – which may suggest Edwards isnt that close ? and I would never consider Aneke to be waste of money, ever ……..
Spot on MIke. Nathan Jones is a self-opinionated, bighead who thinks he knows how to manage a football team.
I was never comfortable with him being given the job, but he got it.
Then his first action of significance was to drive Alfie May out of the club. The top scorer in league one, with 23 league goals for Charlton. Goals that kept us up and won him the L1 golden boot.
Alfie has scored 4 goals for Birmingham in four games. which is three more than our whole ‘strikeforce’ in four games.
I’ll be glad when the owners see through NJ and sack him. It’ll probably be at the end of another disappointing season, but hopefully before.
Anyone else worried about today’s game against Rotherham ? They’ve had a slow start, but the pairing of Clarke-Harris and Willks frightens me to the bone !!
He offers cover at left back too…
He must hold the record for the longest trial at a football club, he’s been at Charlton since pre-season training. So yep, this was about shifting on a couple of others and balancing the player budget before officially bring him in to the squad. Clearly he trusted NJ to hang around for so long as I’m sure he’d have had other offers. Since he’s been here for so long there should be no questions about his physical fitness and recovery from last season’s issues. I note also that a few “trialists” have been playing recently for the U21s – was he one? If so he’ll have a bit of match fitness to boost him.
He fits the NJ template of the hard working player who offers a bit of physicality.
My quibble is that we’ve signed another defensive option (whether an actual defender or a defensive midfielder) when we really need a bit of midfield creativity.
There was an interesting article on the BBC, about training camps for out of contract players, and some of the names mentioned surprised me. With ex-prem players such as Dwight Gayle and Carl Jenkinson being mentioned, it makes you wonder how many more are out there, who may be worth having a punt on a short term contract?
There was a game organised by the PFA against Cambridge recently. Plenty of old CAFC players in the un contracted XI it showing if nothing else how bad our recruitment has been in recent years.