Nathaniel Chalobah
The latest trialist to be at Sparrows Lane. Chalobah played 65 minutes in the friendly at Colchester United tonight and impressed in a defensive central midfield role.
His name in the starting line up would have thrown Addicks’ fans into a frenzy hoping to see a multi-million pound midfielder unveiled, but instead we got a free agent.
Chalobah is a good player though and at 31 has played in the Premier League and Serie A and has an England cap. He has played over 200 Championship league games but sadly his career has often been derailed by injuries, mostly muscular ones.
Older brother of Trevor, he was part of the Sheffield Wednesday team last season that I thought played us off the park in a footballing sense at Hillsborough. Injury restricted his game time over two seasons there. Playing 31 times altogether.
He has been training and playing with Wednesday so should have decent fitness levels.
His best seasons were with Watford but he does have both a Premier League winners medal and a Championship one from when he was at Fulham.
A central defensive midfield player doesn’t have to cost a fortune but an experienced operator with a good engine that can be relied upon would do the trick.
It’s whether Chalobah can be relied upon, but that is why he is on trial.
The Addicks were far better tonight against Colchester winning 2-0 with first half goals from Matty Godden and Karlan Grant.
I know chalobah is decent and if kept fit probably a good asset, but I really think creative midfielders as got to be our priority if we are going to cause teams problems and finish higher than last season. Played a lot better last night coyr
If Chalobah would accept a one year contract. I think he’s worth a punt.
The rumour mill has been linking us with Jordan Holsgrove – unfortunately the same rumour mill has suggested he’s being looked at by a number of clubs. I’d rather a younger and more reliable player like Holsgrove at DM over Chalobah, but that choice might not be ours to make.
It’s not as though the last two seasons have been a bit of an issue for Chalobah, he’s never played a whole season, most years he’s missed around 50% of available games.
But when he plays he’s good and we saw last year with Reece Burke and Amari’i Bell the benefits and pitfalls of signing players with injury records. When they are fit you can see why they are playing for Championship sides, sadly they spend a lot of time with the physio. But that does mean we can get them on cheap wages.
He’s also a local lad – born in Sierra Leone, but brought up in Gipsy Hill.
If we bring in another top quality DM, would def prefer Chalobah over someone like Coady to act as cover for 20-30 games throughout the season. Having 2 decent or above players at each position seems critical to keeping us up this year.
I am slightly concerned about his physical problems but he has proved over time that he is good when fit. Seeing as he would be signing on a free, he should be worth a gamble. However, as others have already pointed out, we still need to find a couple of younger defensive midfielders of proven Championship standard.
NJ says he is confident that we will meet our recruitment targets.
If so, he will have some crucial decisions to make about who sell.