Jan 30
Another out today as Jayden Stockley moves to Fleetwood Town in a permanent fee for an undisclosed fee. A quick tap at the calculator tells me that the club are currently sitting comfortably in the black thus far this transfer window.
Whilst that is clear, where that money is going is not.
Please read for moreMidfielder Conor McGrandles has joined Cambridge United on loan until the end of the season.
The 27-year old moved to The Valley in the summer and has started just 2 league games due to a couple of freakish injuries and then when he has had the opportunity, he hasn’t in all honesty impressed.
Please click for moreMatt Penney, a left-footed left back, has signed on loan from Ipswich Town until the end of the season.
Stories were emanating that a new signing was due to be involved at Peterborough this afternoon, and the club later announced that 24-year old Penney had dropped.…
Please click for moreThe injury curse of new signings strikes again.
Todd Kane, who showed promise in the first half on Saturday even though he was switched to left back just before kick off is now sidelined for a ‘number of weeks’ with a hamstring injury.
Please click for moreIt became two in and two out yesterday with Craig MacGillivray leaving the club on a permanent transfer to Burton Albion.
MacGillivray was Portsmouth POTY the season before he moved to us, but he never convinced and used to make me very nervous when the ball was at his feet. He wasn’t particularly dominant at set-pieces, but I am sure somewhere online you can find a compilation of great saves.
Please click for moreFollowing hot on the heels of the signing of Macauley Bonne, Coventry’s Todd Kane has signed on loan until the end of the season.
Kane and Dean Holden give their thoughts here, but also there is a bloke called Thomas Sandgaard, who appears from the abyss, and shares his broad footballing knowledge with us fans. How we have missed his opinion..
Please click for moreI do think it’s funny. We have the Sandgaard black box and we brought in ace-wheeler-dealer Andy Scott, and who do we sign? An ex-player, who we tried to sign in August and a player we have at least been in for twice previously.
Please click for moreThe first piece of January transfer business sees an exit for Jake Forster-Caskey on a permanent deal to Stevenage.
After this season mostly being an outcast, the 28-year leaves the club having played 128 games for the Addicks, scoring 13 goals.
Please click for moreAnd just when you thought that was our lot. Thomas splashes the cash signs an ex-academy player who is a free agent.
Probably very unfair on the 26-year old centre-half, who spent 8-years with our academy but never played a first team game, mostly I suspect due to the revolving door of foreign imports at that time…. I’ll give you Marco Motta.
Please click for moreOver promise and under deliver.
Whatever your feelings on signing Macauley Bonne, the cold facts are the club have waited 3 months after they let Conor Washington go, and 6 weeks since they sold Josh Davison to AFC Wimbledon and waited until the very last seconds of deadline day to try to sign a striker who used to play for us. Martin Sandgaard’s data analytics must be top notch.
Please click for moreMidfielder Alex Gilbey has moved to League 2 side Stevenage managed by the inimitable Steve Evans on a season-long loan. There is a call back option in January.
Please click for more“Yeah, of course. We’re looking to see if we can stretch the other defence a little more – someone able to run in behind and create that confusion. We’ve seen that already, that it has been a little too easy for opposing defences to cut us off.”
Please click for moreWe have had some very depressing transfer deadlines with players sold from under our noses. The noises coming from within the club have been pretty honest in that it’s very apparent that we have to sell before we buy, and many players look to be on the block this week.
Charlie Kirk, Jake Forster-Caskey, Alex Gilbey, Craig MacGillivray, Jayden Stockley, Albie Morgan and Sean Clare could all be subject to bids this week. The squad is already paper-thin so making sure we have replacements is the most basic principle.
Please click for moreAre we really going to try to offload DJ, Alex Gilbey, JFC and Craig MacGillivray before the window closes? How light do we need this wage bill to be? And how many do we have to sell to add?
The bench is already packed full of youngsters, and players like Aaron Henry need a loan deal to stop their progress being blunted like Albie Morgan’s was.
Please click for moreAlex Gilbey has a few suitors as he decides, or more likely Ben Garner decides if the midfielder’s future is away from The Valley.
I suspect it will be demand of the owner that Garner moves one on from his first team squad to make room for a replacement, likely to be a left-sided centre-half I’m led to believe.
Please click for moreThe name of yesterday’s 7th summer signing had been on Addicks’ lips for a while, despite the tongue twister.
19-year old Jesurun Rak-Sakyi has joined from Crystal Palace for a season long loan. The assumption for the delay was that Rak-Sakyi was negotiating a new 5-year contract with our rivals plus the emergence of plenty of competition for the winger’s signature including Cardiff and Birmingham offering Championship football.
Please click for moreWouldn’t we just love to have that echoing around The Valley. We’d all like nothing more than seeing Miles Leaburn make it big (no pun intended), but although physically he is strong, there have been too many examples over the years of young players being thrown in too early, despite what both Thomas Sandgaard and Ben Garner says.
Ben Garner will know what is needed and has inherited a physical aerial striker in Jayden Stockley, who does not suit Garner’s system, and in Garner’s words “a deconditioned” striker in Chuks Aneke, who already has injury concerns a week before the real business starts.
Please click for moreJosh Davison has joined Johnnie Jackson’s AFC Wimbledon on a 3-year deal for an undisclosed fee.
22-year old Davison joined in October 2019 and played 35 times, scoring 6 goals.
Please click for moreLooks as if Jack Payne will be the next Ben Garner acquisition as the new Addicks’ boss raids his old club once more.
27-year old Payne can play as an 8 or a 10, and turned down a very good offer to apparently take lower wages at Charlton. Payne will have a medical today before being announced tomorrow.
Please click for moreHot on the news of the club open to selling Jake Forster Caskey, it is also appears that Josh Davison could also be gone by the time the transfer window is closed.
JFC was only offered a new contract a few months back after fighting back from another long-term injury. None of us really know if the 2020/21 POTY can rediscover that form, but central midfield is an area where the squad is more than adequate and it looks as if Ben Garner would rather move JFC on over Albie Morgan and Alex Gilbey.
Please click for moreIt sounds as if the first loan slot will be taken by Fulham’s versatile 22-year old Steven Sessegnon. His twin brother is at Tottenham.
Steven is comfortably two-footed and can play either at left or right back, and I presume with the squad number limit an issue, his adaptability will be important.
Please click for moreA surprise late signing tonight when not long after the club unveiled it’s new website, the first news article which looked like a test page, announced a new signing.
That is 26-year old midfield playmaker Conor McGrandles. Falkirk born McGrandles turned down a new contract with Lincoln City and in a ‘Dale Stephens move’ signed a three-year contract with Charlton after declaring he was homesick.
Please click for moreThat might explain why Ashley Maynard-Brewer wasn’t in Spain, although I think he was spotted in Australia, The Highlands and Tesco in Dartford.
Another transfer move that swung under the radar today with AMB moving to Gillingham for the season, although the Addicks do have a recall option.
Please click for moreInteresting new signing today. Once again Thomas and the black box analytics team have raided Swindon Town and signed the 25-year old Ghana international goalkeeper Joe Wollacott on a three-year deal.
Wollacott is still young for a goalkeeper but prior to one season at Swindon had spent his whole career in non-league after coming through the Bristol City academy.
Please click for moreSeems like a confident young lad. Attacking right back Mandela Egbo became the club’s second summer signing today penning a two-year contract with an option of a third.
The 24-year old was at Swindon at the end of last season under Ben Garner, signed just to keep fit initially, but Egbo had a star run in the team as Swindon made it into the L2 play-off’s.
Please click for moreThere was rumours of a couple of not so familiar faces at the first day of training at Sparrows Lane today. Eoghan O’Connell wasn’t one of them, but the club announced the Rochdale captain as a new signing this evening.
The 26-year old Cork-born ball playing centre-half is the Addicks first summer signing hopefully signalling some further activity this week.
Please click for moreOn loan Josh Davison still has some unfinished business at Swindon Town as they kick off the play-off’s at home to Port Vale on Sunday. Davison has scored 9 goals since his move on loan in January.
One out on loan player that has returned however is Charlie Kirk. I didn’t see many grievances of Sandgaard’s signing of Kirk from Crewe in the summer, but he never settled in the smoke particularly following the death of his father.
Please click for moreYou could not make this up.
Mason Burstow is not in tonight’s squad as he and Thomas Sandgaard explore a potential sale to an unnamed Premier League club.
Please click for moreCharlton have been tracking Scott Fraser for a while, in fact even when he was at MK Dons rumours linked us to him.
Now at Ipswich who signed him a part of their massive summer recruitment drive for a ‘sizeable six-figure fee.’ Charlton made their first bid last week, but have had a second improved one accepted by Ipswich.
Please click for more“Middlesbrough attacker Marcus Browne will not be signing for Charlton Athletic. The Addicks will now shift their attention to other targets and still plan to add to their squad before Monday’s transfer deadline.” (More)
Please click for moreThe 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!
Please click for moreBlackpool happily ensconced in mid-table in The Championship after winning the play-off’s last season have signed Charlie Kirk on loan with a view to a permanent move in the summer.
Please click for moreAn interesting development in the Marcus Browne rumour. The reliable Rich Cawley is suggesting a permanent deal for the 24-year old attacking midfielder from Middlesbrough.
Please click for more22-year old Josh Davison has moved to Swindon Town on loan for the remainder of the season to help the Robins’ challenge for promotion from League Two. A certain Welshman called Williams is already at the County Ground.
Please click for moreNot a young Spurs loanee, but another from the Chelsea factory line.
The Amsterdam born speedy left wing back Juan Castillo has signed on loan until the end of the season. Castillo did play a few games on loan at Birmingham earlier in the season. His season-long loan was cut short. Last season he played on loan in the Eredivisie for ADO Den Haag.
Please click for moreSounding more and more like Charlie Kirk’s short stay at The Valley will come to an end in this window.
There are talks of a permanent move back to the north-west with Blackpool, who obviously see things in him that we haven’t.
Please click for moreThe player we never replaced has returned today on a three-and-half-year deal said to be worth £300,000.
Aneke scored 16 goals last season, and moved for a free to Birmingham during the summer. He has played 18 matches for Lee Bowyer’s side but only 370 minutes. He has scored twice this season and came on as sub in their last game.
Please click for moreThe first transfer story of the window is out, and that is the return to Nottingham Forest of Harry Arter.
The return of Arter to the club where he began his career never had the fairytale ending some hoped it might. The 32-year old played five games and only featured under Jackson twice, at home to Havant & Waterlooville and Aston Villa U21’s and was twice substituted.
Please click for moreFrom someone who was asking for some leadership commentary on our transfer strategy through the silence leading up to the deadline, it would be amiss of me if I wasn’t to praise the article yesterday with included insight from Sandgaard, Roddy, Gallen and Adkins.
Please click for moreNot a surprise this one, although there was a thought that Nigel Adkins would use the emergency loan market for a back-up keeper, but out-of-contract 33-year old Stephen Henderson signed a one-year contract yesterday.
In the 5 years since leaving Charlton, Stephen Henderson has only played 16 first team matches, but he did have a good spell with us over two seasons and was a popular player amongst a squad that had few endearing qualities at the time.
Please click for moreCharlton added a much-needed left back to their squad today, and it was a slightly peculiar pick. Steve Gallen has a good relationship with Dougie Freedman at Palace, and looks another tip-off from our South London rivals.
Pape Souare has hardly played during the past few years last playing in the French 2nd Division during the Covid hit 2019/20 season. Palace had signed him in January 2015, and he played 34 games for them in that first Premier League season.
Please click for moreAs the clock turned 23.00 hours BST word got out that we had two final signings in the bag.
Then shortly after the hour 24-year old Morecambe captain Sam Lavelle, and old friend Jonathan Leko on loan from Lee Bowyer’s Birmingham were announced.
Please click for moreNo Ronnie Schwartz tonight in the Pizza Trophy at The Valley against Crawley Town. Nigel Adkins has changed the whole team from Saturday, and includes Elliot Lee, Corey Blackett-Taylor and Nathan Harness and is captained by Jason Pearce.
Please click for moreWords used by Gillingham’s Steve Evans to describe the Addicks bid of £100,000 for their midfielder Kyle Dempsey on Monday.
With just one day left of the summer transfer window I truly hope that those two words don’t haunt us and we go to bed tomorrow night with them rattling around our heads.
Please click for moreAt The Valley today was Harry Arter. The 31-year old midfielder will become Charlton’s next signing after agreeing a season-long loan deal from Nottingham Forest. I read that the deal may become permanent in the summer.
Arter signed a three-year deal at the City Ground a year ago but with problems aplenty at Forest Chris Hughton has written the Republic of Ireland international out of his plans, even though he is still picked by his country.
please click for moreAug 26
A bit of a weird one for me to be honest. I am quite friendly with the Lee family, although not enough to have any real intel, but I am sure Elliot Lee joining the Addicks’ today on loan will have raised a smile with both his grandad and father.
Please click for moreAs someone once said.
It is now a week until D Day, and I’m content, or at least accepting, that the club will require every minute of that whole week to make signings. It’s the way the window appears to work and the expectation is that the final day, hours and minutes of this summer’s will be extra chaotic.
Please click for moreThe 23-year old winger has been training with the Addicks, and today signed a short-term contract until January, which if not earth shattering is a sensible decision for both parties.
Blackett-Taylor came through the youth ranks at Aston Villa and spent the last two seasons with Tranmere Rovers but was released in the summer.
Please click for moreThe one thing about a sloppy start is there is no covering up the misgivings of a skinny inadequate squad.
In past season’s with a similar anemic pre-season but with a much-less caring owner, we have started well against the odds. At Sunderland a couple of season’s back Lee Bowyer carried a half-filled bench, refusing to sing the ‘pathway to the first-team’ crap and just took the players he felt could come on and make a difference.
Please click for moreWe’ve waited a long time, but after 23 days the Addicks made another summer signing with Crewe Alexandra’s Charlie Kirk joining the club today.
The 23-year old winger was a product of Crewe’s academy and has starred for the Railwayman during the last few seasons racking up 181 games.
Please click for moreAs expected Ashley Maynard-Brewer got a loan move today and heads to the Scottish Highlands and a season with SPL side Ross County.
There is a mid-season break clause but it will be good experience for the 22-year old Aussie, who has just take part in the Olympics in Tokyo.
Please click for moreThis was the team that started yesterday to round off the pre-season games at Craven Cottage. We lost 1-0 to a team described as a level or two above us, which galls me but that is because of my own unerring enmity of the Fulham 🤷♂️
With Alex Gilbey recovering from Covid and Ronnie Schwartz “still some way of inclusion” then that ladies and gentlemen is that.
Please click for moreIf our What’s App group chat was as busy on transfer incomings and rumours, as it is on how great the new kits are, then we’d all be a little more upbeat about the start of the new season starting a week tomorrow.
I am a patient soul when it comes to Charlton and I want to be careful not to put myself in the bedwetting department, but my expectation, perhaps aspirational, of a summer rebuild has so far been a long way off the mark.
Please click for moreSean Clare, who was once in Charlton’s academy has signed on a 2-year deal from Oxford United.
By all accounts a natural ball-carrying midfielder the 24-year who ended last season being part of Burton Albion’s renaissance has signed for an undisclosed fee.
Please click for moreNigel Adkins continues to get the band back together, some would say Lee Bowyer’s band, but the additions of Adam Matthews and Akin Famewo are both welcome.
Adam Matthews signed on for a year, whilst Akin Famewo joined on a season long loan, with an option of a permanent move next summer. The 22-year old has a Norwich contract until June 2023.
Please click for moreJake Forster-Caskey will become the first reigning Player of the Year to play the following season since Ricky Holmes in 2016/17…. although he was flogged in the January.
JFC signed a one-year deal today, which includes the option of a second year and is currently rehabilitating following a second ACL injury in his time at Charlton.
Please click for moreI can’t complain that I’ve never heard of him as I was calling for young players proven at this level that I’d never heard off!
George Dobson fits that re-build, released by Sunderland today, the 23-year old defensive holding midfielder that impressed on loan at AFC Wimbledon this past season joins on a 2-year deal.
Please click for moreBen Amos has signed for Wigan Athletic, who are showing to be one of next season’s biggest L1 spenders.
Amos played 92 games for the Addicks covering two full seasons in 17/18 and 20/21 and although in apparent new contract discussions with Charlton, he has followed Chuks Aneke out of the door and moved elsewhere.
Please click for moreThis may confuse those that thought Chuks and Lee Bowyer didn’t get on, but money talks and so does familiarity.
Rich Cawley is reporting that Chuks Aneke is finalizing his free transfer move to St. Andrews after spending two seasons at The Valley. He has only one Championship goal to his name after spending almost his entire career in League One. He did also play 44 games in Belgium’s top league.
Please click for moreSigning no.1 ✔️
A popular one I’d image as Jayden Stockley completes his move to Charlton from Preston. The 27-year old has signed for three years. The fee officially undisclosed, is thought to be £450,000.
Please click for moreJust checking to see if you had heard of any? Because I sure ain’t.
All very quiet on the transfer front, just the one solid rumour from a trustworthy source. Rich Cawley linked our name with out of contract Portsmouth ‘keeper Craig MacGillivray. The 28-year old won Pompey’s player of the year. Ben Amos among others is in current talks on a new deal at The Valley, but MacGillivray sounds a good option.
Please click for moreThose little tight turns, that scurry of pace with the ball at his feet, the tumbling over under the slightest challenge, the lung-bursting I really don’t want to do this chasing back, the goal at Portsmouth, the ginger beard, the Play-Off Final, that massive smile. We’ll miss you Jonny.
Siesta Key Beach, Florida
