Jul 9
If Reece Burke can stay fit then he will be a hell of a signing. How often have we *insert name* said that in previous seasons?
Reece Burke today completed his signing from Luton on an undisclosed fee. He has signed a 2-year contract plus a year club option.
Please click for moreRich Cawley has thrown another name into the Hatters…. see what I did there?
Reece Burke was another player that Nathan Jones signed for Luton Town that went on to look comfortable in the Premier League.
Please click for moreYou can ring my…. 🔔
This looks a sensible squad building signing. Left sided centre back Amari’i Bell has signed on a 2-year deal after the expiry of his contract at Luton Town.
Please click for moreLuton Town’s Thomas Kaminski has become the Addicks second signing of the summer. Noted as fee undisclosed, Kaminski has signed a three-year deal.
The 32-year old Belgian has made close to 500 appearances including 38 in the Premier League and 160 in The Championship.
Please click for moreI reckon we may see a little bit of movement this week on the transfer incomings front.
There’s a little pre-season activity in some places and player’s contracts do expire on Monday.
Please click for moreSorry, 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.
Please click for moreA few of those eagle-eyed had noticed Paul Hart’s absence from the dugout thus far this season, and yesterday the club announced that he has left the club.
We know the demands of working for Nathan Jones, Paul Hart knows that better than anyone so good luck to the 71-year old in I presume retirement or at least being home much more with the family.
Please click for moreThe final week of the summer transfer window started well for Nathan Jones as his old compatriot Allan Campbell signed from Luton Town on loan for the season.
Campbell played 43 times in Luton’s promotion to the Premier League, which was began by Jones and finished off by Rob Edwards two season’s ago.
Please click for moreI put Luke Berry and Charlton together after Luton announced their end of season release list and today that became a reality when the midfielder signed on a two-year contract (with a year’s option).
Berry is a signing to raise the eyebrows, and I would have expected him to have had plenty of offers from higher placed teams, particulary in the south-east, but has chosen the Addicks purely down to his relationship with Nathan Jones.
Please click for moreI had been keeping an eye on when Luton Town‘s issue their released list, and it came out today.
It made sense in the law of putting two and two together to see if it threw up any obvious Nathan Jones’ previous connections.
Please click for moreMy Charlton mate Rob Waghorn had been in touch with Luton fan Mark during the past week once it was known than Nathan Jones was in the frame for the Addicks’ job.
Rob asked Mark to give his thoughts on the new Charlton manager from a Luton Town perspective. It makes very interesting reading.
Mark is well worth a follow and you can find him on X (Twitter) at either We are Luton Town or Mark the Hatter.
Please click for moreI spent a little time these last few days looking at some videos and articles on how Nathan Jones set up his teams, mostly Luton of course.
I mean, at the moment for us it is substance over style. We haven’t kept a clean sheet since Nathan Jones first went to choir practice, and on Saturday go into our biggest game for many years.
So, I think for almost all Addicks we just want the Welshman to get us back to basics and bring a bit of pride back.
Please click for moreJust over 10 years to be precise, when the then highly rated young coach left to join the burgeoning project at Brighton.
Now the Addicks board are in deep consideration of offering him the vacant position of head coach at The Valley.
Please click for moreLuton Town’s Louie Watson has joined on loan .
Watson is another untried youngster joining a squad already brimming with untried youngsters.
Watson sounds as if he is more than deep lying playmaker, but he has had very little game time in recent seasons.
Please click for moreThe 26-year-old goalkeeper has signed with the Addicks on a two-year deal, with the option of a third year, from Luton Town after the expiration of his contract.
Isted had been at Luton since 2017 but only played 3 games. He has spent a lot of his career being on loan in non-league but was given a chance at Barnsley on loan for the second-half of last season and played 22 times including in the play-off final where he was excellent.
Please click for moreLuton Town, once our level, but our level now the same as Crewe Alexander and Accrington Stanley, have signed Tom Lockyer on a free.
Lockyer had a free transfer release clause in his contract if we were relegated. Sterling work again by the Duchatelet brain’s trust.
This is a tough run, no win in six, and no clean sheets either, and our points total is stuck in the quicksand. The squad is decimated, and now Gallagher will miss Saturday after being booked. Josh Cullen will be out until after Christmas.
We have a bigger squad this season, two players for each position etc, but it is an infliction of Duchatelet’s ownership that once again too many of these players are brought in last minute, cheaply, not fit enough or have never been fit. Or all of the above.
My next look at our new Championship opponents. Part One is here.
The long running saga of Frank Lampard leaving for Chelsea meant Derby County had to quickly re-adjust this summer. They chose Phillippe Cocu as their new manager. The Dutchman has no previous experience on British soil, but he has won the Eredivisie three times as a manager.
Nerves rattled both Portsmouth and Sunderland last night when with an eye on second place both came unstuck meaning that without kicking a ball both Luton and Barnsley were promoted.
Peterborough were two-up at Fratton Park, but then we’re hauled level. However with their own promotion push on a knife edge Posh went back in front and are now a point behind Doncaster. On Sunday Peterborough are at home to Burton and Doncaster home to Coventry.
Who one of those plays in the play-offs is all up for grabs. Even the Addicks can snatch 3rd on Sunday but Portsmouth are in pole position facing Accrington at home, although Stanley did score five last week. Sunderland have a tricky one away at Southend, who need to win.
Bow put on a brave face when talking about our promotion rivals spending in the January transfer window, but if it didn’t only highlight the budgetary disparities between us and them, it also shone a massive spotlight on differing board ambitions.
None of the clubs at the top with us are loaded with money, yet Bow’s fellow managers and Steve Gallen equivalents were all allowed to haggle and barter in the window for the betterment of their squads and Sunderland, Portsmouth, Luton and Peterborough have all come out the other end with a deeper and, on paper at least, a stronger collection of players.
Doncaster, who have one of the lowest budgets in the league, were pretty inactive in January but importantly kept John Marquis despite interest from Sunderland, and a late bid from Swansea. In demand Alfie May also signed a contract extension.
Despite being a staunch promotion rival you have to feel sorry for Luton Town fans after Nathan Jones left for Stoke City.
Addicks fans know how ambitious Jones is. Money I don’t think has ever been his drive, just the passion to work hard and improve. He left our coaching staff in 2013 to take up a role at Brighton, who were on the verge of good things. His two and a half years at Albion magnified his reputation and he took his first managerial role at Luton 3 years ago, and has had unprecedented success.
That must have been an enjoyable walk through the allotments on the way out!? Absolutely fantastic to see us come back like that in injury time. In a crazy four minutes we hit the bar twice, had one of the line, and could have won a penalty. All before Chris Solly crashed a volley low into the net through a crowd of players.
It must have been brilliant to have been in that away end as the players celebrated wildly next to them, in front of the Luton fans (photo), giving it large after they failed to give us the ball back for the preceeding corner. Ah, football eh?
The second part of my look at our League One rivals as we enter our third consecutive season under our current genius owner. I am sure he is reading this as he renews his subscription for Valley Pass.
Here was Part One of my 2018/19 League One preview, which went Accrington Stanley to Coventry City.
Congratulations to Nathan Jones on his first managerial post at Luton Town.
Jones was always destined to make the move into management and his reputation that he had built at Charlton with the U21’s has only magnified following his two and a half years at Brighton, where he once played, and was also caretaker manager for a while. Good luck to him.
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Back from a great but knackering week in Florida with work. I spent the last night of the trip with a client that owns the imposing Westin Diplomat in Hollywood north of Miami. They were very accomodating and it was a restful way to end the trip, which started in similar fashion last Sunday with a few beers with New York Addick on Ocean Drive in South Beach.
A weekend of not doing an awful lot is on the radar, although the weather here doesn’t appear to encourage doing much outside. Hopefully I can catch some of the FA Cup games on the telly, although the one I’d like to see doesn’t appear to be on.
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Luton Town 1 Charlton Athletic 3
Well that was a turn up for the books. I didn’t see that coming and the snippets I managed to watch on a feed on my computer at work didn’t put us in a good light, especially the first half giving away a lot of the ball and defending deeply but we got the goals at the right time and it is another fine away victory for Parky and the lads.
The win was all the more sweet after Parkinson picked up the Manager of the Month and Johnnie Jackson the Player award today, normally a precursor of a big fall but for once we came away from a potential banana skin with our pride intact. Parky deserves his little bit of television time tonight especially after his old boss has been hogging all the limelight today.
The Spurs game is something to look forward to, and a reminder of glory days past but there is a lot of league action before then.
The hardy few at Kenilworth Road: Addicks Diary;
CA fact: Wagstaff, Jackson and Anyinsah have scored all of our goals in this season’s FA Cup run.
Charlton Athletic 2 Luton Town 2
As tough as it is to follow Emma Jones’ commentary on BBC Radio London it sounded to me as if Luton deserved their draw yesterday afternoon and a replay adds another game to our already busy fixture list, which now sends us on the road for all but one of our next five games. Maybe not a bad thing judging by recent form!
Sarasota, Florida
