I look around our squad and all I see is nothingness

[reamsofverse]

I suppose this post could have gone into one of the others that already exists but I just wanted to highlight where I think it's all going wrong.

Andy Scott has created a nothingness on the playing side of the club. There's not one player that any of us will be sorry to lose in the summer, which is a bit of a worry when our survival hopes are in their hands.

We were told at the beginning of the season that we're going to have a real go at it and bring players in that would help us get to where we wnat to be. I put a statement from them up on here which among other things urged Sandgaard to sell up at the earliest opportunity so ensure that SE7 could start the rebuild while the window was still open.

Ok he didn't do that and we were left with just a few days to bring in what we could but nobody that came in was an upgrade on what we already had. The likes of Hector and Terrell Thomas were time saving signings based on the season before while (Alfie May arrived before the new owners).

Before we knew it we were well off the pace and with barely half of the season gone we knew that the play-off's were just not achievable with the squad we had. It simply just wasn't good enough with very few, if any, top six standard footballers.

Failure number one was going with what we had at the beginning of the season. We bid 500k for Nombe and that was very quickly turned down. Bidding for players means nothing to me if you don't get them, especially if you go in too low knowing that will be your one and only bid and other clubs will offer more. I'm not saying we bid for players for effect but if you are serious and have recognised we badly need players of a certain ilk you just don't leave it there when your bid is knocked. If you really want your target you go higher or have a plan B already lined up. We did neither.

So with any prospects of reaching the play-off's gone, we sack Dean Holden and bring in Michael Appleton and after a bright start we revert to type with players Scott thought were capable of a top six place, then having no stomach to hold down and cement a mid-table spot. By the time we played Cray Valley Paper Mills I think the writing was on the wall, we all knew that is was more a case of how low we'll finish rather than how high.

By the time January comes around we are back in the hands of one of the men responsible for creating a sub-standard squad six months earlier, relying on him to do much better with his second window of the official SE7 era, than he did during his first. I'm not sure how technical he needed to be at this point to realise that we were desperate for a striker. Fact is we all knew it so he was hardly earning a living by going after JCH. We all know how that one panned out but the aftermath from it again was just littered with schoolboy errors and mistake after mistake. Just like Nombe there was no plan B despite the options being simpler because Peterborough had accepted our bid where Exeter didn't. Eventually a contingency did arrive but when you are willing to offer 500k for a player and pay him 10k a week, you don't expect Freddie Ladapo and Uche Ikpeazu to rock up for medicals at Sparrows Lane instead. We desperately needed Clarke-Harris for a reason and we all know that a return on our outlay would have been almost instant.

Ladapo and Ikpeazu were clumsy, lazy choices in finding another JCH. I do happen to think though that Ikpeazu could have done a job myself just like Josh Parker did for us six seasons ago. He has something different, we need a hold up striker because we don't get enough men forward quick enough and too often recently May's attempts at goal have been rushed while he is on the run instead of having the time to compose himself. The Port Vale lad would have done that for him but instead we got a striker who looks incapable of finding the form of old. He looks a very poor acquisition and I hold Andy Scott totally responsible. A technical director worth his salt will look for something we don't have among our attacking options. As soon as Miles Leaburn is fit Ladapo will be surplus to requirements but there would have been a use for Ikpeazu even when Aneke is fit.

I believe Scott ran out of ideas and can't see past his version of what's needed. That same version was put to use at Nottingham Forest and it cost them £180m so he was sacked and rightly so. It didn't do Forest much harm and I doubt it would hurt us either. He said he would turn around the losing mentality at the club and he has failed to do so. Making such a claim and then backing that up with most of the players he has signed tells me he is out of touch with reality. Football has moved on beyond his skillset.

So with mid-table obscurity now looking a big ask the main focus switches to using the remaining two weeks of the January window to ensure enough quality comes in to preserve our L1 status. We get off to a positive start with Edmunds-Green and Gillesphey coming in but then we revert to type after missing out on Aaron Collins. It's the Nombe situation all over again. Went in lower than Bolton with a larger over all financial package so we lose out with no plan B again. Maybe not all is lost here though. At that point we still have Scott Fraser who we could advance into the 10 role where he is more comfortable. OK he's out of form and not as good as Collins but he is more than capable on his day so let's save the money and bring in a wide ride player to do for us what CBT on the left and that should give us enough to keep us out of danger, or will it..... Fast Foward a day or two and what do we do, allow Scott Fraser to go to Hearts on-loan and sell CBT, two players who we were so reliant on for creativity, assists and most of all goals.

Selling CBT was madness, not replacing him was just just careless and irresponsible. Andy Scott must be the only technical director who makes a living out of selling good players instead of bringing them in! As for Fraser, I think he was entirely mismanaged. You watch him come to life at Hearts, I know he will because he is a good footbaler. He was unlucky to get injured during the Leyton Orient game, then his wife had a new born baby which is life changing. I also think MA just didn't fancy him and played him in roles that just weren't suited. He was in and out of the side and just didn't get going. I think if he had returned to the fray after injury with Holden still at the helm we would have started to see the same player who scored 9 goals last season. That wasn't just down to luck.

Another big hit for him this season I believe was taking away the penalty kick duties from him. Every player needs a stimulant and that was his. He has rarely had a season when he has been out of the goals so I just think that weighed on his shoulders too. He hasn't been played in positions where he can score them. It's a minor detail but passing the baton over to Alfie from 12 yards out to increase his goal tally while keeping Fraser on zero was an error. You want players vying for position in the goal scoring charts. Fraser was never going to match Alfie, nobody was, but you need goals all over the pitch, it's good for squad moral and creates healthy competition, but we don't have them.

Fiorini and Tedic have been poor signings. Jones is better than what we are currently seeing, Bakinson helps move teh ball along but he's jsut too ineffective in either penalty area. Coventry is no different to Dobson, more flair I suppose and a little more creative but we needed somebody in there who is far more attacking minded who scores 10 goals a season. You just can't have two defensive midfielders in your starting XI when you are a bottom six club desperate for goals.

Its' too soon for this weeks arrivals to be judged but what I do know right now is the biggest failure of all at our football club is Andrew Scott. How can we dig players out when the guy doing all the underachieving still sits there with a smile on his face.

Scott in just six months has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is incapable of putting together a promotion winning or at the very least a play-off squad. He's even failed on what should have been the minimum requirement on creating a squad that has potential, one which with a few additions in the summer would be be capable of competing in and around the top six next season. Instead, and as of today we have a squad built by him, that is littered with players that have been lumbered with the responsibility of keeping us in the third tier of English footballl. Very few have experience of a relegation dog fight on their CV's, just look at Macauley Gillesphey for example, last season he was leading Plymouth to promotion!

I'm not one for booing players or anyone for that matter but the next time 'Your not fit to wear the shirt' rings around the Valley close on 5pm on a Saturday afternoon, maybe it should be aimed at the person who brought them here because in may cases, they are not, they're just victims of Scott's scattergun approach in signing players.

Clubs like Bolton and Portsmouth this week that if they want a player they'll pay the asking price and make sure they land their targets. Caleb Taylor and Aaron Collins, two players we wanted go to the North West wjile Reading's McIntyre and Owen Moxen go to Pompey, both for peanuts. Something is dratically wrong that we can't compete. We say the money is there but I would like to know what is behind us not being able to spend it. We are losing out to other clubs far too easily, the Cheltenham lad Will Goodwin was another one.

We have too much of a muchness at our club at the moment which as I say in the thread title is a nothingness. Never before have I not known players names when watching games albeit on CAFC TV. They all resemble a squad of players that are on trial or are here part time earning a living until the end of the season. Getting relegated won't affect them.

It's been a long post I know but the biggest issue for me that has shown up in every signing is the planning. It's been a problem for years. I said last week that we should be more proactive than we are in transfer windows. Thankfully we don't have Martin Sandgaard's blackbox anymore but we are so far behind the times with Scott's lack of vision.

We should have signed the likes of Dan Kemp and Jake Young last week and loaned them back to MK Dons and Bradford City respectively. Not sure what numbers or statistics we look at other than how many noughts are on teh end of transfer fee's we are being quoted but if it's numbers Scott needs, Kemp and Young were both on loan at Swindon for the first five months of this season and scored 30 goals between them. Will Evans at Newport is another one.

We lost out on Will Goodwin because of a bidding war with Oxford so why don't we pre-empt our interest in players and go in with bids on day one of a window and have it done by day three before anyone can hijack it?

[cafcginge]

i feel like we do have the players but we are so disjointed in everything we do. there is clearly no vision or structure to any of the teams we field. at the end of the day it has become like they are just 11 names on a team sheet. yesterdays goal was a perfect example of how disjointed we are. one player ran away as he thought the ball would go long and the other decided to play the ball short. they were clearly on different wavelengths at that time. we can keeep saying that it is silly errors that are costing us but we need to look at why these errors keep happening. it is much bigger than just these small errors. these errors are happening because of more structural and basic things such as communication. hopefully with a new manager we can actually start to field a squad rather than just 11 individuals. also something has got to change with the players that are being selected. there is quality in this squad but the wrong players are being chosen and we need to also field a team that plays to its strengths and with a proper system. i hope that nathan jones can do that and i feel like it court start with wholesale changes.

[manikin]

Assuming Jones gets the job he should have more control than recent manager's, choosing his own left-hand and right-hand men and having a big say in signings. Why is Scott still here? he should have gone at the same time as Appleton.

[VFR94]

Agree with this. Bleak.

Also what really bugs me, whenever teams score against us they celebrate together as a team sort of happy they've scored, real sense of togetherness.

Whenever we score there's simply nothing. Goalscorer runs over and celebrates and there's noone near him nothing.

The cohesion of the squad is simply non existent. As if they can't be arsed to play for our club.

[Occam’s Razor]

Nathan Jones should be choosing the players from now on . No ifs, no buts.

The Technical Director role is completely superfluous for a team that is 19th in the Third Tier. It’s the equivalent of putting a chocolate flake on a dog turd, to make it look more appetising.

I don’t agree that we have no players that will be missed.

George Dobson showed yesterday what a huge loss he will be.

Miles Leaburn has massive potential, and will also be missed when SE7 Partners sell him to try to balance the books.

[weststandfruitloop]

Feb 4, 2024 13:31:28 GMT reamsofverse said:

By the time we played Cray Wanderers I think the writing was on the wall, we all knew that is was more a case of how low we'll finish rather than how high.

Great post. Brought even closer into focus by this modest correction: We weren't playing Cray Wanderers (an established non-league side) but Cray Valley Paper Mills, a previously unheard of amateur side (average attendance 80) in the Kent League or whatever. Even more tragic.

[reamsofverse]

Feb 4, 2024 14:04:48 GMT weststandfruitloop said:

Feb 4, 2024 13:31:28 GMT reamsofverse said:

By the time we played Cray Wanderers I think the writing was on the wall, we all knew that is was more a case of how low we'll finish rather than how high.

Great post. Brought even closer into focus by this modest correction: We weren't playing Cray Wanderers (an established non-league side) but Cray Valley Paper Mills, a previously unheard of amateur side (average attendance 80) in the Kent League or whatever. Even more tragic.

Doh! thanks for pointing that out!

[scabbyhorse]

In January, the biggest mistakes like you say were not having a plan B after the Collins rebuff and, unbelievably, letting Fraser go to Hearts. Additionally, and I know I keep emphasising this, even though I acknowledge he isn't the greatest, it's incredible to me that Louie Watson is not in the starting eleven as our roaming number 10. Coaches and managers are well-paid to make decisions that impact performance, so why the fook cant they see it.

Oh finally GET SCOTT OUT!!!

[pardew123]

Louie Watson isn’t great but he’s only No. 10 we have I’d also put Isted in give AMB a break he’s a big part of our problems

[revilo]

To add to your point Reams, we can even look at players who have left us and are now much the better for doing so: Jake Forster-Caskey at Stevenage, Albie Morgan at Blackpool, Alex Gilbey and Jack Payne at Milton Keynes, hate to say it but Lyle Taylor at Cambridge United. And soon Scott Fraser to be tearing it up at Hearts.

For some reason playing under Charlton Athletic is a completely different challenge and our head coach or manager can't get the best out of them. What is it about our club that we show the weakness in players who on paper are good players.

[se7sm]

Well there it is in a nut shell reams everyone can see what’s going on selling players ( your best players)and replacing them with crap.putting bids in with no intention of paying what the worth is or our need , sorry this is all looking like a big con . Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the club was in debt up to its eyeballs.SMT 🙄sounds the part

[scabbyhorse]

Feb 4, 2024 15:04:29 GMT se7sm said:

Well there it is in a nut shell reams everyone can see what’s going on selling players ( your best players)and replacing them with crap.putting bids in with no intention of paying what the worth is or our need , sorry this is all looking like a big con . Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the club was in debt up to its eyeballs.SMT 🙄sounds the part

Not to sure Nathan Jones would of come unless he had assurances that we had a little money to spend, of course the proof is in the pudding and all that malarkey but the best thing we can do now considering our league predicament is to get behind the team, loud and clear starting at Reading.

[jonkool]

Feb 4, 2024 14:04:48 GMT weststandfruitloop said:

Feb 4, 2024 13:31:28 GMT reamsofverse said:

By the time we played Cray Wanderers I think the writing was on the wall, we all knew that is was more a case of how low we'll finish rather than how high.

Great post. Brought even closer into focus by this modest correction: We weren't playing Cray Wanderers (an established non-league side) but Cray Valley Paper Mills, a previously unheard of amateur side (average attendance 80) in the Kent League or whatever. Even more tragic.

Spot on about Cray Valley PM … I used to play against them in the South London Alliance League in the 70s/80s which demonstrates how tragic it is 🤭

[bourneaddick]

I remember feeling despondent with the squad Parky had and SCP took over. It looked as though we might go down then. The difference then was we brought in Wright-Phillips, Jones does not have that luxury of a window.
It's going to be an interesting ride, please just make it enough, Nathan.
BTW, welcome

[earlpurple]

Andy Scott could become "chief scout" I guess?

[reamsofverse]

Feb 4, 2024 16:38:52 GMT earlpurple said:

Andy Scott could become "chief scout" I guess?

Just as long as he is watching players, the MANAGEMENT team want and not what one's he thinks we should be signing.

I don't think for a minute that he watches players before he signs them anyway to chief scout would be something new to him!!

[DFT]

Interesting and hopefully very telling that Nathan Jones has been announced as Manager and not Head Coach. To me that suggests he will be in charge of transfers...I hope!

I'm sure it's something he would have insisted on before signing a contract.

[stu2020]

I think it’s harsh to say Fiorini is a poor signing… he’s hardly had time to prove himself yet, he came on with about 3mins to spare yesterday which is beyond me…

[somerton]

I agree Reams. I do not see these so called top quality league one players in the squad. What I see is crocks trying to prove they are not, players past there use by date loan players their clubs want to offload as they will not make it with then. The results seem to prove this.

[weststandfruitloop]

Feb 4, 2024 15:01:22 GMT revilo said:

To add to your point Reams, we can even look at players who have left us and are now much the better for doing so: Jake Forster-Caskey at Stevenage, Albie Morgan at Blackpool, Alex Gilbey and Jack Payne at Milton Keynes, hate to say it but Lyle Taylor at Cambridge United. And soon Scott Fraser to be tearing it up at Hearts.

People (someone on CL posted a list of players who will still be with us next season and missed all four off) seem to forget that Payne and Fraser are still contracted to play for us next season, as are McGrandles and Henry.

I wonder if there might be a way back into the Charlton squad for any of them under NJ?

[aaronaldo]

Feb 5, 2024 9:12:48 GMT weststandfruitloop said:

Feb 4, 2024 15:01:22 GMT revilo said:

To add to your point Reams, we can even look at players who have left us and are now much the better for doing so: Jake Forster-Caskey at Stevenage, Albie Morgan at Blackpool, Alex Gilbey and Jack Payne at Milton Keynes, hate to say it but Lyle Taylor at Cambridge United. And soon Scott Fraser to be tearing it up at Hearts.

People (someone on CL posted a list of players who will still be with us next season and missed all four off) seem to forget that Payne and Fraser are still contracted to play for us next season, as are McGrandles and Henry.

I wonder if there might be a way back into the Charlton squad for any of them under NJ?

I thought Payne's contract was up at the end of the year?

[weststandfruitloop]

Feb 5, 2024 9:32:56 GMT aaronaldo said:

Feb 5, 2024 9:12:48 GMT weststandfruitloop said:

People (someone on CL posted a list of players who will still be with us next season and missed all four off) seem to forget that Payne and Fraser are still contracted to play for us next season, as are McGrandles and Henry.

I wonder if there might be a way back into the Charlton squad for any of them under NJ?

I thought Payne's contract was up at the end of the year?

Ah, you're right. Sorry I thought he got a three year contract but it looks like it was only two. The others are definitely contracted until 2025 though.

[manikin]

I would hope our summer targets are identified early on so when the window opens we can bring in some real talent early on. That would make a pleasant change.

[earlpurple]

Feb 5, 2024 11:09:20 GMT manikin said:

I would hope our summer targets are identified early on so when the window opens we can bring in some real talent early on. That would make a pleasant change.

It may depend which division we are playing in.

[DFT]

Feb 5, 2024 13:24:52 GMT earlpurple said:

Feb 5, 2024 11:09:20 GMT manikin said:

I would hope our summer targets are identified early on so when the window opens we can bring in some real talent early on. That would make a pleasant change.

It may depend which division we are playing in.

I don't think we're going up mate, not this season!

[crapgame]

I agree, there are only 5 or 6 players that I would be confident in getting us up the table and yet we have recruited loads over the last 2 years or so. For some reason, our recruitment has been gradually 'deteriorating' for a number of years, roland and daneboy's time is littered with a haphazard policy of poor buys and this seems to have continued under se7. As mentioned previously, we seem to recruit 'some' reasonably decent players who then turn into afflicted, one-legged donkeys overnight! I also thought the time around adkins was interesting when it was made public that the squad 'wasn't fit'!! Why weren't they? Why wasnt the squad fit? Were they not 'training? We had professional 'coaches' taking them every day, so why were they not fit? This tells me something about the 'training culture' (or lack of it) at sparrows lane. Hopefully the new boy will sort it out!

[addickteduk]

Feb 4, 2024 13:31:28 GMT reamsofverse said:

I suppose this post could have gone into one of the others that already exists but I just wanted to highlight where I think it's all going wrong.

Andy Scott has created a nothingness on the playing side of the club. There's not one player that any of us will be sorry to lose in the summer, which is a bit of a worry when our survival hopes are in their hands.

We were told at the beginning of the season that we're going to have a real go at it and bring players in that would help us get to where we wnat to be. I put a statement from them up on here which among other things urged Sandgaard to sell up at the earliest opportunity so ensure that SE7 could start the rebuild while the window was still open.

Ok he didn't do that and we were left with just a few days to bring in what we could but nobody that came in was an upgrade on what we already had. The likes of Hector and Terrell Thomas were time saving signings based on the season before while (Alfie May arrived before the new owners).

Before we knew it we were well off the pace and with barely half of the season gone we knew that the play-off's were just not achievable with the squad we had. It simply just wasn't good enough with very few, if any, top six standard footballers.

Failure number one was going with what we had at the beginning of the season. We bid 500k for Nombe and that was very quickly turned down. Bidding for players means nothing to me if you don't get them, especially if you go in too low knowing that will be your one and only bid and other clubs will offer more. I'm not saying we bid for players for effect but if you are serious and have recognised we badly need players of a certain ilk you just don't leave it there when your bid is knocked. If you really want your target you go higher or have a plan B already lined up. We did neither.

So with any prospects of reaching the play-off's gone, we sack Dean Holden and bring in Michael Appleton and after a bright start we revert to type with players Scott thought were capable of a top six place, then having no stomach to hold down and cement a mid-table spot. By the time we played Cray Valley Paper Mills I think the writing was on the wall, we all knew that is was more a case of how low we'll finish rather than how high.

By the time January comes around we are back in the hands of one of the men responsible for creating a sub-standard squad six months earlier, relying on him to do much better with his second window of the official SE7 era, than he did during his first. I'm not sure how technical he needed to be at this point to realise that we were desperate for a striker. Fact is we all knew it so he was hardly earning a living by going after JCH. We all know how that one panned out but the aftermath from it again was just littered with schoolboy errors and mistake after mistake. Just like Nombe there was no plan B despite the options being simpler because Peterborough had accepted our bid where Exeter didn't. Eventually a contingency did arrive but when you are willing to offer 500k for a player and pay him 10k a week, you don't expect Freddie Ladapo and Uche Ikpeazu to rock up for medicals at Sparrows Lane instead. We desperately needed Clarke-Harris for a reason and we all know that a return on our outlay would have been almost instant.

Ladapo and Ikpeazu were clumsy, lazy choices in finding another JCH. I do happen to think though that Ikpeazu could have done a job myself just like Josh Parker did for us six seasons ago. He has something different, we need a hold up striker because we don't get enough men forward quick enough and too often recently May's attempts at goal have been rushed while he is on the run instead of having the time to compose himself. The Port Vale lad would have done that for him but instead we got a striker who looks incapable of finding the form of old. He looks a very poor acquisition and I hold Andy Scott totally responsible. A technical director worth his salt will look for something we don't have among our attacking options. As soon as Miles Leaburn is fit Ladapo will be surplus to requirements but there would have been a use for Ikpeazu even when Aneke is fit.

I believe Scott ran out of ideas and can't see past his version of what's needed. That same version was put to use at Nottingham Forest and it cost them £180m so he was sacked and rightly so. It didn't do Forest much harm and I doubt it would hurt us either. He said he would turn around the losing mentality at the club and he has failed to do so. Making such a claim and then backing that up with most of the players he has signed tells me he is out of touch with reality. Football has moved on beyond his skillset.

So with mid-table obscurity now looking a big ask the main focus switches to using the remaining two weeks of the January window to ensure enough quality comes in to preserve our L1 status. We get off to a positive start with Edmunds-Green and Gillesphey coming in but then we revert to type after missing out on Aaron Collins. It's the Nombe situation all over again. Went in lower than Bolton with a larger over all financial package so we lose out with no plan B again. Maybe not all is lost here though. At that point we still have Scott Fraser who we could advance into the 10 role where he is more comfortable. OK he's out of form and not as good as Collins but he is more than capable on his day so let's save the money and bring in a wide ride player to do for us what CBT on the left and that should give us enough to keep us out of danger, or will it..... Fast Foward a day or two and what do we do, allow Scott Fraser to go to Hearts on-loan and sell CBT, two players who we were so reliant on for creativity, assists and most of all goals.

Selling CBT was madness, not replacing him was just just careless and irresponsible. Andy Scott must be the only technical director who makes a living out of selling good players instead of bringing them in! As for Fraser, I think he was entirely mismanaged. You watch him come to life at Hearts, I know he will because he is a good footbaler. He was unlucky to get injured during the Leyton Orient game, then his wife had a new born baby which is life changing. I also think MA just didn't fancy him and played him in roles that just weren't suited. He was in and out of the side and just didn't get going. I think if he had returned to the fray after injury with Holden still at the helm we would have started to see the same player who scored 9 goals last season. That wasn't just down to luck.

Another big hit for him this season I believe was taking away the penalty kick duties from him. Every player needs a stimulant and that was his. He has rarely had a season when he has been out of the goals so I just think that weighed on his shoulders too. He hasn't been played in positions where he can score them. It's a minor detail but passing the baton over to Alfie from 12 yards out to increase his goal tally while keeping Fraser on zero was an error. You want players vying for position in the goal scoring charts. Fraser was never going to match Alfie, nobody was, but you need goals all over the pitch, it's good for squad moral and creates healthy competition, but we don't have them.

Fiorini and Tedic have been poor signings. Jones is better than what we are currently seeing, Bakinson helps move teh ball along but he's jsut too ineffective in either penalty area. Coventry is no different to Dobson, more flair I suppose and a little more creative but we needed somebody in there who is far more attacking minded who scores 10 goals a season. You just can't have two defensive midfielders in your starting XI when you are a bottom six club desperate for goals.

Its' too soon for this weeks arrivals to be judged but what I do know right now is the biggest failure of all at our football club is Andrew Scott. How can we dig players out when the guy doing all the underachieving still sits there with a smile on his face.

Scott in just six months has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is incapable of putting together a promotion winning or at the very least a play-off squad. He's even failed on what should have been the minimum requirement on creating a squad that has potential, one which with a few additions in the summer would be be capable of competing in and around the top six next season. Instead, and as of today we have a squad built by him, that is littered with players that have been lumbered with the responsibility of keeping us in the third tier of English footballl. Very few have experience of a relegation dog fight on their CV's, just look at Macauley Gillesphey for example, last season he was leading Plymouth to promotion!

I'm not one for booing players or anyone for that matter but the next time 'Your not fit to wear the shirt' rings around the Valley close on 5pm on a Saturday afternoon, maybe it should be aimed at the person who brought them here because in may cases, they are not, they're just victims of Scott's scattergun approach in signing players.

Clubs like Bolton and Portsmouth this week that if they want a player they'll pay the asking price and make sure they land their targets. Caleb Taylor and Aaron Collins, two players we wanted go to the North West wjile Reading's McIntyre and Owen Moxen go to Pompey, both for peanuts. Something is dratically wrong that we can't compete. We say the money is there but I would like to know what is behind us not being able to spend it. We are losing out to other clubs far too easily, the Cheltenham lad Will Goodwin was another one.

We have too much of a muchness at our club at the moment which as I say in the thread title is a nothingness. Never before have I not known players names when watching games albeit on CAFC TV. They all resemble a squad of players that are on trial or are here part time earning a living until the end of the season. Getting relegated won't affect them.

It's been a long post I know but the biggest issue for me that has shown up in every signing is the planning. It's been a problem for years. I said last week that we should be more proactive than we are in transfer windows. Thankfully we don't have Martin Sandgaard's blackbox anymore but we are so far behind the times with Scott's lack of vision.

We should have signed the likes of Dan Kemp and Jake Young last week and loaned them back to MK Dons and Bradford City respectively. Not sure what numbers or statistics we look at other than how many noughts are on teh end of transfer fee's we are being quoted but if it's numbers Scott needs, Kemp and Young were both on loan at Swindon for the first five months of this season and scored 30 goals between them. Will Evans at Newport is another one.

We lost out on Will Goodwin because of a bidding war with Oxford so why don't we pre-empt our interest in players and go in with bids on day one of a window and have it done by day three before anyone can hijack it?

Excellent post - agree with everything said here...I just wonder if there is something that can be done with impact loans (....like JCH?!), or frees....I think NJ will put a rocket up the squad, sure he will use Isted instead of AMB and give the lads some desperately needed confidence that the season starts today.

Whatever happens with the squad at his disposal, all we can do is get behind Nath and the lads from before the whistle to after it, for every match now - they are all 6 pointers. Yes he needs time and we have a vile February fixture list, but tomorrow is certainly winnable and we are not down yet....relegation is unthinkable so all we can do is make sure our support is as loud and constant as possible, in every game! 

COYA 

[revilo]

Feb 5, 2024 14:52:40 GMT addickteduk said:

Feb 4, 2024 13:31:28 GMT reamsofverse said:

I suppose this post could have gone into one of the others that already exists but I just wanted to highlight where I think it's all going wrong.

Andy Scott has created a nothingness on the playing side of the club. There's not one player that any of us will be sorry to lose in the summer, which is a bit of a worry when our survival hopes are in their hands.

We were told at the beginning of the season that we're going to have a real go at it and bring players in that would help us get to where we wnat to be. I put a statement from them up on here which among other things urged Sandgaard to sell up at the earliest opportunity so ensure that SE7 could start the rebuild while the window was still open.

Ok he didn't do that and we were left with just a few days to bring in what we could but nobody that came in was an upgrade on what we already had. The likes of Hector and Terrell Thomas were time saving signings based on the season before while (Alfie May arrived before the new owners).

Before we knew it we were well off the pace and with barely half of the season gone we knew that the play-off's were just not achievable with the squad we had. It simply just wasn't good enough with very few, if any, top six standard footballers.

Failure number one was going with what we had at the beginning of the season. We bid 500k for Nombe and that was very quickly turned down. Bidding for players means nothing to me if you don't get them, especially if you go in too low knowing that will be your one and only bid and other clubs will offer more. I'm not saying we bid for players for effect but if you are serious and have recognised we badly need players of a certain ilk you just don't leave it there when your bid is knocked. If you really want your target you go higher or have a plan B already lined up. We did neither.

So with any prospects of reaching the play-off's gone, we sack Dean Holden and bring in Michael Appleton and after a bright start we revert to type with players Scott thought were capable of a top six place, then having no stomach to hold down and cement a mid-table spot. By the time we played Cray Valley Paper Mills I think the writing was on the wall, we all knew that is was more a case of how low we'll finish rather than how high.

By the time January comes around we are back in the hands of one of the men responsible for creating a sub-standard squad six months earlier, relying on him to do much better with his second window of the official SE7 era, than he did during his first. I'm not sure how technical he needed to be at this point to realise that we were desperate for a striker. Fact is we all knew it so he was hardly earning a living by going after JCH. We all know how that one panned out but the aftermath from it again was just littered with schoolboy errors and mistake after mistake. Just like Nombe there was no plan B despite the options being simpler because Peterborough had accepted our bid where Exeter didn't. Eventually a contingency did arrive but when you are willing to offer 500k for a player and pay him 10k a week, you don't expect Freddie Ladapo and Uche Ikpeazu to rock up for medicals at Sparrows Lane instead. We desperately needed Clarke-Harris for a reason and we all know that a return on our outlay would have been almost instant.

Ladapo and Ikpeazu were clumsy, lazy choices in finding another JCH. I do happen to think though that Ikpeazu could have done a job myself just like Josh Parker did for us six seasons ago. He has something different, we need a hold up striker because we don't get enough men forward quick enough and too often recently May's attempts at goal have been rushed while he is on the run instead of having the time to compose himself. The Port Vale lad would have done that for him but instead we got a striker who looks incapable of finding the form of old. He looks a very poor acquisition and I hold Andy Scott totally responsible. A technical director worth his salt will look for something we don't have among our attacking options. As soon as Miles Leaburn is fit Ladapo will be surplus to requirements but there would have been a use for Ikpeazu even when Aneke is fit.

I believe Scott ran out of ideas and can't see past his version of what's needed. That same version was put to use at Nottingham Forest and it cost them £180m so he was sacked and rightly so. It didn't do Forest much harm and I doubt it would hurt us either. He said he would turn around the losing mentality at the club and he has failed to do so. Making such a claim and then backing that up with most of the players he has signed tells me he is out of touch with reality. Football has moved on beyond his skillset.

So with mid-table obscurity now looking a big ask the main focus switches to using the remaining two weeks of the January window to ensure enough quality comes in to preserve our L1 status. We get off to a positive start with Edmunds-Green and Gillesphey coming in but then we revert to type after missing out on Aaron Collins. It's the Nombe situation all over again. Went in lower than Bolton with a larger over all financial package so we lose out with no plan B again. Maybe not all is lost here though. At that point we still have Scott Fraser who we could advance into the 10 role where he is more comfortable. OK he's out of form and not as good as Collins but he is more than capable on his day so let's save the money and bring in a wide ride player to do for us what CBT on the left and that should give us enough to keep us out of danger, or will it..... Fast Foward a day or two and what do we do, allow Scott Fraser to go to Hearts on-loan and sell CBT, two players who we were so reliant on for creativity, assists and most of all goals.

Selling CBT was madness, not replacing him was just just careless and irresponsible. Andy Scott must be the only technical director who makes a living out of selling good players instead of bringing them in! As for Fraser, I think he was entirely mismanaged. You watch him come to life at Hearts, I know he will because he is a good footbaler. He was unlucky to get injured during the Leyton Orient game, then his wife had a new born baby which is life changing. I also think MA just didn't fancy him and played him in roles that just weren't suited. He was in and out of the side and just didn't get going. I think if he had returned to the fray after injury with Holden still at the helm we would have started to see the same player who scored 9 goals last season. That wasn't just down to luck.

Another big hit for him this season I believe was taking away the penalty kick duties from him. Every player needs a stimulant and that was his. He has rarely had a season when he has been out of the goals so I just think that weighed on his shoulders too. He hasn't been played in positions where he can score them. It's a minor detail but passing the baton over to Alfie from 12 yards out to increase his goal tally while keeping Fraser on zero was an error. You want players vying for position in the goal scoring charts. Fraser was never going to match Alfie, nobody was, but you need goals all over the pitch, it's good for squad moral and creates healthy competition, but we don't have them.

Fiorini and Tedic have been poor signings. Jones is better than what we are currently seeing, Bakinson helps move teh ball along but he's jsut too ineffective in either penalty area. Coventry is no different to Dobson, more flair I suppose and a little more creative but we needed somebody in there who is far more attacking minded who scores 10 goals a season. You just can't have two defensive midfielders in your starting XI when you are a bottom six club desperate for goals.

Its' too soon for this weeks arrivals to be judged but what I do know right now is the biggest failure of all at our football club is Andrew Scott. How can we dig players out when the guy doing all the underachieving still sits there with a smile on his face.

Scott in just six months has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is incapable of putting together a promotion winning or at the very least a play-off squad. He's even failed on what should have been the minimum requirement on creating a squad that has potential, one which with a few additions in the summer would be be capable of competing in and around the top six next season. Instead, and as of today we have a squad built by him, that is littered with players that have been lumbered with the responsibility of keeping us in the third tier of English footballl. Very few have experience of a relegation dog fight on their CV's, just look at Macauley Gillesphey for example, last season he was leading Plymouth to promotion!

I'm not one for booing players or anyone for that matter but the next time 'Your not fit to wear the shirt' rings around the Valley close on 5pm on a Saturday afternoon, maybe it should be aimed at the person who brought them here because in may cases, they are not, they're just victims of Scott's scattergun approach in signing players.

Clubs like Bolton and Portsmouth this week that if they want a player they'll pay the asking price and make sure they land their targets. Caleb Taylor and Aaron Collins, two players we wanted go to the North West wjile Reading's McIntyre and Owen Moxen go to Pompey, both for peanuts. Something is dratically wrong that we can't compete. We say the money is there but I would like to know what is behind us not being able to spend it. We are losing out to other clubs far too easily, the Cheltenham lad Will Goodwin was another one.

We have too much of a muchness at our club at the moment which as I say in the thread title is a nothingness. Never before have I not known players names when watching games albeit on CAFC TV. They all resemble a squad of players that are on trial or are here part time earning a living until the end of the season. Getting relegated won't affect them.

It's been a long post I know but the biggest issue for me that has shown up in every signing is the planning. It's been a problem for years. I said last week that we should be more proactive than we are in transfer windows. Thankfully we don't have Martin Sandgaard's blackbox anymore but we are so far behind the times with Scott's lack of vision.

We should have signed the likes of Dan Kemp and Jake Young last week and loaned them back to MK Dons and Bradford City respectively. Not sure what numbers or statistics we look at other than how many noughts are on teh end of transfer fee's we are being quoted but if it's numbers Scott needs, Kemp and Young were both on loan at Swindon for the first five months of this season and scored 30 goals between them. Will Evans at Newport is another one.

We lost out on Will Goodwin because of a bidding war with Oxford so why don't we pre-empt our interest in players and go in with bids on day one of a window and have it done by day three before anyone can hijack it?

Excellent post - agree with everything said here...I just wonder if there is something that can be done with impact loans (....like JCH?!), or frees....I think NJ will put a rocket up the squad, sure he will use Isted instead of AMB and give the lads some desperately needed confidence that the season starts today.

Whatever happens with the squad at his disposal, all we can do is get behind Nath and the lads from before the whistle to after it, for every match now - they are all 6 pointers. Yes he needs time and we have a vile February fixture list, but tomorrow is certainly winnable and we are not down yet....relegation is unthinkable so all we can do is make sure our support is as loud and constant as possible, in every game! 

COYA 

Fortunately we don't play until Saturday but tomorrow's results could make it tougher for us

[somerton]

One issue that seems not to be addressed by those backing g the club is the London cost of living. They seem to think that Ll they need to do is off the same kind of salary or bonus to players as clubs in the Midlands or the North do.
It probably also effects how much they are willing to offer for player contracts as I gather that influences signing on fees. Of course, this could be because we get owners who do not have the money or they think they can buck the market.

[addickteduk]

Feb 5, 2024 15:06:59 GMT revilo said:

Feb 5, 2024 14:52:40 GMT addickteduk said:

Excellent post - agree with everything said here...I just wonder if there is something that can be done with impact loans (....like JCH?!), or frees....I think NJ will put a rocket up the squad, sure he will use Isted instead of AMB and give the lads some desperately needed confidence that the season starts today.

Whatever happens with the squad at his disposal, all we can do is get behind Nath and the lads from before the whistle to after it, for every match now - they are all 6 pointers. Yes he needs time and we have a vile February fixture list, but tomorrow is certainly winnable and we are not down yet....relegation is unthinkable so all we can do is make sure our support is as loud and constant as possible, in every game! 

COYA 

Fortunately we don't play until Saturday but tomorrow's results could make it tougher for us

Thanks Revilo - good spot!  

Guess I am just anxious for the lads to get back out there to address this horrific form!