Saturday 30 August 2008

McShane lost to Hull?

Early news that Pards target Paul McShane may have signed yesterday for Hull City. Shame if confirmed, as McShane sounds like an ideal Charlton signing. A former Manchester United youth player with Championship and Premiership experience he's still only 21 and could be expected to improve further. More importantly he can play centre-half and right back so would have proved a very useful addition, particularly if the Primus loan doesn't materialise, but we need additional defensive support in any event.

With just this weekend left, we are in real danger of failing to get the basic cover required. The Club will argue we needed to bring funds in before we could realistically enter the transfer market but loan deals do not have significant up-front costs and if we fail here there will be little excuse that can be offered. In spite of the obvious financial pressures, I think we have had adequate time to have sorted this out. If Primus doesn't join (even for four months) there should be a Stewards Enquiry and we should act to ensure this protracted mess doesn't happen again.

Whilst I appreciate you can probably get better late deals, I'd argue that it's a false economy as you don't get the value of the players from the beginning of the season and they take additional games to settle. If we have to play through until January with only two (or three) centre-backs at the club we are asking for trouble. It would be a tragedy if our season was ruined by a shortage of key defensive cover and the 15,000 season ticket holders would have been sold short. Let us hope.....

1 comment:

Go on, you know you want to....