Methven on the brink

After five months of speculation, it would appear that Thomas Sandgaard is close to exiting Charlton Athletic Football Club. Charlie Methven has been using his contacts to talk up the chances of his consortium's bid via social media and this afternoon, Rich Cawley has confirmed with Sandgaard that an improved bid has indeed been accepted subject to contract.

Sandgaard's update to Cawley suggests he continues to talk to Marc Spiegel, Roman Gevorkyan and "a senior figure at MSD finance group." Given Marc Spiegel folded two weeks ago and I doubt the others have done little more than enquire, this looks like wishful thinking on Sandgaard's part or a bluff to help his contractual negotiations.

You have to assume that Methven's group (Friedman, his Son, Brener and Methven's Global Football Partners) have now agreed to pay c £11.5m (Ben Ransome is suggesting £12m) which splits the difference between their previous respective position and Sandgaard's. The understanding is that Sandgaard will no longer have any stake, so part of the increase over their January bid accounts for his proposed 10% stake-holding although they have added a couple of million to that price by my reckoning which they may want to recover sooner rather than later.

At this stage, most won't care what they have spent, only that Sandgaard has gone and his proven lack of ambition with him. I have said before that we need to move on and have to be prepared to take a risk on new owners because the future under Sandgaard was simply further decline. Taking a risk is exactly what we are doing with Methven and Co. I use Methven's name deliberately because I expect him to be named CEO to Rodwell's Chairman and for Scott and Warrick to return, along with Lenaghan, who never really arrived first time around.

I expect Brener and the Friedman's to remain very much in the background. This looks like small beer for them and little more than a dabble at this point. To all intents and purposes, we are going to have to suffer Methven. I only hope he has learnt from his experiences at Sunderland, although from his behaviour during the bidding process would suggest not.

We then have to hope and pray that Methven's hitherto assertions that he sees promotion as a route to profitable exit proves to be more than a sound-bite but I have serious doubts if they are sticking to their strategy shared alongside the 'Texas Prospectus' which Rodwell appeared to acknowledge for the first time last week when talking to CAST.

At the risk of looking like a doom-mongerer, I won't re-hash any of that (it's all well-documented) because their first steps in charge will be the proof of the pudding in any event. I only hope that those holding off giving their Season Ticket money to Sandgaard are prepared to hold on until the end of July just to ensure this isn't a rape and pillage.

I hope the anticipated announcements are full of realistic ambition and unambiguous commitments of how they plan on delivering that ambition. It starts with the playing staff as we all know and it will need overall investment (not funded from part of incoming transfer fees). As we approach the June opening of the transfer window, we shouldn't have long to wait.