A tale of two elevens

First things first, congratulations to Dean Holden and his 22 players who saw Welling United off comfortably yesterday at Park View Road. The 4-0 score-line was par for the course but the performance and the result probably said more about Welling's state of readiness for league action than ours.

As has become customary, we started each half with different elevens. It gives everyone 45 minutes, helps keep it competitive and the fans get to see all the players in action. The two Charlton sides were a careful mixture of the good and not-quite-there-yet, which was sensible and it obviously worked.

However, if you picked the strongest eleven to start the match, our second-half side would have looked like this; Isted, Elerewe, Mitchell, Lavelle, Asiimwe, Henry, McGrandles, Chin, Jaiyesimi, Kirk and Kanu. In a nutshell, that is the current squad weakness and in an ideal world we should be looking to bring in better quality players than we have in the first eleven line-up, so we can move some of the current first teamers into the wider squad and move on some of the current second eleven.

The fact that we have only signed a back-up keeper in Harry Isted and extended Michael Hector's contract so far, tells you that Sandgaard isn't spending a bean more than our current (lower) wage budget and that there is no deal on a bigger budget with the prospective new owners as trotted out by Peter Storrie on season ticket deadline day. 

I listened to Michael Hector explain earlier in the week how easy it was for him to extend his deal with us, a month after he was offered a new contract. He spoke, with a smile, about his slow start in January when it seemed to take him two months to get to full fitness. So frustrating then to hear Dean Holden tell us that his absence yesterday was because "he returned a bit behind the others in terms of fitness." This is an out-of-contract player looking to get a new deal somewhere. Bear in mind he hardly played in the two years before he joined us and he is 30 years old, you have to question his motivation and just what we will get from him this season.

Holden also told us that the current process for transfers was cumbersome in that it involves putting any suggestions to Thomas Sandgaard and then floating them past Methvin's crew. I guess we shouldn't be surprised at that but it's certainly not ideal. The common wisdom is that an EFL decision on the approval of the takeover should be through in three or four weeks time i.e. a week or two before the season starts. No doubt we will add to the squad before then but don't expect six or seven signings. Sandgaard won't want to increase his current wage exposure too much and I am sure Global Football Partners will want to be seen to have made changes (however underwhelming they might turn out to be) after their arrival. Perhaps the main loanees will be left for GFP to decide. Those will be the bigger wages and potentially the biggest first-team influence.

In the meantime, Chuks Aneke was again absent yesterday, Holden us he tweaked his calf in training but you have to wonder. Apparently, he hasn't been seen around the club since the end of last season. His injury record is appalling and with a lengthy contract in place, at what point will Charlton call it a day? Not much longer you would think if they can claim insurance compensation if he is medically retired. Such a shame, but why was he offered such a long term after his injury record with us up until that point?

Oh, and we all need to pray that Miles Leaburn's injury yesterday is nothing serious or we are in deep doo-doo.