A widely held view among the Addickted at the moment is that we have too many loaned players. If the argument is put in the form that the proportion of loaned players in the team is too high, I can see something in that. I can also see the argument that players who come for a year (like Scott Carson) are to be preferred to shorter term loans as they are more likely to gell with the team as a whole. However, a lot of the instability in the team is to do with switches of 'permanent' players.
It is argued that loan players are less committed to the team. All football players are hired hands and many of them are fans of other teams. There was a particular generation of Charlton players - Johnnie Robinson, Steve Brown, Mark Kinsella among others - who had a special kind of commitment to the club. But those golden days are over, perhaps never to return.
There doesn't seem to be any hard evidence that the play of loaned players is worse (except when they are returning from injury which was a problem last season). As far as incentives are concerned, they are usually trying to rebuild their careers and hence should want to outperform.
There is a view among Charlton fans - which I don't accept - that we are already relegated and therefore we should starting 'blooding' young players for next year. This appeals to the 'Roy of the Rovers' streak among Charlton fans who would like to see a team made of ex-Academy players overcoming impossible odds.
Look at any non-league team and you will find it full of ex-Academy players from good clubs. Most of them are not good enough to make the grade. And for the few thart are, if you start playing them too early or too often, it can damage their career as their confidence is undermined by the inevitable bad performance which happens to all players from time to time.
Let's look at one much criticised player, Martin Cranie, who is featured in the latest Four Four Two. Cranie recalls, 'When I heard Charlton were interested, I couldn't wait to sign. The stadium, support, facilities, they're better than Portsmouth's.'
Asked 'Why is the team struggling?', Cranie says: 'In my early games, we took the lead a couple of times, but would then concede an equaliser and our heads would drop. We need to go on the front foot and take the game to our opponents more. There's no need to panic. The table doesn 't take shape until Christmas.' Cranie says that 'I'd be more than happy' to stay at Charlton after his loan runs out at the end of December.
8 comments:
So what is the problem Wyn?
Was it Pard's failure to motivate?
or the dropping of players as soon as they made a mistake, thus leading to an unsettled side?
Loan players' motivation may or may not be an issue. But as soon as Parkinson took charge he ships in another two. Three matches later he says he wants a bigger reshuffle in Jan.
Therefore the promise of more loan players becomes a constant aspiration, which in practice doesn't deliver.
So we return to the issue of why so many players (loanees and regulars) don't perform. Has to be the manager's lack of motivational skills doesn't it?
Pembury Addick
Nobody who has seen them play can seriously suggest that Wagstaff is a sane choice over Gillespie, McLeod over Burton or that Basey or Youga are remotely in the class of McEveley. The anti-loaners are grabbing at the next 'last straw' in desperation because the whole team has been so awful for so long.
"The loaned players question" is a total red herring
Far, far more disturbing is Pards and now Parky's persistence with incapable and disinclined charlatans like Gray, Sam, Mcleod and Cranie. There has been a little hard luck in the unavailability of Racon in particular and Bailey's total loss of confidence. But loan player for a month or 3 or 'permanent' signing with 2 years to run on his lucrative contract, they must all realise it doesn't matter how hard they try, far they run, if the squad is being moulded by a fool, selecting half a team who consistently don't contribute the end result will be negative.
Relegation is inevitable. Mr Muarray's attention must now solely be focused in making the best possible use of the few resources to ensure that there is a club called Charlton Athletic able to start next season in League One without a points deduction for having gone bust. In the absence (and unlikelihood)of significant new investment, any and all offers for contracted palyers will have to be considered. Parky, Kinsella, Steve Gritt, or whoever remains to pick the team next August will just have to make the best out of what youngsters, left overs and journeymen are available to him. Meantime we'll have to sit and watch teams stroll in to the Valley and collect their 3 points.
Will the last person to leave, please turn out the lights and put out the milk bottles?
Save Our Songbirds
I think the problem with most fans is the quality of our loanees.Lee Cook & Crainie are perceived as contributing little & being no better than players we already have.
My problem is with the ethics of the system.Hull got promoted largely on the back of a £7m rated striker(Fraiser Campbell)loaned from Man Utd.Hull's promotion was based on 7 or 8 loanees.
Just supposing Charlton's loanees were actually any good.Is it right that we stay up by utilising 7 players who belong to other clubs while Coventry,who do not have any loanees,get relegated?
Nobody is breaking any rules but should the rules be changed? It is impossible to argue that the system has been abused.
Scrap the loan system so that club's can only use their own players.If that means Man Utd & Arsenal are unable to snap up shed loads of promising youngsters,so be it.The loan system is a fairly recent 'invention' after all.
The issue is the quality of the loan players. None of the loan players are better than those contracted to the club so come the end of the season they will disappear and leave us to start all over again. This coupled with completely inept performances mean that many fans feel that at least youngsters would try. We might lose but at least we would get 100% effort and commitment. If all players give that then I do not care who wears the red shirt. If they do not then let them go.
i'm not sure the loaned players question is at all a 'red herring', when taking into account the quality of the loan player and the number of them in one team -and their ability/inability to instantly adapt to the new team.
The loaned player question I have is, can Varney, who I believe is still on Charlton's books?, play against us for a potential relegation rival next Monday? (and probably score) And, if there is no agreement to the contrary, who at the club thought this was an OK arrangement?
The Derby Evening Telegraph report that it was a part of the deal that he CAN play against us,so yes he will be trying his level best to hammer another nail in our coffin.
How can this be right?
I assume the club were so keen to get his wage off the bill they would have agreed to anything Ken.
There are a number of different questions here. First, is the mess the club is now in down to the number of loan players used in the last 18 months? Clearly not, though the persistent and, at times, seemingly random use of loan players may be just one symptom of the real problem. That “real” problem is obviously more complex.
Second, is the loan system itself appropriate? Again, clearly not. Its origins were in the genuine “borrowing” of players by clubs that simply couldn’t field a goalkeeper, for example. But it has degenerated into a complete farce, the real beneficiaries of which are the rich clubs who use it as a mechanism to enable the hoarding of players; an anti competitive and entirely unhelpful phenomenon. It is also open to abuse. Suppose Manchester Utd lent a key player to Peterborough and they secured promotion to the Championship as a result. There would be cries to change the system. It should be changed now.
Third, and perhaps the key question, why do Charlton fans think that the use of loan players has been detrimental? I don’t believe the motivational argument either, but I do think that the excessive use of the loan system is likely to damage morale, undermine team spirit and limit the development of the club’s contract players. You might say that this is a price worth paying, but that can be true only if the players brought in demonstrably improve the side. In general they haven’t and worse there is sometimes a sense that there is an obligation to pick them at the expense of those contract players. Put yourself in Moutaouakil’s shoes, for example. I don’t know if he is good enough or not, but we’ve barely seen him because he has been replaced by loan player after loan player. The only certainty is that he is less well equipped for the Championship now, or Div 1 for that matter, than he would be had he been playing. I think this is the concern. Perhaps the real problem is not the loan players per se but the sense that they’ve not been used intelligently.
That's a definite headshaker, Ketts. That's like a park team turning up short and us lending them one of our subs to make up the side - with NOTHING at stake. Talk about the inmates running the asylum.
Starting to remind me of old wot's 'is name on Dad's Army -running around bumping into things and shouting 'don't panic, don't panic!'
Post a Comment