Player recruitment on the hoof: but who is responsible for the mess?

Former Charlton chief executive Peter Varney, speaking to Richard Cawley, has contrasted the professionalism and meticulous care taken over signings in the Curbishley/Murray era with current practice.

‘If I had gone on the Leicester forums, my argument would be that I think I would not have found a friend for Oliver Skipp.  It feels to me like it is a conversation that starts with: "Who is available?"  It feels like the recruitment is on the hoof. It was the way it worked under Dowie and Pardew - and they ended up out of work.

So how do I assess the value of the current squad?  When it comes to answering my own question, you need to look at what you’ve paid, the length of the deal and wage per week.

Let’s say, for the purposes of explaining this, that we decided we don’t want one of our players that is earning £10k a week. It then becomes about whether you want a fee for the player or do you want to get the £10k off the books?

My contention is that at some point we will want to get a lot of the players that have been signed off the books. So the answer to my question on value is that they don’t have a value. They actually have a cost - because of their wages.

If someone is going to take a punt on Apter or Olaofe, you can forget about getting money. You are probably going to have to subsidise any move. Greg Docherty would have been the same. I imagine his attitude would have been ‘if you want me to go then it will be this figure’.  If £12m has been spent since promotion, would you get £12m back? No.  History will tell if I’m right or wrong.’

There is a very interesting comment by veteran fan Richard Hunt writing from his Czech fastness: ‘Well. Peter didn't mince his words on the current signings. He is clearly critical of the way the money provided has been spent. He admits that he is speaking as a fan, and his views align with most fans about the players he singles out.

I certainly find it hard to believe that we were "watching Ouma for a long time" because as Peter implies, if we had been we'd have known about his questionable behaviour. Don't we take references on players from foreign clubs and leagues? Slavia would not 'fess up about it, but Lech Poznan would. Just takes a phone call.

But then I'm left wondering whom Peter holds responsible for these duff signings. Most people will put the blame on NJ. It usually happens that way. But personally I'd like to know a bit more about our recruitment process before I concluded that, and before NJ becomes another victim of the managerial merry-go-round.

I know sod all professionally about player recruitment but a lot about managerial recruitment, and there is one maxim that has always held true (and from which I made a nice living for 26 years as a management recruiter) : It's easy to fire somebody. Any idiot can do that. The difficult bit is finding a replacement who is better.’