Deadline Day Dismay

So Franny Jeffers has departed to Glasgow giants, and Champions League qualifiers, Rangers on a four-month loan deal. I really hope that it works out well for him there. It certainly hasn’t gone to plan at Charlton for Franny but that is probably more to do with his (alleged) off field activities than his on field abilities. Enough said on that front, I’m sure we have all heard the stories. Either way, he wasn’t exactly suited to Curbs preferred 4-5-1 system.

Anyway, we are now definitely a striker light and I can’t see anything happening at this late stage to rectify that situation. Having not even looked at the Wigan Athletic programme I thought I’d take this opportunity, using the handbook, to assess the Charlton Athletic goal scoring records of Darren Bent’s understudies. It doesn’t make good reading.

League Only

Johansson - 89 starts (plus 55 subs) and 27 goals - a goal every 3.30 starts (5.33 incl subs)
Bartlett - 89 starts (plus 18 subs) and 23 goals - a goal every 3.87 starts (4.65 incl subs)
Lisbie - 61 starts (plus 80 subs) and 16 goals - a goal every 3.81 starts (8.81 incl subs)

Those for Lisbie, in my opinion, are especially poor. These have come over a nine season period in which the games he actually started read 4,1,0,0,5,10,24,5 and, last season, 12. His highest tally in a season was 5 when he started just 10 games but the next season he started 24 but scored only 4. JJ’s goals per games he has started is pretty good at just over three but both Bartlett and Lisbie are approaching four and when you take into account sub appearances then the record of all three is very poor but especially Lisbie whose is close to a goal every nine games. Considering strikers are normally brought on to change a game by scoring a goal then the record of each of our ’strikers’ is extremely poor. Its okay to offer as an excuse other attributes that each of the above has but at the end of the day strikers are judged on the goals they score and nothing else. As a comparison the much maligned Carl Leaburn had, sub appearances included, a strike rate of a goal every 6.08 games, far better than that of Lisbie and not significantly worse than those of Johansson and, to a lesser extent, Bartlett.

At the other end of the scale Clive Mendonca’s record reads a goal every 2.1 games and Derek Hales a goal every 2.16 games. These are the strikes rate we expect of a striker and frankly our current bunch, Dazza excepted, do not cut the mustard.

All of which is very much a cause for concern. Should Bent be missing for whatever reason then we have a real problem. Not only can the striker with the best record when starting, Johansson, not play the lone front man role but the two who can, Bartlett and Lisbie, have records that even Showaddywaddy would be ashamed of (if you are too young ask your parents).
I suppose that we will have to just trust that Curbs knows what he is doing but letting Franny out on loan could backfire on us big-time.

Late breaking news even as I finish writing this is that Charlton have signed striker Jay Bothroyd. Aged just 23 he started his career at Arsenal before moving on to Coventry City and then Perugia. The second half of last season was spent on loan at Blackburn Rovers. His goal scoring record is hardly impressive but at six foot three he is ideally suited to the one up front system and seeing as he has been rumoured to have been on trial at Sparrows Lane for the past week or two we can only assume that Alan Curbishley has seen something in him that he likes. It remains to be seen as to whether this is a loan deal or a permanent transfer.