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Sky Bet EFL 2019/20


Adam

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Fixtures are released on Thursday, somehow the season begins in less than seven weeks.

What are everyone's hopes for the season ahead? I think Rovers can build on making the Play Offs last season (a penalty kick away from Wembley!) but we've lost a lot of players already and our two best remaining assets - Marquis and Whiteman - are in high demand with the former almost certainly going to be sold. So it's all a bit up in the air at the moment.

Also, welcome back to this thread @MDK with Leyton Orient promoted, albeit with tragic circumstances after the death of manager Justin Edinburgh. @Liam will also be back due to Fulham's relegation from the Premier League, which more than makes up for all the Villa fans we've lost to the PL thread!

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Honestly, as long as we stay up I'll be happy. The squad should be good enough for that but we need someone other than Jobi to supply the spark in midfield.

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1 hour ago, Baddar said:

Lee Bowyer has left Charlton, despite leading them to promotion to the Championship.

Lee Bowyer is set to leave Charlton Athletic at the expiry of his contract later this month just weeks after restoring the south London club to the Championship having failed to agree terms on an extension at the Valley.

Confirmation of an imminent parting of the ways was released in an extraordinary statement posted on Charlton’s website on Monday, which detailed how the owner Roland Duchatelet felt he could not offer more than a new 12-month deal given his on-going attempts to sell a loss-making club. The Belgian first placed Athletic on the market in 2017, with talks on-going with the Cardiff City chairman Mehmet Dalman over a potential takeover.

The statement went on to suggest Bowyer had been asking for a prohibitive increase on his current salary. The Charlton manager is understood to have spoken to Duchatelet after the club went public, with further talks expected on Tuesday. “The fact the club is for sale has not helped with finding an agreement,” it read. “The current owner needs to take into account that a new owner may want to appoint his own manager. However, this concern did not stop the current owner proposing a contract extension of one year to Lee Bowyer, even though the club may be sold in a few weeks. Under those circumstances a multi-year extension would not be good business practice.

“In addition, since the club is still losing money, which is one of the reasons why the club has not been sold yet, the focus on reducing costs means that we are extremely limited on payroll increases. Lee has been offered a one-year extension to his contract at a level which is approximately three times what he had since his last increase when he became permanent manager in September [2018]. It is six times what he earned when he started as assistant manager in 2017 and 50% more than what any Charlton manager previously had (excluding the Premier League years). This reflects the strong desire we have to continue to have Lee as our manager. But Lee wanted much more.

“The owner understands Lee’s point of view, because many Championship clubs pay huge amounts (some pay millions of £ per year) to their manager. It is fair that Lee feels he should be paid like many other Championship managers. That the average Championship club makes a loss of around £15 million per year is not something players should care about. The owners are crazy.”

Bowyer, 42, initially took over on a caretaker basis following the departure of Karl Robinson in March 2018, but, having been retained over the summer, steered Charlton to third place and back into the second tier after a three-year absence last month via a play-off final victory over Sunderland. Yet, despite that progress, Duchatelet was apparently further dismayed by his manager’s insistence on using an agent to conduct negotiations over the new deal. That, the club claimed, might encourage a potential conflict of interest over transfers.

“Unlike previous contract discussions, Lee wanted an agent to handle it,” added the statement. “We reluctantly accepted. However, involving a player agent in a manager’s contract discussion is not healthy. If the agent helps make the manager more money, it may result in the manager to have [sic] a more positive attitude towards players proposed by the same agent, a conflict of interest. Obviously, Lee is above such things, but it is nevertheless not a healthy situation.

“The club hasn’t started to look for any other manager in the meantime and does not intend to appoint a permanent manager, since the club is going to be sold. A caretaker manager will be announced in due course and in the meantime the other staff members will continue to prepare the upcoming season for which a lot of good work has been performed already.

“If Lee does change his mind before his contract expires and chooses to continue his good work at Charlton, he is still welcome to stay. However our ability to sell the club is the most important thing right now.”

Absolute farce, really.

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2 hours ago, Colly said:

Bowyer to Chelsea?

So he would need to hop on the overground at Charlton, ride to Charring Cross, pop down to Embankment and ride the District line to Fulham Broadway and Stamford Bridge is just 5 mins walk.

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1 minute ago, Rich said:

So he would need to hop on the overground at Charlton, ride to Charring Cross, pop down to Embankment and ride the District line to Fulham Broadway and Stamford Bridge is just 5 mins walk.

Overground goes to Charring Cross these days?

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Just now, Rich said:

Well South Eastern, either that or to Cannon Street and ride the District all the way to Fulham.

Would it be quicker to go to West Brompton and change there?

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