Preparing for the worst

Charlton’s recent demise would probably be even more hurtful if it wasn’t for the fact that many of us probably saw it coming a while ago. I could sit here and wax lyrical about how we wasted the Scott Parker money on Murphy, Jeffers and Rommedahl. I could pontificate upon the Academy’s lack of productivity. I could lecture upon the club’s perceived failure to procure value for money in the transfer market. I could bemoan the lack of patience as it pertained to Iain Dowie. And I could even deliver a heartfelt sermon about the ways the traits our transfer targets changed for the worse. However, it’s probably now time to let bygones be bygones and focus upon realistic ways that we can secure the medium and long-term health of the club.

I may be sounding overly dramatic, but the implications of relegation will be severe. Most obviously there would be the opportunity cost of TV money foregone, but never mind opportunity costs, the club would have very real and immediate financial issues which would require attention. Hence it would be imperative that the club remain stable and perhaps even prepare to mount an immediate Birmingham City-esque promotion campaign.

The Premiership relegation market on Betfair (on which half a million pounds has already been wagered) suggests that Charlton have a 67% probability of relegation. Not only are Betfair markets exceptionally ‘efficient’ (because they reflect the average opinion of thousands of punters), but 67% ‘feels about right’ to me anyhow. Moreover those odds implicitly discount any reasonable and realistic steps that the club might take between now and May to try to forestall that fate.

So in other words, as much as we still have a 33% chance of staying up, it would be foolhardy for the club not to already be planning for the worst. The Board could simply sit back and hope for the best, but a key factor to bear in mind is that some options available to the club now will not be available in May in the event of relegation.

In short, whilst this may sound defeatist in the extreme, I would be inclined to support the Board assuming the worst now, planning for the Championship next season already, whilst holding on to the faint prospect (ie. less than 33% in this context) that we stay up anyhow, thus representing a potentially enormous bonus.

Hence, here is my January blueprint for the Addicks:

1. Get a new first-team 'manager': the club needs to go down one of two routes in my view. Either find a promising young manager who will not add much value this season (but not detract value either) but would do a fine job in the Championship (Burley, Davies, Jones, Newell etc..), or offer a 6-month contract with an enormous success bonus to someone like George Graham. Either way let's get the best out of Les Reed by letting him worry about coaching only.

2. Sell Darren Bent in January: I would imagine that he could be sold for £6-8m in January (unfortunately his market value has fallen since last season, registering just four goals from open play in 17 League games). If we are relegated, we will be lucky to get half of that because clubs will know we are forced sellers, and no doubt Bent's agent will be causing havoc.

3. Sell other key players in January: as with Bent D, we will have a better chance of receiving market value for them, although in many cases (eg. Faye, Traore, Bent M) we will be doing well to recover half of their transfer fee less than a year after signing them. As well as the aforementioned, I would not hesitate to test the market’s appetite for Young, Ambrose, Rommedahl, Gibbs, Sorondo, Fortune etc.. If nothing else, it gets these underperformers off the wage bill.

4. Get non-core players off the wage bill: offer January free transfers to Holland, Hughes, Lisbie, and Hasselbaink.

5. Use the proceeds to sign a number of promising young Championship/lower league players in January: will they be good enough to keep us up? Probably not (but then again we’ve only got a 33% chance anyway). Will they be willing to join Charlton? I don’t see why not, it’s a chance to taste the Premiership. But more importantly they will not be fazed by the likelihood of Championship football in 07/08, will accept lower wages, will give us a decent chance of mounting an immediate promotion campaign, and will give us a chance of returning to the ‘old Charlton’ that we all miss terribly (you know, the one with guts, passion and determination).

The above may sound like panic, but it would be a complete disaster to get relegated and thus realise virtually nothing in the summer transfer market, in a desperate attempt to reduce our Championship wage bill. Instead we would begin February 2007 with a hungry squad that would be willing to give the limited prospects of avoiding relegation ‘a real go’, but in reality would likely begin 07/08 in the Championship. Then again, is that type of squad really any different to what Sheffield United and particularly Reading have right now, and they are doing better than us (so maybe we'd fare better than you might think).

Alternatively we could go on as we are (which clearly isn’t working anyway), perhaps spend money we don’t really have in January and increase the wage bill even further, and every night go to bed praying to a higher being to spare us the fate of Leeds, Notts Forest or Sheffield Wednesday.

Luckily we have a precedent from 1998/99. Admittedly during the pre-season, we had not splashed the cash to the same degree, buying only Andy Hunt (free), Neil Redfearn (£1m) and Chris Powell (£800k) pre-season, adding to the prior astute 97/98 purchases of Clive Mendonca, Danny Mills and Eddie Youds. However after the awful Xmas period of 1998 when we lost nine games on the spin, the club did not put its entire financial stability at risk by leveraging up the wage bill in a vain hope of survival. Instead it tacitly accepted the inevitable, and only made in-season signings that would not desert a sinking ship post-relegation (Carl Tiler, Graham Stuart), whilst not attempting to keep hold of Danny Mills when a reasonable bid came in post-season. It then supplemented those signings with more of a similar ilk (Dean Kiely, Andy Todd, Matthias Svensson, John Salako), and the rest, as they say, is history.

And if you’re reading this and thinking (again) that I’ve potentially lost the plot, then consider the alternative, currently a 2 in 3 prospect. Just imagine the club’s status in May 2007 if we have been relegated, picking up the press and reading rumours that Darren Bent is on his way to Spurs for £3m, or that Luke Young is joining Reading for £1.5m. I’m not a religious man and I don’t believe in blind faith, so failing to plan to avoid this scenario would be negligent in the extreme.