Takes On TS Q&A

Last night’s Q&A with Thomas Sandgaard organised by the Charlton Trust didn’t come with any earthshattering revelations, coming in the wake of his interview with the BBC in which he made reassuring statements regarding the position and future of Johnnie Jackson. But it was insightful in certain areas.

Before picking through some details, let’s first give thanks to the Trust for putting it on and to TS for spending 90 minutes answering questions honestly and openly, even though he will have been aware that these would focus on strategy and investment, areas which the owners of football clubs are generally reluctant to discuss meaningfully. It is a direct contrast with Roland/Katrien, who quite clearly regarded communication with the fans as an unpleasant chore. Also in sharp contrast, I love seeing that TS clearly enjoys being the owner of our club, something that could never be said of Duchatelet, something which I found truly sad (I’d say his only interests were trying to prove himself intelligent to others by being able to make money out of football, in which – like his political career – he failed miserably, and to make money).

First the positives. TS stressed that his ambitions and enthusiasm were unchanged. Let’s qualify that as he did appear a little tired and tetchy when pressed on his use of a certain figure (the citing of a figure of £100m run up by owners before Duchatelet when looking to justify his stance on financial objectives). And right at the end he said he was ‘at least as frustrated as everyone else’. The past year has been tough all round (leaving aside the dreadful effects of the pandemic and horror at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), but none of us has seen our net worth tumble in the fashion that TS has while at the same time overseeing a season of failure on the pitch. His continued enthusiasm is central to the survival of our club and long may it continue – which doesn’t preclude constructive criticism. 

That enthusiasm perhaps has to come along with a certain naiveite, and TS can’t be expected to be aware of all aspects of our club’s recent history. With reference to his plan when he bought the club, he acknowledged that we ‘got out of the starting blocks slower than I thought’ and that the timeline of the plan had been impacted by how other clubs behave. Reminded me of when West Ham were bought by Icelandic investors who had a plan; only problem was it was the same plan as every other club – and football is the ultimate zero sum game. TS also commented that the club would be looking to expand the fan base by targeting areas outside of Greenwich, as if the Valley Express and targeting of the Medway area (much to the chagrin of Gillingham) had never happened.

To move swiftly to what I thought were negatives, TS said that on the pitch we would ‘definitely focus on wing-backs rather than traditional full-backs’. Perhaps I’m a little old school here, but the formation of the team on the pitch is really not an area for an owner. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with discussing with the manager how we want to set up, with a view to decisions over what players to bring in/release. But if this veers into a manager being instructed to play a certain way, to try to make square pegs fit round holes, it is not desirable. I may waffle on about football, but I’m happy to acknowledge that people such as JJ, Curbs, Steve Brown etc have forgotten far more about the game than I will ever know. What I do know is that there is no perfect/ideal formation in football, the art is to get the best out of the resources available – and that is the job of the manager and his team. Leave them to it.

TS was questioned about the role of Martin Sandgaard, basically how reliant we might now be on data analysis over football knowhow. TS did acknowledge that you still need to watch a player, videos and in the flesh. That did lead on to whether or not we need an experienced CEO at the club, to which the answer was a calmly stated but pretty definite ‘no’. TS was not ruling out having at some point a CEO, as and when the right person appeared, but that it would probably be a non-football person to handle operational issues and – like everyone else – would report to him.

There was a similar downplaying of any need to bring in fresh investors. TS indicated that there could be points along the way when that could be a good option, in particular as and when there might be a deal to buy back The Valley (alarmingly he talked of real estate investors – but we can deal with that another day and it was an off-the-cuff remark) and perhaps if we were in the Championship and looking for a fresh leg up to make it into the promised land.

The financial objective for the club would seem to be to trend towards breakeven, primarily by increasing revenues and by doing things ‘smarter’, assisted by player sales along the way. But as repeated in the BBC interview the goal on the pitch for next season is to get one of the top two slots for automatic promotion. Just how these are balanced out remains to be seen, but suffice to say next season is absolutely crucial, perhaps the most important for our club since relegation from the Premiership.

Fact is, hopes of substantially increased revenues and of filling out The Valley on a regular basis depend fundamentally on us being in the Championship. Heading into the season break we have an owner who has perhaps a better appreciation of the size of the task ahead than a year ago but a chosen and popular manager and, with so many current players out of contract or set to return to their clubs – the opportunity to create a team in their mould, based on their choices, to win promotion (just as every other club will feel), avoiding the errors of a year ago (when we moved too late and too slow, missed out on certain targets, apparently to the annoyance of Nigel Adkins). On the players front, TS indicated (I think) that he expected to make up to four (but possibly five, perhaps six) new signings, one probably an experienced player, others investing for the future, and to complement these with loan signings.

Imagine a Trust Q&A with TS in a year’s time. If we are by then at least not in the mix for a top-six finish, The Valley will be looking bare, the criticism of what would with hindsight appear a prioritising of reducing operating losses over investment on the pitch would have moved to a different level, and quite probably TS will have lost, or be losing, his enthusiasm for the struggle and perhaps looking for an exit (or a Roland-style distancing). In that event, other factors being equal, we will be in a world of merde.

The reverse scenario, under which we are blowing away all opposition on the pitch, The Valley is packed to the rafters, and TS is being lauded as having got the strategy right, JJ for having gelled a new team to get us out of this awful division (and bye-bye Mickey Mouse cup competitions, hello third round of the FA Cup), and all will be well with the world (especially if selected other teams are moving in the opposite direction).

Of course it’s not going to be that simple. But there is a bottom line. A failure to win promotion next season, however close we came and for whatever good reasons, and it is the merde scenario. Hopefully we supporters can play our part in avoiding it.