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If you are looking for a major burst of spontaneous positivity, this week's Preview Percy column is possibly not for you. There again to be fair at the moment, if that's the sort of thing you are looking for you're probably thinking of a different club entirely. Possibly not Charlton Athletic though...

Next up it's a swift return to cup action in the League Cup where we will entertain Charlton Athletic. Kick-off is at 7:30 though I'm not aware of tv/streaming sources being available. Should the scores be level at 90 minutes it'll go straight to penalties, though given the history of messing around with this particular competition, a round of rock, scissors, paper would not be too much of a surprise. As is the fact that they have already done the draw for the next round, the winners being at home to the winners of the Leeds v Hull tie.




Charlton were relegated last term. This was despite Sheffield Wednesday picking up a 12-point deduction for financial irregularities. The powers that be decided that that particular sanction wouldn't come into effect until this season so it was down to Division Three (or League 1 if you really must) with Charlton, who were relegated alongside Wigan, who went down because they did have their 12 point deduction applied in the same season. Not that anyone should be that bothered about Wigan but it must be galling for Charlton supporters who join ourselves in the “long suffering” class of football supporter.

This is the second preview running I have had to comment on a potential change in ownership for our opponents. It gets a bit complicated so pay attention at the back. In he beginning there was Roland Duchatelet. Sometime businessman and politician, Duchatelet has owned a number of clubs over the years including Standard Liege and (two names that will instil a sense of nostalgia in those of a certain age) Carl Zeiss Jena in (the former east) Germany and Hungary's Ujpest, who appear to have lost their “Dzosa” somewhere along the line. Duchatelet's tenure at the Valley was marked by numerous protests over the way that the club was being (mis) run. I seem to recall tennis balls being involved. No chance of that working at the Olympic.

So you'd have thought that the purchase of the club in January by an outfit calling themselves East Street Investments might have come as some blessed relief after the depressing Duchatelet years. Well that might have been the case but for a major falling out between major shareholders Tahnoon Nimer and Matt Southall. Nimer was accused of failing to provide evidence of funding as required by the authorities.

Nimer, for his part accused Southall of misusing club funds, including the purchase of a fleet of Range Rovers. Whether due to a lack of funds or because of all the hassle Nimer decided to get out after only six months and a consortium put together by lawyer Chris Farnell, including Manchester-based businessperson Paul Elliott was announced as the new owners. If the name Farnell rings vague alarm bells well done on your memory, for it was he who was ubiquitous during the ill-fated attempts to rescue Bury last season.

So Elliott and chums own Charlton now right? Er, no. I told you it was complicated. The legal transfer of ESI has yet to be completed and, even if that legal nicety had been completed, there would still be issues – the presence of “disqualifying conditions” mean that neither Elliott nor Farnell are considered by the EFl to be fit and proper persons to own a football club. So Nimer elected to take his 65% shareholding elsewhere with Danish businessman Thomas Sandgaard agreeing to purchase the shares.

Somewhat miffed by this turn of events Elliott elected to go to court arguing that his appeal against the EFL decision was still outstanding. Though the judge wasn't over impressed he did give Elliott some time to get his backside in gear, and they are currently in the last few days of an interim injunction that prevents the sale of the club. Once that period expires the sale to the US-based Sandagaad is expected to go through. Until then, as far as I can work out the only person who doesn't want to own the club.

Once the sale goes through all will be well then? Well far be it for me to point out another thundercloud on the horizon but it would appear that the Valley is still owned by Duchatelet. Having a ground owned by an ex-owner is something that rarely ends well. As the song goes: “there may be trouble ahead….”

The ownership issues have, understandably, made the introduction of new talent in advance of the new season a bit tricky for boss Lee Bowyer – especially since the league has them under a transfer embargo of sorts. They can sign players but the constraints effectively mean that until the ownership situation is resolved it has to be one in one out. They are allowed a 23-player squad but that includes any of the kids who have ever played a first XI game in the past, irrespective of whether they would be considered for selection these days.




Daisy, the socially bubbled personal assistant with the beautiful smile, tells me that they brought in midfielder Alex Gilbey from Milton Keynes Dons. Dagenham born, he started his career with Colchester which is still the club for which he has made most league appearances despite spells at Wigan and Milton Keynes.

They venture north of the border to bring in Hearts striker Conor Washington. The 28-year-old is fairly well-travelled. Having been turned down by Norwich and Peterborough as a kid he became a postman, having a prolific time of things with St Ives Town (the Cambridgeshire one rather than the Cornish one). Leaving a trail of little elastic bands behind him, he moved up and down the country with intervals with Newport County, Peterborough, Sheffield United and QPR before taking a year out of football in the SPL. Although English by birth a convenient grandparent qualifies him for Northern Ireland for whom he has over 20 caps to date.

A couple of U23 signings from non-league apart, the only other arrival has been midfielder Dylan Levitt, who has come in on loan from Manchester United for the season. He has as many caps for Wales (one) as he has had first XI appearances for Man Utd. They will be hoping that he will make a similar impact to Josh Cullen who was well thought of during his loan spell at the Valley last season.

It's early days to be talking about form but they are joint second in the league having beaten a Crewe side containing Will “Son Of Jussi” Jaaskaalainen 2-0 on the opening day of the league season at the weekend. Prior to that they had beaten Swindon 3-1 away in the first round of the League Cup to qualify for this tie. There was also a 2-1 defeat to AFC Wimbledon in the EFL Trophy but nobody really worries about that one.

Let's move on then to the wild and wacky world of Association Football. And congratulations to PGMOL who managed to last almost three minutes before giving Liverpool a dubious penalty which included a deflection of the sort we were told would not result in a penalty. To quote:

handball will not be awarded if the ball touches a player's hand/arm directly from their own head/body/foot or the head/body/foot of another player who is close/nearby

Of course, VAR should have sorted that out. Of course, with Liverpool being involved, it didn't.

Elsewhere an interesting insight into the “defend your mates” mentality within the refereeing fraternity was gained from the Palace v Southampton match. Walker-Peters was originally red-carded by referee Jon Moss. BT Sport had Dermot Gallagher on hand to comment on refereeing matters: “Can't argue with that” was Gallagher's verdict. Then the VAR people got involved suggesting Moss have another shufti on the pitchside screen which, up to now, has merely been there to give the ball boys something to bump into.




On review Moss – correctly -downgraded the red to a yellow. Whereupon a strange bout of amnesia overcame Gallagher “clearly reckless rather than excessive force. That's the right decision”. Was his amended verdict. Wouldn't it have been great if someone had said “Hang on Dermot – you watched it three times and it was a red. Why the change of mind now?”. But nobody did.

And so to us. On the KUMB Facebook page last week I got stick from someone complaining that the coverage in these pages was negative. If that's a gripe of yours look away now because I will be damned if I a going to try and gloss over a performance like that.

Post-match, Moyes hinted that he was unhappy with the match officials. Whilst I have some sympathy with that view – we would have had two penalties had we been playing at Anfield in red and Carroll's two yellow card offences proved yet again that Stuart Atwell shouldn't be allowed near a football match of any sort. However, it was most disturbing to hear the manager repeating ad infinitum his opinion that the group that finished last season are capable of much better. This suggests to me that the feeling is that the squad is good enough as it is. It clearly is not. It wasn't good enough last season – our 16th place owed as much to the fact that there were 4 teams worse than us in the league, even if you view 16th place as some sort of success.

Positives? Sorry I will have to get back to on that. Oh wait, for the first time in aeons, at the time of writing we have nobody on the injured list, which, with the clearance of Soucek to play on Saturday, was the case for the Newcastle match. So we don't even have that excuse to fall back on.

We were slow. Painfully so. Now Diangana, whilst not over-experienced at top-flight level, does have a bit of pace. Shame we sold him then really isn't it? The money from Diangana is supposedly going to strengthen the squad. So far this has consisted of sticking in a bid to a club that doesn't want to sell a player who doesn't want to go. Which is fair enough I suppose. On past record we probably won't want to pay anyway.

Usually the League Cup sees us resting first choice players to give the youngsters a run out. Franky I would pick the strongest team available to get some match fitness back in the legs – I'm struggling to see anyone on the squad list who deserves a night off anyway. I suspect, however, that changes will be rung – it's what teams do for the League Cup. All of which makes a prediction all the more difficult.

It is therefore pure guesswork on my part that contributes to my wager of the £2.50 I wasn't going to pay someone for something they don't want to sell me in the first place on a home win – say 2-1 to us please Mr Winstone – maybe a cheeky side bet on it going to penalties.

Enjoy the game!





When last we met at the Boleyn: Won: 3-1 (Premier League August 2006)

So long ago I was known only as Percy back then, it being a good couple of years before I started to enlighten the kumb readership with my pre-match wisdom. Thank me later. This was a match that we dominated from the start so naturally we went 1-0 down early on, Gabbidon's daft handball allowing journeyman Darren Bent to convert from the spot.

Former Liverpool player Djimi Traore discovered that the exemption from punishment that normally applies at Anfield doesn't work, picking up a first yellow for scything down Lee Bowyer, and a second shortly after for sticking a leg out to block a quick free-kick. Zamora levelled after the break and added a second which trickled past a combination of two defenders and the keeper with all the speed of ketchup coming out of a particularly clogged-up bottle. Debutant sub Carlton Cole (I said it was a long time ago) wrapped it all up at the death, adding the third with his first touches of the game.


Referee: Andre Marriner

Like that bloke in accounts who is rubbish at his job but he's been around so long that it would be too much bother to get someone else to run the tea kitty.


Danger Man: Conor Washington

Unfamiliarity with their squad on the part of Daisy and myself prompts me to take the easy way out and go for the new striker trying to make an impression. If there's an outfit called OFPREVIEW send your complaints there.


Percy's Poser

Last week The Chronicle provided the following headline

XXXX XXXX hops 5,726 miles from Ecuador to Tesco in Newcastle in XXXXXX XXXXX

Well done to Mrs Juliet Harvest-Souls of Frinton On Sea for spotting that the missing words were “Tree frog” and “Banana Crate”.

For this week we look at the londonnewsonline site which has the following topical headline:

Greenwich residents told to travel to XXXXX XXXXX for COVID-19 testing

Good luck one and all!

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