Transfer deadline day seems to have become a day to sit at home watching Sky News to find out who is coming in at 5 to midnight and who is heading out to pastures new, Today’ deadline day for CAFC fans looks a quiet one, I cannot see the in column looking disturbed as it stands, the only real worry for us is who could be on the out column? for as long as the transfer window has been with us, we have pretty much been a selling club, and with our squad not being really added to this summer the window holds real terrors for me, we really are not in a position to resist bids for players, as much as we want to keep the likes of Chris Solly, Rhoys Wiggins and even Yann, the problem is if someone comes in with a half sensible offer we may have to sell. Of course we have cover for these players if they did leave, but what effect would it have on the players left behind? and how much of the money coming in would Chris Powell actually get? and would there be enough time for him to replace any players leaving?

The most devastating transfer in my mind for us was that of Scott Parker to Chelsea, not for the way Scott behaved, but the effect it had in derailing out season, before Chelsea turned Scott’s head we were heading for a possible place in Europe, the actual transfer went through in 30th January and the window that year closed on Feb 2nd I believe give Alan Curbishley little time to replace one of the greatest talents our club had produced. The signing itself was hard to take, but the build up to it was hugely damaging, I recall being present at a press conference with Curbishley where he described Scott making it clear in a 1000 ways or more that he wanted to go to Chelsea, once Scott knew Chelsea had made an offer that was it, his head was turned, he wanted to join a club he knew would offer hm the chance of european football, he also believed he had an agreement that if a ‘big club’ came in he could go, after many tantrums and much door slamming the deal was done, and as a direct result of this deal our chances of european football vanished like sand through your fingers… Of course for Scott the deal was not the one he had hoped for, he ended up playing out on the right for Ranieri and once Claudio was sacked, his days at Chelsea were numbered, players such as Matt Holland and Di Canio admitted that at the time Parker had to make the move, for Curbishley the only deal he could push through was getting in Jerome Thomas, and so the season drifted to its normal end for Charlton.

Unless you are a big club the current transfer window is not a popular time, the season is well under way but there is still intense speculation until the window itself actually shuts, how can managers plan for a season with the knowledge that up until the window closes they do not know who they will actually have in their squad? imagine this scenario, bids are accepted for Solly and Kermogant an hour before the deadline, what would that do to our season, and how would Chris Powell go about replacing them with so little time? He cannot, and in my view the whole transfer window needs to be looked at again, surely it would make sense if the window closed a week before the league season began? and if we put into place a winter break from football and use that as the mid season transfer window? as it stands at the moment our club is powerless in reality if a club comes in with a decent offer for one of our players, with the season under way that is not right. The only person he really gets anything out of the whole thing is Sky’s Jim White who basks in the knowledge that for one day he will be trending on Twitter.