It has been a pressurising week for us Charlton fans after Steve McClaren was sacked as Queens Park Rangers manager, no one would have thought rumours would circulate linking our star manager Lee Bowyer to that job. Thankfully he came out on Thursday in his weekly press conference and he basically put those rumours to bed and his sole focus is on getting the Addicks promoted to the Championship.
Now that one problem has been and gone, we now have to deal with the major problem that Charlton faces and that is the players contracts. Lee Bowyer has already been offered a new contract unfortunately a confusing one, but at least there’s a chance of him signing back on. Let’s just hope that no one else is offered a confusing contract as it would take down the morale around the club and our run could be thwarted by this situation.
Lee Bowyer was speaking with the News Shopper on this subject
“We are trying to sign players because it’s the right thing to do for the football club and their careers, If it wasn’t right for them or us we wouldn’t offer a deal. Whatever happens to myself in the long-term wouldn’t affect players in signing a contract.”
He was also asked about Joe Aribo who has been linked with a move to Premier League Giants Arsenal.
“We are constantly trying to get that over the line. It’s been difficult, but Joe loves it here, he’s learning, and improving and he knows it’s a good place to carry on doing that, there’s just a few stumbling blocks we are trying to get to the bottom of.”
I wonder what those stumbling blocks are? We have to remember that Joe Aribo’s agent will more than likely only be interested in moving Joe on to Arsenal at this point, it’s more money for him and for Joe in that case. He has already moved on Ademola Lookman and Josh Maja to bigger clubs, but the only thing is both of those players are struggling to make an impact as a first-team player to either of those clubs. It is a long shot for Joe to stay put with the way he’s playing right now, but at the same time I don’t think a move to the Premier League will solve anything and his potential will just rot by sitting on the bench or not even on the bench whatsoever.
Whichever way this goes I just hope we have a plan set in motion.
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