Charlton Athletic boss Lee Bowyer makes League One sale claim

Lee Bowyer reckons that no other League One club will have raised as much money as Charlton Athletic in recent years in terms of player sales.

The Addicks were certainly a club who parted with their prize talents under Roland Duchatelet. And when the Belgian offloaded to East Street Investments at the start of 2020 the bungling consortium had no money and never got EFL approval for their ‘takeover’.

Charlton have a solid base again with US-based Dane Thomas Sandgaard acquiring them in late September.

But Bowyer has already warned earlier in the campaign that it would take time to build solid foundations in SE7 after such a high player turnover before.

He has already stated that Sandgaard is ready to spend and also make sure that the steady flow of talent out of The Valley is a thing of the past.

Charlton have spent fees on Danish striker Ronnie Schwartz and to snap up Diallang Jaiyesimi from Swindon Town.

“I don’t think people, looking from the outside, realise what it takes to do that,” he said. “Teams like Portsmouth and Fleetwood have built their squads [over a number of seasons].

“In my first season I took charge for the last 10 games and we got in the play-offs unexpectedly. Other clubs were building their squads and we were the complete opposite. We’ve had to rebuild our squad every summer.

“I don’t see any other team losing 12 players apart from Wigan. They came down with us and Hull. Hull kept their squad and added to it. We lost lots and Wigan lost lots – and look where they are. They are down there and we are doing okay. Could we be doing better? Yeah, we have dropped too many sloppy points. It is fair where we are.

“You can’t keep losing your best players. It becomes impossible. We have got lucky at times in the transfer windows – we were lucky to get Stockley.

“Before now we have had to keep rebuilding every season and putting a brand new team together. Every time we had a player who did well we lost them. We’ve brought in £13-14million since I’ve been in charge – I don’t see any other League One club doing that. And that’s without taking £4m for Lyle [Taylor, the subject of multiple bids from Brentford]. If you keep losing your better players it makes you weaker.

“You could say we are doing a good job because we are bringing a lot of money into the club but it makes my job harder.”

PHOTO: PAUL EDWARDS