Charlton Athletic technical director provides update on process to add to head coach Michael Appleton’s backroom team

Charlton Athletic technical director Andy Scott says they are still in the process of sorting out Michael Appleton’s backroom team.

The former Oxford United and Lincoln boss was appointed head coach on Friday.

The Addicks sacked Dean Holden as boss last month and also decided to get rid of goalkeeping coach Glyn Shimell and coach Danny Senda.

Jason Pearce had stepped up from his academy role to take interim charge of the first-team, overseeing their 2-1 win over Fleetwood Town before the international break. The former Charlton captain also brought in Stephen Henderson on a temporaray basis to replace Shimell.

Anthony Hayes, who had been assistant first-team manager when Holden was still employed, assisted Pearce for the most recent League One fixture.

Scott sat down with the South London Press earlier this week to outline the latest on making other appointments to support Appleton, whose first match is at Stevenage on Saturday.

“Stephen is still here and Jason Pearce is still with Michael,” said Scott.

“Michael has suggested some staff that he’d like to bring in. We have made it clear, as a club, that any appointment that is made will be made with the process carried out – that I speak to those people and Michael speaks to those people. We discuss how they fit in and what it looks like. If you bring in one, then what does the other one look like? What other areas do we need to fill?

“This needs to be a longer-term strategy where we don’t just let people have the keys to the city and then they come in and go: ‘Oh, he’s not very good…this guy we know is better’. It’s got to be in conjunction with Michael. That was part of the process – that we’re going to be better with our process in hiring people throughout the whole football club, that includes the coaching staff.

“I spoke to someone on Monday and spent probably five hours with them, someone that Michael wanted to bring in. Interviewed him in the morning, spoke to them and watched them training – asked what they were doing and how they were doing it, all the background stuff, and then I spoke to Michael and then I spoke to them again. We’ve done that with a number of people. Then it will be down to me and Michael to work out ‘I like him, we like him, how does that work and how does it fit together? Do we need someone else?’

“As long as I can prove we’ve gone through a process then if it works – fantastic. If it doesn’t then we can work out what in the process went wrong. At least we have done the due diligence on everybody. Jason has stepped up and been fantastic. He’s shown the level he can be at when he wants to be in the first-team environment – but he’s very clear on his pathway. we want to support that, he is valuable to the football club.

“He has got a job to do and that he wants to do, so we’ve got to build a first-team coaching staff that is going to allow Michael to be the leader and implement his attributes.”

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