New Charlton Athletic owner Thomas Sandgaard reveals minimum target for team this season
Thomas Sandgaard is expecting Charlton Athletic to reach the League One play-offs as a “worst-case scenario” – but he knows that the South Londoners are playing catch up with their promotion rivals.
The US-based Dane completed a deal for the football club last Friday which also lifted the transfer embargo.
Addicks manager Lee Bowyer has already talked about the difficulties facing them with their recruitment – as they are bound by the wage cap voted in by League One clubs earlier in the summer.
“I want to be in the top two but the worst case is the play-off scenario,” said Sandgaard.
“The expectation is that we get promoted again this season but I know how much the team has been decimated throughout the spring and this fall.
“It’s going to be about rebuilding. Looking at last week’s game [a 2-0 loss at Lincoln] it may take quite a bit of time to get to the position where we are clearly better than most other teams. It might be quite an uphill battle.
“Let’s see where we are in the fall part of the season and what we can do. How we come out of that market will mean we can gauge things better.”
Sandgaard lands in the UK tomorrow and will be at the home game against Sunderland.
He has already said he will take on the role of chief executive.
“First Lee Bowyer and Steve Gallen [director of football] are doing amazing jobs and I’m just making sure I leave them to do what they are good at,” said Sandgaard.
“They need some support. That’s one of the areas I’m going to focus on – the back office part of the club. I want to go in Friday and figure out what it’s all about.
“I need to get to know people and find out what they are actually doing.”
See the full interview with Sandgaard in tomorrow’s South London Press.
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We must be pleased with Thomas Sandgaards initial enthusiasm. He wants or expects the team to at least make the playoffs at the end of the season. However, I hope that he realises that this is certainly not a “given”, and starts to lose his enthusiasm if we don’t. Bowyer and Gallen have got a lot of work to do, not only securing the right new players but getting them to co-ordinate as a whole team. A group of individuals have never one anything….you need a team. Leicester City is a prime example.