‘We’re not just looking to get out of League One’ – Charlton Athletic boss Nathan Jones on longer-term goal

Nathan Jones has explained why he has made no brash statement about Charlton Athletic winning promotion next season.

The Addicks were on a 14-match unbeaten run in League One – 10 of those draws – before losing at Wycombe Wanderers on the final day.

Jones was appointed manager in February when the threat was relegation. That undefeated sequence pulled the former Premier League outfit away from danger.

The Welshman seems intent on extensive surgery over the close season to mould the squad more to his liking with the transfer window, his first since replacing Michael Appleton, officially opening on June 1.

“We’ll have 46 league games next season and we want to win 46,” Jones told the South London Press. “We will go out to win 46 football games. That probably won’t be possible – it’s never been done before. But that’s what we’ll try and do. If we win the first game, win the second game, don’t win the third game then we’ll still try and win the fourth.

“We are going out to be best we can. We’re not going out saying: ‘We have got to be promoted next season’. No, it is getting a football club back where it should be.

“We have to make certain decisions so we can build this to be the great football club it once was and still has at its core. Now, if that means we have a successful season and get promotion – brilliant. If we don’t then we have to evaluate why.

“But, trust me, we have phone calls (with the club’s hierarchy) and we’re not just looking to get out of League One. But we don’t come out shouting and screaming ‘we’re going to get promoted and then in two years we’re going to be Premier League’. We’re not saying that because we know football is very, very difficult and things happen.

“We will move forward and we want to move forward at a significant rate next year. A lot of stuff has been put in place this year, as Charlie (Methven) alluded to (in a recent interview with the club’s website), that hopefully we will see the fruition of that next year.”

Methven, a part-owner of the Addicks, has talked about the importance of season-ticket sales.

He told the club’s website: “There is a lot that we have to do to make Charlton the best it possibly can be before we’re ever in a position to tell other people what they should do with their time and money. But, of course, the more people who sign up for season tickets and come to The Valley – the more powerful this football club is going to be.

“As people will notice, in the news every week now, with an increasingly harsh financial enforcement going on around the football industry, in terms of what football clubs are and aren’t allowed to spend, then of course the greater revenues we have, the more we’re able to spend on the footballing side of the club – which creates a better experience for people who are coming. There is a circularity to that.

Jones, asked about those comments, said: “I listened to Charlie’s interview and he said you can’t tell people what to do with their money.

“My thing is, this is what we’re doing. We are trying to build the club back to the position it was, I remember it being a Premier League club. There is infrastructure here which is conducive to doing that. The owners now are conducive to doing that. We believe we have a vision and drive to do that.

“The best thing, for me, is why not get in right from the start? This is the start of something now. It will be easy for fans if we were top of the league next year or doing really well to go, okay, now I’ll buy into it. Fine, no problem. But why not get in right from the start and be part of it. And they are part of it.

“One, financially, because the more investment we get in the more we can drive certain things.

“The more fans we get through the gate, the better the atmosphere. If we produce the team and attitude and rapport we believe we can do – it is going to be a special place. It is a special place…we have to create that special atmosphere, and we’re all a part of that.

“I and my staff have to create a team that can win games and play a certain way. The fans can get behind that.”

See tomorrow’s South London Press for more from Nathan Jones.

PICTURES: KYLE ANDREWS