At the Fans Forum last month Karl Robinson explained that he was finding it easier to sign new players than to move on players who were not in his plans or were too expensive. He seems to have had a bit of success this week in clearing some space on the wage bill so that new signings could be made within his budget constraints.
Nicky Ajose has joined Bury on a season long loan. This time last year we were hoping that he would be able to repeat his feats at Swindon and provide the goal scoring for a promotion push, but he proved to be a big disappointment despite his substantial transfer fee. He seemed to rediscover his touch somewhat when he went back to Swindon for the second half of the season but he never fitted into Robinson's preferred formation and was unlikely to play much of a part if he had stayed at the Valley for the new season. It will be interesting to see how he fares at Gigg Lane particularly as it is believed that Charlton will still be paying more than half of his salary.
Jorge Teixeira arrived at SE7 from Standard Liege in January 2016 and he now returns to Belgium on a permanent transfer to Duchatelet's Sint Truiden. His recruitment failed to stop Charlton's relegation and, like Patrick Bauer, he wasn't as dominant in League 1 as might have been expected. Nevertheless, he scored 6 goals in his 39 appearances for the club and will be missed in defence. However, given that his lucrative contract was until 2020, shifting his salary from the monthly wage bill should make a marked difference to Robinson's options.
Despite arriving via Barcelona and Tottenham, Cristian Ceballos failed to make any impact at Charlton and spent last season on loan at Sint Truiden where he played alongside Igor Vetokele. Although he looked sharp against moderate opposition in this year's pre-season friendlies he has obviously failed to convince Robinson that he is worth a punt for the season ahead.
Over the last three years there has been plenty of criticism for the network approach to transfers with examples of some sub standard players arriving at Charlton purely because they were already at one of Duchatelet's clubs. However, if the network enables us to easily move on unwanted players (albeit maybe at a loss) then perhaps it will be of more value in future.
We now watch with interest to see whether Robinson will be able to recruit the players he wants. It has now been confirmed that Da Silva has returned to Charlton on loan from Chelsea but our manager has been quoted as saying that he may not be able to get other transfers over the line before the season starts.