Charlton Athletic must regret Chelsea transfer miss | OneFootball

Charlton Athletic must now regret on missing out on David Datro Fofana in the summer transfer window.

As they head into the second-half of the campaign, Charlton Athletic remain firmly involved in the relegation battle in the Championship and the Addicks may well be regretting some of the business that they did last summer, following promotion.

Having defeated Leyton Orient in the League One play-off final, Charlton embarked upon an ambitious summer window with some seemingly impressive signings but there was then the failed move for Chelsea striker David Datro Fofana just before the close of the market.

As FLW’s Charlton Fan Pundit, Emma Harknett, explained close to the time, there was a feeling that missing out on Fofana wasn’t a massive deal given the signings that the Addicks had made.

However, the lack of impact that the vast majority, if not all, of Charlton’s attacking additions have had at The Valley must surely bring about regrets over the failure to capture Fofana.

With the striker having now recently joined Ligue 1 outfit Strasbourg on loan and having played in both the Bundesliga and the Premier League for Union Berlin and Burnley respectively, Fofana would surely have been a coup for a newly-promoted Championship side – and they must surely be regretting the fact that the deal didn’t come to fruition.

Charlton failed with the signings of Rob Apter and Tanto Olaofe

In the summer, Charlton spent heavily on a few players that had thrived in League One with Charlie Kelman the standout addition for a fee of £5 million from Queens Park Rangers, with the American having been top scorer in the third-tier in the previous campaign while on loan at Leyton Orient.

As well as the arrival of Kelman, two other relatively big money signings in the final third saw Rob Apter join from Blackpool for a fee believed to be in the region of £2 million, as well as Tanto Olaofe from Stockport County for around £1.5 million.

Despite being named the club’s Player of the Month for August with Charlton making a bright start to their return to the Championship, Apter found himself down the pecking order quite quickly, even missing out on match day squads ahead of his departure in the January transfer window.

The former Blackpool man has since joined League One promotion challengers Bolton Wanderers on loan, while Tanto Olaofe has also already returned to the third-tier and returned back to Stockport, with Jayden Fevrier heading the other way down to south London.

Both players showed flashes of their quality, Apter in particular, but Nathan Jones’ lack of trust in them means that £3.5 million worth of signings has already been shipped out on loan within six months of their respective arrivals.

Given the fact that Kelman has also hardly hit the ground running and there is already a reliance on players that were already at the club, such as Tyreece Campbell and Miles Leaburn, those earlier, and completely understandable, suggestions that another attacker, such as Fofana, would have been surplus to requirements may not have predicted that things could go so underwhelmingly in attack.

This January transfer window has seen Lyndon Dykes move to the capital city from Birmingham City, and the Scotland international has begun well with a goal in a 2-0 victory against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.

Jones’ squad that day saw Kelman remain an unused substitute, while the tried and trusted players such as Matty Godden and the versatile Campbell came off the bench, with Dykes leading the line.

Dykes is a player of now immense Championship experience, and the same can be said for Godden to an extent, too, while Campbell and Leaburn are players that have worked with Jones for a while.

The players that haven’t quite managed to consistently cut it for Charlton and for Jones are the players that had little to no second-tier experience but had also never previously worked with Jones.

David Datro Fofana didn’t have second division experience but is a player that has played at an even higher level and so would have surely been more preferable to Jones than the apparent gambles of Apter, Olaofe and even Kelman.

For a team battling against the drop, and seemingly for a Nathan Jones side, low risk signings whereby the ceiling may not be too high but you are very much aware of the level of the floor, and that level is at the very least competence in the Championship, such as Dykes, should perhaps always be the way to go – and Fofana would surely have fallen into that category, and so there must surely be regret that he is now a Ligue 1 player, rather than in the red of Charlton.