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Singed ?? His hair or the toast ?
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UPDATED: Dale Stephens SIGNS 3.5 Year Deal
- Thread starter B.W.
- Start date
Singed ?? His hair or the toast ?
tinycowboy
Well-known member
Here Dale here.
Dave the OAP
Well-known member
Blimey...we have signed someone...is he injured?
Puppet Master
non sequitur
- Aug 14, 2012
- 4,056
Any chance of a striker now??
severnside gull
Well-known member
- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,352
Well, you'd better buy one. Or this will become just another empty promise from the pages of NSC.
Mackenzie
Old Brightonian
Is this imminent?
The Birdman
New member
Buy one get one free
northstandsteve
Well-known member
shortly to happen?
BobbySmith
New member
Just spoken to my Charlton mate, who called him 'Dale Winton' apparently a 'Marmite' player at Charlton, although he has played well this year. Plus points, got a good shot and eye for a killer pass, bad points can be lazy, not a box to box player and needs someone defensive around him to do his work, a typical number 10. Thinks he is worth about 1 million in his book. Not unhappy that he is has gone/going as not consistent enough, but he said on his day a very good player.
DarrenFreemansPerm
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The club are waiting to announce it until they have made another signing......
I hope
I hope
fataddick
Well-known member
Dale Stephens was expected to be one of the jewels of Charlton's summer of 2011 wholesale squad change (20 players out, 21 players in) that now sees pretty much all those players (90% of our squad) becoming out of contract three summers later.
The fee from Oldham was, like all our fees that summer, 'undisclosed', but very reliable sources from within the club later unofficially confirmed it as 300-400k. He didn't make as much of an impression as expected early on. Partly probably as it was a whole new squad players took time to gel, and he hasn't often had a lengthy run in the same position during his 2.5 years at Charlton, being in and out of the team with niggling injuries, playing def mid one week, on the left the next, centre the next. Many fans would have liked to see him played behind the striker, but that's mostly down to his propensity for surprise shots from distance; he certainly seems to prefer heading forward with the ball from inside his own half.
He'd barely been with us a month when stories began to circulate that he was unsettled and "desperate to move back North". His youth, his baby on the way, etc were given as reasons and – while there was never any actual evidence of it – his homesickness was widely accepted as the reason for any visible dips in form. It's been widely accepted by many Charlton fans that he'll be off to a club in the North West the moment an opportunity arose, thus his move to you is somewhat confusing to a lot of people.
Somewhat out of the blue, Aston Villa offered a reported 2.5 million for him in August 2012. Most Charlton fans would have been happy with even £1m – no offence to Dale, but that money could have strengthened several areas of what was (though back in the Championship) a League 1 squad. The deal was expected to go through to such an extent that Dale didn't travel up to our away game at Forest as he was expected to sign for Villa that day. In the end our greedy **** of a Vice-Chairman Tony Jiminez suddenly upped the price at the last minute and a pissed off Villa signed Ashley Westwood from Crewe instead. You would have expected Dale's head to drop and for him to be even more 'unsettled' than the supposed homesickness (having seen a move to the Premier League and halfway back up North scuppered) but he knuckled down well and hasn't, as far as anyone knows, rocked the boat re wanting a move, so that displays a good attitude.
Better going forward than tracking back, expect him to take a lot of speculative punts from outside the box, with a few spectacular goals and several bruised faces at the back of the North Stand resulting – somewhat refreshing when so few players are prepared to shoot from distance. He puts it about in the middle of the park tackle wise, but seems less keen to do so when out wide. He's very good at creative forward punts and crossfield passes, often playing a 'cleverer' ball than the rest of our side were expecting. The more time on the ball he gets, the more creative his play - his passing in itself is probably of a reasonable Premier League standard, but his workrate at times much less so. I think in general he's one of those players that could come very good when playing with better players (Villa certainly must have seen that in him) or alternatively could end up getting 'found out' when stepping up a level. He was probably too much of a 'flair' player for the Charlton side he found himself in (a side for whom hoofball up to the tall French forward often seemed the only tactic available).
I'm personally sorry to see him go, but it's quite clear that our new owner is selling off everyone with a saleable value (eg said tall striker plus our Welsh international left back will sign for Bournemouth today) and replacing them with youth loans from the five other clubs he owns in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Spain. With only a few months left on his contract, I expect the fee to be somewhere between what we paid and what Villa offered, I'd guess a notch or two below a million. A couple of years down the line, you'll either be selling him to Arsenal for £8m or loaning him to Gillingham for the season. I think he's one of those will-come-very-good or what-a-sad-loss-of-potential by the time he reaches the 'footballer's peak age' of 28-29 types. Definitely our most creative player of the past couple of years, although that isn't really saying much...
[Caveat: I'm a freshly lapsed season ticket holder, so haven't seen that much of Stephens this season, but saw him 20-ish times last season and the season before. I'm also usually too drunk at games to really notice player performances, so much of the above might be completely wrong. Sorry if so.]
The fee from Oldham was, like all our fees that summer, 'undisclosed', but very reliable sources from within the club later unofficially confirmed it as 300-400k. He didn't make as much of an impression as expected early on. Partly probably as it was a whole new squad players took time to gel, and he hasn't often had a lengthy run in the same position during his 2.5 years at Charlton, being in and out of the team with niggling injuries, playing def mid one week, on the left the next, centre the next. Many fans would have liked to see him played behind the striker, but that's mostly down to his propensity for surprise shots from distance; he certainly seems to prefer heading forward with the ball from inside his own half.
He'd barely been with us a month when stories began to circulate that he was unsettled and "desperate to move back North". His youth, his baby on the way, etc were given as reasons and – while there was never any actual evidence of it – his homesickness was widely accepted as the reason for any visible dips in form. It's been widely accepted by many Charlton fans that he'll be off to a club in the North West the moment an opportunity arose, thus his move to you is somewhat confusing to a lot of people.
Somewhat out of the blue, Aston Villa offered a reported 2.5 million for him in August 2012. Most Charlton fans would have been happy with even £1m – no offence to Dale, but that money could have strengthened several areas of what was (though back in the Championship) a League 1 squad. The deal was expected to go through to such an extent that Dale didn't travel up to our away game at Forest as he was expected to sign for Villa that day. In the end our greedy **** of a Vice-Chairman Tony Jiminez suddenly upped the price at the last minute and a pissed off Villa signed Ashley Westwood from Crewe instead. You would have expected Dale's head to drop and for him to be even more 'unsettled' than the supposed homesickness (having seen a move to the Premier League and halfway back up North scuppered) but he knuckled down well and hasn't, as far as anyone knows, rocked the boat re wanting a move, so that displays a good attitude.
Better going forward than tracking back, expect him to take a lot of speculative punts from outside the box, with a few spectacular goals and several bruised faces at the back of the North Stand resulting – somewhat refreshing when so few players are prepared to shoot from distance. He puts it about in the middle of the park tackle wise, but seems less keen to do so when out wide. He's very good at creative forward punts and crossfield passes, often playing a 'cleverer' ball than the rest of our side were expecting. The more time on the ball he gets, the more creative his play - his passing in itself is probably of a reasonable Premier League standard, but his workrate at times much less so. I think in general he's one of those players that could come very good when playing with better players (Villa certainly must have seen that in him) or alternatively could end up getting 'found out' when stepping up a level. He was probably too much of a 'flair' player for the Charlton side he found himself in (a side for whom hoofball up to the tall French forward often seemed the only tactic available).
I'm personally sorry to see him go, but it's quite clear that our new owner is selling off everyone with a saleable value (eg said tall striker plus our Welsh international left back will sign for Bournemouth today) and replacing them with youth loans from the five other clubs he owns in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Spain. With only a few months left on his contract, I expect the fee to be somewhere between what we paid and what Villa offered, I'd guess a notch or two below a million. A couple of years down the line, you'll either be selling him to Arsenal for £8m or loaning him to Gillingham for the season. I think he's one of those will-come-very-good or what-a-sad-loss-of-potential by the time he reaches the 'footballer's peak age' of 28-29 types. Definitely our most creative player of the past couple of years, although that isn't really saying much...
[Caveat: I'm a freshly lapsed season ticket holder, so haven't seen that much of Stephens this season, but saw him 20-ish times last season and the season before. I'm also usually too drunk at games to really notice player performances, so much of the above might be completely wrong. Sorry if so.]
Last edited:
martin tyler
Well-known member
- Jan 25, 2013
- 5,964
Cracking write up. Hopefully he forfills his full potential here and clicks with those around him.
Good post.
Plenty of positives in there but balanced with caution.
I'm happy with him initially. See how he plays
Bladders
Twats everywhere
Have we swooped?
Grombleton
Surrounded by <div>s
- Dec 31, 2011
- 7,356
Imminent.
- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,352
It's not over until the fat lady sings - hopefully she's warming up in the wings.