Takeover. Yawn. Parky. Yawn. Friendlies. Double Yawn I just clicked onto cafc.co.uk and the headline was an article about tumbleweed. Honestly. Whilst radio silence greets all things Charlton insiders and outsiders are left to use their dodgy calculators and put two and two together to make five.

Where was Peter Varney spotted today? Or was he just going to the bank to get some beer money? Have Phil Parkinson and Mark Kinsella cleared their desks at the training ground? Or have they just tidied it before they went on their summer holidays? Have the season ticket sales been so bad, that the club are embarrassed to announce the post June 1st number? Or are they still counting the applications?

One would assume those players out of contract have been told that they are free agents, even if the rest of us haven't? Surely it is only fair on those players in the ultra competitve summer free transfer market to know where their futures lie? Ambrose we know has signed for Palace, Harry Arter and Aswad Thomas have dropped down to the Conference South and joined Woking but what of others?

Anyhoo, if we can cobble enough players together and have a manager he will take the team on this very, Bournemouth aside, uninspiring list of pre-season matches beginning in a little more than 4 weeks:

Wed July 8th - Welling United (a)
Sat July 18th - Forest Green Rovers (a)
Tue July 21st - Crawley Town (a)
Sat July 25th - Barnet (a)
Tue July 28th - Ipswich Town (h)
Sat Aug 1st - Bournemouth (a)

How ironic that Barnet play Southend United in a friendly a couple of days after us as part of the Nicky Bailey transfer deal between the two clubs. He since left Southend and could well have left us too by July 25th. See 2 + 2 really does equal 5!  ¶ 06:58