Ben Garner issues Charlton Athletic transfer admission and makes Swindon Town comparison | OneFootball

Charlton Athletic played out a superb 1-0 win over Derby at the weekend and it means the club are currently unbeaten in the current League One season.

Having sealed a 2-2 draw against Accrington in their first game of the campaign, they have four points from a possible six and are currently in fifth place in the division.

Whilst the club are still early on in the season though and positions now are likely to mean little soon, boss Ben Garner is hopeful that his team can continue to pull off results and impress in the third tier despite their budget.

Quiz: Can you remember the score the last time Charlton Athletic played at these 26 stadiums?

1 of 26

What was the score when Charlton last played at Wembley Stadium?

4-1 (Charlton win) 3-0 (Charlton win) 1-2 (Sunderland win) 2-1 (Charlton win)

After beating Derby at the weekend, he told London News Online that his club have a ‘healthy budget’ when it comes to doing plenty of transfer deals but that his team are not blessed with one of the bigger amounts of money in the league. However, he feels that his side can still achieve big things as he did with Swindon.

They’ve made a total of six signings so far this summer window but most of those deals have been either free transfers or loans. Still though, the club have been able to add Stephen Sessegnon to their ranks from Fulham and Jack Payne from Swindon, who impressed in League Two last season with 13 goals in 31 starts.

Having taken Swindon to the play-offs last season in the fourth tier despite their transfer limitations, he feels he can now do similar with Charlton – and the early signs in the league and with his transfer dealings is that he can.

Speaking to London News Online about it, Garner said: “I’ve got a budget that I’ve been asked to work towards this season and it’s a healthy budget.

“It’s a competitive budget in this division. But it’s certainly not near what I would say were the top two or three teams in this division, budget-wise. It’s nowhere near that. But it’s competitive and we want to perform as best we can with the budget we’ve got.

“For me, I worked under an embargo [at Swindon] last season with one of the smallest budgets in League Two. We overachieved there last season, I want to overachieve on what our budget is this season.”

The Verdict

Ben Garner’s Charlton side could be excellent this season if his Swindon team are anything to go by, even if they don’t have a massive transfer budget.

He’s signed a few players that can be seen as a solid business and yet it’s cost the club barely anything in terms of money. Working with free and loan transfers, Garner has still been able to recruit some excellent players to the club such as Jack Payne, who knows from Swindon and knows can score goals too.

Considering how Charlton have played this season so far too, you’d have to think they could be up there this season. Derby have recruited well and you’d fancy them to be near the top of the table themselves but the Addicks sealed three points against them at the weekend.

If Garner and Charlton can play like this throughout the campaign, then there is no reason why he can’t take them into the play-offs as the manager did with Swindon.