Murray speaks

'Last man standing' Richard Murray has spoken to the Supporters' Trust about what he knows about the takeover negotiations, which seems to be less than the full picture: Still negotiating

Both interested parties are still in negotiations and he assumes that the outstanding issue is the sale price. For what it is worth, I have been told that the second (Britrish) offer is much less well founded than the Australian one and may have been kept in play just to pressure Muir and his colleagues.

According to the 'Belgium 20', 'One of the potential buyers stormed out the meeting on Wednesday! Roland playing hardball.'

Murray said that the club was losing £1m a month and would need £100m of investment over a five year period.

Charlton are still paying for financial mistakes that were made in the Championship - Igor Vetokele was signed for a seven-figure fee in 2014. The striker has not played a competitive game for the Addicks since May 2016 after spending the last two seasons on loan at Belgian clubs Waregem and Sint Truiden. He is one of Charlton’s top earners and still has one year left on his current deal - and it is unclear whether the club would want to pay his full wages in League One next season (although there have been rumours that he might return).

Rick Everitt has tweeted, 'Sheer number of investors doing paperwork on the Aussie side seems to have caused delays, leading Duchatelet to lose patience.'

It looks like we are facing a further period of frustration. In the circumstances it is sensible to appoint Lee Bowyer as continuing caretaker manager, although it is not clear how much freedom of action he will have or how attractive prospective players will find the set up.