Charlton Non-Executive Chairman Richard Murray has admitted that mistakes have been made by the Valley hierarchy.

A dismal run of form, which has seen the Addicks drop to 23rd in the Championship, along with several off-field problems, led to substantial protests from fans at the Valley on Saturday.

A group, which the club expected would be around 1,000 strong, urged owner Roland Duchatelet to sell the club and demanded overall change in how the club is being run.

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In an interview with cafc.co.uk, Murray has admitted that the club have made mistakes, particularly in their transfer policy which has often been reliant on Duchatelet’s network of clubs.

“Roland’s strategy is to have a mix of academy-produced players, young overseas talent with some experienced British players,” Murray said.

“As a long-term strategy I think that’s a good one because you have to look at your wage bill, especially if you are going to charge reasonable prices to get in.

“However, I think it’s fair to say – and he admits this – that he has underestimated the challenges of the Championship.

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“We have put a little too much faith in our overseas players to suddenly come in and play 46 games a year.

“This is a very competitive league where the games come thick and fast. If you look at many of the overseas purchases we’ve made historically, they have not played a lot of games.

“Even in the Premier League you find many of the overseas players take a year before they become accustomed to the British way.

“I think we underestimated how long it would take them to get used to the Championship. Hopefully the players brought in this year from overseas will be even better next year but it’s clear there hasn’t been the right balance this season.”

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When asked whether this was something that ought to have been identified in the summer, Murray said: “It could have been better but you also can’t legislate for injuries to some of our key players like Stephen Henderson, Igor Vetokele and Ahmed Kashi.

“That, added to the squad imbalance, gave us a problem in December in particular. People can see that the players are trying their hardest but we are probably falling just a bit short.

“The obvious strand missing has been the number of experienced Championship players. The first time we have been able to address this is the January transfer window.

“We have acted quickly and got in players like Roger Johnson, Diego Poyet and Rhys Williams, all of whom have a lot of Championship experience.”

For the full interview click here.