{"id":23548,"date":"2015-12-11T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T19:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=23548"},"modified":"2015-12-11T11:29:41","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T19:29:41","slug":"exclusive-charlton-athletic-striker-happy-to-discuss-new-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2015\/12\/11\/exclusive-charlton-athletic-striker-happy-to-discuss-new-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Charlton Athletic striker happy to discuss new contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

South London Press – LONDON, Reza Ghoochannejhad has revealed he would be happy to talk to Charlton about extending his contract.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Iranian international, 28, is due to be a free agent in the summer and before a ball was kicked this season it looked as if his time in SE7 was over.<\/p>\n

Ghoochannejhad set his own little bit of club history when he became the first Addicks player to score in a World Cup finals – netting the consolation in a 3-1 defeat to Bosnia-Herzegovina in Brazil in 2014 – but then divided the previous campaign on loan at two clubs in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Even when he returned to the Charlton fold and scored against Dagenham & Redbridge in the Capital One Cup in August, you still felt he could be moving on.<\/p>\n

But Ghoochannejhad has benefited from the shortage of striker options – largely due to injuries to Igor Vetokele and Simon Makienok – to show his English adventure might not be done and dusted yet.<\/p>\n

His left-footed finish at Brighton on Saturday made it three goals in his three starts. And he has looked bright when coming off the bench for Karel Fraeye\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

When asked if he would be happy to stay longer in SE7, Ghoochannejhad said: \u201cYeah, of course. Why not? I\u2019ve got a contract until the end of the season and my situation hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you more. All I can say is that I\u2019m happy I\u2019m here and I have a good feeling this team deserves more than the place we are in right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t deserve to be playing relegation football – I look at the squad and we have too much quality there – but that is what we are playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest task right now is to try and help us play decent football and get some points – that\u2019s where I get most joy. After that if the club wants to talk to me then I am always open to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghoochannejhad was part of the first influx of players that came over to Charlton from Standard Liege in January 2014 – shortly after Roland Duchatelet bought the Addicks.<\/p>\n

He undoubtedly had technical ability but seemed to struggle to adapt to the more physical nature of the English game. Since coming into the side in the 2015-16 campaign he has looked more at ease, especially with some of his link play and drawing fouls out of opposing defenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came to England it was all new for me,\u201d said Ghoochannejhad. \u201cA new area, new mentality and new people – I had to adapt very quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a wonderful time in London, and with the club, but it was a little bit tough to get used to a new environment. It is nearly two years ago that I arrived and I feel I\u2019m a different person. I know the mentality of the football more and have more experience. These things have helped me a lot to go forward and improve myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my first year here I played too often on the wing – that wasn\u2019t really my position. That is not an excuse -even as a winger I could have brought more and done way better. But that is all behind me. There were a lot of things that happened after that to bring me to where I am now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try and improve myself every day. I\u2019m hoping to be more important at Charlton, especially in December. We have got a lot of games coming up now – it will be good if we can get some points and make sure we have a good feeling before 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlton face Leeds tomorrow at The Valley and it was the away fixture at Elland Road in April 2014 that saw Ghoochannejhad score his first goal on these shores – a curling finish he took with aplomb.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember it well – because I haven\u2019t scored many at Charlton,\u201d he said. \u201cBut let\u2019s hope I make new history on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very positive about that. That last game against Leeds was a long time ago. No-one cares about that anymore. The most important thing is the match coming up.<\/p>\n

\u201cReza is not important, or Alou [Diarra] is not important – it\u2019s about Charlton. We\u2019ve got Leeds and then Bolton on Tuesday. They are having difficulties and troubles right now and it is an opportunity to get the points to make a small gap between those two teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlton\u2019s players had their Christmas party in Brighton last Saturday night – and the celebrations would have been even greater if they had beaten the undefeated Championship high-fliers.<\/p>\n

Ghoochannejhad put them 2-0 ahead as early as the fifth minute but a second-half fightback from Albion – aided by Patrick Bauer\u2019s red card – saw them succumb to a 3-2 defeat late on that dropped the South Londoners back into the relegation zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to lie – we did have fun after the game,\u201d said Ghoochannejhad.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe match is over and you can do nothing to change the result. The party had been planned for three months.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if we\u2019d won the game there would have been a much better feeling for all of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played one of our best first halves of the season and it was very satisfying.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately we forget about the second half and forgot the game is 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave everything away and played very badly. We were not at the same level. It was immature.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are winning 2-0 you should at least get one point out of the game. We have to take lessons from that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South London Press – LONDON, Reza Ghoochannejhad has revealed he would be happy to talk…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":23549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,89,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c22-players-spotlight"],"views":2184,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}