Charlton Athletic Online

Alan Pardew at last got the chance today to right one of Iain Dowie's cardinal sins - he bought a couple of forwards. This thereby went some way to repairing the shortage that Dowie failed to address at the end of last season (when he let five strikers leave the club and only bought one as a replacement). First through the door was 28-year-old Chris Iwelumo (left), a big tall centre forward who has been playing for Colchester for the last couple of years. Chris has scored a few goals in recent seasons, and formed a prolific partnership at Colchester with Jamie Cureton that almost got Colchester into the Championship play offs.

I have seen Chris play, and being honest, I wasn't that impressed. It was on TV last season (05/06) when he had been out injured but returned to lead the line. He seemed slow and lumbering to me, but maybe he wasn't match fit; he did score though, and maybe that's the point! He joins the club on a Bosman, and is reunited with Phil Parkinson who was his boss and signed him for Colchester. Parky will know exactly what drives him on, and if he does play regularly, he could hopefully form another prolific partnership with our other new signing, Luke Varney.

Varney joins the club from the conveyor belt of Crewe, for a couple of million quid. Hopefully he will be better than those other £2m players that Frankie Valley identified as always being useless in a Charlton shirt.

Varney, who is 24, also got as potful of goals in the lower leagues last year, and has the attributes of Darren Bent (pace, an eye for goal, and a great work ethic).

Varney was also wanted by quit a few other teams it seems, so Charlton do still have some pulling power, even now we are a Championship club.

It does seem that the signings will signal the departure of Darren Bent, but none of us really think Dazza will be at The Valley next year, barring a miracle.

Both the new players will probably be on significantly lower wages than others have recently been earning at the club, but I expect the bonus clauses in the contracts to both be considerable should they and the team do well.

Now we just have to wait to see who is next through the revolving door that is swinging wildly at the bottom of Floyd Road...more in or more out?