Charlton Athletic Online

The January trasfer window. What an opportunity for every ailing football club in the country to go out and buy new players and turn a poor season into a great one.

Except, it just doesn't happen like that...

First, you need to have money to buy players, or even get them on loan these days. Do Charlton have any money? No. Not even that fantasy "Parachute payment" that we have somehow kept in our back pocket since relegation. So unless someone is sold, or the wage total reduced by sending more players out on loan, it is unlikely we will see many new faces down at The Valley this month.

Of course, Alan Pardew has said he is desperate to bring in new fresh faces to brighten up his gloomy squad, but that does intimate to me that at least one player may be sold/sacrificed in order for this to happen.

We should also remember that the wage bill was briefly lightened by Danny Mills returning to Manchester City, before the much cheaper to pay Kelly Youga came back from his loan spell at Scunthorpe yesterday. If Mills was on around £25k a week, and Youga is on, say, £5k a week, Charlton clear about £80 grand every month over what might have been - good business Peter!

This made me laugh yesterday too, from the BBC football gossip webpage -

Manchester City defender Danny Mills, who is currently on loan at Charlton, is wanted on a permanent deal by Hull and Leeds. (Telegraph)

Can you imagine Millsy going to Hull again? First day at training - "Oi Mills, why did you try to get several of us players sent off at The Valley last month?" "Who me, I had been tapped up by Brownie already and was looking for a red card myself from the first ten minutes for simulation as instructed, honest!" Good luck Danny. Better of return to Leeds whose fans will remember you from your last spell there which nearly made them extinct.

Also via BBC today -

Charlton and Hull are fighting it out for the signature of versatile Colchester skipper Karl Duguid. (Star)

Come on Pards, if this is true, why pick a one-club player to sign who will add little more than be another body in an already congested midfield...unless that is, the players we are hoping to get rid of to fund our transfer spree are midfielders? Step forward the only two players who might realistically command a decent fee - Zheng Zhi, and Jerome Thomas.

We might get a little more than the £2m we paid for ZiZi, as he has scored six goals this season and been one of our better players, even if recently he looks desperately tired. JT is always being linked with the lower reaches of the Premiership - Birmingham, Wigan and Derby have been mentioned in the past - so we might get a couple of mill for him too, on a good day.

If Duguid and Joe Ledley from Cardiff, who has also been linked, are the ready made replacements, then they will also be cheaper options as ZiZi and JT are both on pretty good contracts I believe. More savings to the weekly salary budget for Mr Varney.

If these transfers go through, then the funds available may just about be there to get one more player in - but in what position? Do we try for a Premiership reserve striker to score the goals that get us promoted, or for a solid centre half whose defending will also get us promoted? I haven't a clue, but my preference, should it be an option, would be for that central defender who will make a difference. And I don't mean a difference in the McCarthy, Bougherra, or Fortune way.