Smerts Staying Put

A very entertaining evening was had at last night's City Addicks meeting. Theo Foley and Steve Gritt were very forthcoming on certain issues and a good, and boozy, night was had by all. The one lady in attendance, Brenda I believe her name was, seemed to spend the whole evening flirting with Theo or was that just my imagination.

Charlton Athletic director David White was also in attendance and revealed that, despite fan's worries to the contrary, Alexei Smertin was on a season long loan at The Valley and cannot be recalled by Chelsea during the January transfer window even if they wanted to do so. The possibility of a permanent transfer remains although Alexei has opted to wait until the end of the season when he will review all of the options available to him.

It seems that there is money available to spend in the January transfer window but suggestions on certain message boards that the figure of £20m was mentioned are way off the mark and can be put down as drunken ramblings. Curbs knows where he wants to spend the money and one can only hope that it will be on another decent striker and perhaps another defensive midfielder.

Oh, and Benty is fit for Blackburn tomorrow after suffering from nothing worse than a heavy cold.