Charlton Athletic hit the jackpot with £4.75m star - it was a 'masterstroke' | OneFootball

Charlton Athletic dropped £4.75m on Jason Euell in 2001, and our Charlton fan pundit believes this says a lot about his club at the time.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

When Charlton Athletic paid £4.75 million for Jason Euell in 2001, they were signing a player with Premier League pedigree, and he went on to be a huge hit for them.

Charlton Athletic's return to the top flight at the end of the 20th century was a little stop-start, but it marked the summation of the club having been well run for the previous decade.

The club had moved back into The Valley in 1992 and redeveloped it, and in 1999 they won the First Division play-offs, securing a return to the Premier League.

Their stay in the top-flight only lasted a season, but they returned again as champions, and this time they were much better prepared for the Premier League, ending the 2000-01 season in 9th place in the table. That summer, with one eye on maintaining their status and building on that excellent return, they made a move for a player with a lot of Premier League experience.

At the end of the 1999-2000 season, Wimbledon had been relegated from the Premier League, and one of their players attracted the interest of the Addicks. Able to offer him a return to the Premier League after a season away, Charlton paid £4.75 million to take Jason Euell to The Valley.

"A masterstroke" - Charlton lauded over Jason Euell transfer

With all of this in mind, Football League World have spoken to our resident Charlton fan pundit Alfie for his assessment of the Jason Euell transfer. "Well, I think you have to look at it within the context", he told us, "Jason Euell was at the time a club record transfer for Charlton, and he wasn't actually proven at Premier League level at the time, so there was definitely some risk involved with the transfer, but it was a very successful transfer."

And Alfie feels that the success of the Euell transfer spoke volumes for the way in which the club was being run at the time: "I think going forward a lot of people have said that that transfer itself embodied the smart recruitment at the time that Charlton were kind of known for; quite a well-run club at the time, known for recruiting in a clever way, and he was a very good investment. And I think because he wasn't proven and went on to be such a consistent success you would definitely be able to characterise it as a masterstroke. I think that's the best way to describe it."

Jason Euell became a club legend at both Charlton & Wimbledon

Jason Euell already had a Premier League pedigree by the time he arrived at Charlton Athletic in 2001. A product of the Wimbledon youth academy, he made his debut for them in 1995 and picked up four caps for England's under-21s as the Dons seemed to defy gravity in the Premier League by remaining reasonably comfortably in mid-table.

But behind the scenes, there were growing ructions at Wimbledon. An attempt to relocate the club to Dublin failed, but the owners of the club were still hell-bent on moving the club out of South-West London and fans were angrily protesting the decision. Wimbledon were relegated in 2000 and finished the 2000-01 in 8th place in Division One, and at the end of that season Euell was ready for a return to the Premier League.

Euell ended up spending five years at The Valley. His first three seasons there were excellent, but injury disrupted his last two and he left for Middlesbrough in 2006. His links with the two clubs at which he originally made his name, however, didn't die. In 2011, having spent time with Boro, Southampton and Blackpool in the meantime, he returned to The Valley, making a further 11 appearances for them.

And there was even time for another reunion with his past. By this time, Wimbledon FC had become MK Dons, and AFC Wimbledon were carrying the torch for that old club. Charlton sent Euell on loan to Kingsmeadow, where he made nine appearances for them in League Two before retiring from playing to concentrate on his coaching badges.

Charlton Athletic have been mismanaged a lot since their relegation from the Premier League, which came a year after Euell's departure. Their recent revival and promotion back to the Championship from League One has been a sign that the club are starting to emerge from those difficult years.

But Charlton were a well-run club at the time of his arrival. Their return to The Valley and subsequent return to the Premier League was one of football's good news stories of the 1990s. Jason Euell became one of the symbols of those times.

And with their return to the Championship having started solidly, with a team pushing towards the play-off places, Addicks fans will be hoping that, even if the odds seem stacked against them, they might even be able to secure another return to the top-flight sooner rather than later.