Charlton Athletic struck gold with combined £3m expense on duo that left for £26.5m | OneFootball

Charlton Athletic made significant profit on Darren Bent and Scott Parker.

Charlton Athletic struck gold by signing Darren Bent and Scott Parker back in the day.

The Addicks have sold a number of players for seven-figure fees since the year 2000, including Joe Gomez, Luke Young and Danny Murphy to name a few, but none have commanded higher transfer fees than Darren Bent and Scott Parker.

Bent was sold to Tottenham Hotspur for the highest transfer fee that Charlton have ever received for a player during the summer transfer window in 2007, while Parker's move to Chelsea in January 2004 makes him the club's second-most expensive departure of all time.

Charlton completed the signing of Bent in the summer of 2005 for a fee which turned out to be a bargain, while Parker joined the club during his youth and came through the academy, so it would be fair to say that the Addicks struck gold with the acquisitions of both players.

Charlton signed Bent for up to £3 million

Charlton signed Bent from Ipswich Town for a fee which could have risen to £3 million in 2005, after he had scored 20 goals and provided 15 assists for the Tractor Boys in the Championship the previous season.

An initial fee of £2.5 million was agreed between the two clubs, but considering the success that Bent went on to have at The Valley, it is highly likely that the transfer was worth closer to £3 million in the end.

The striker thrived during his debut season in SE7, scoring 18 goals in the Premier League as the Addicks finished mid-table, and he was perhaps unlucky to be left out of England's 2006 World Cup squad at the end of the campaign.

He scored a further 13 goals in the top-flight the following season, but he was unable to save Charlton from relegation to the Championship.

After being linked with moves to West Ham United and Liverpool, Bent left Charlton to join Spurs for £16.5 million in the summer of 2007.

Scott Parker left Charlton for £10 million

After coming through the academy at Charlton, Parker made his debut for the club in 1997, but he only became a regular first-team player after the turn of the millennium.

He made 110 Premier League appearances for the Addicks, and was a key part of their push for European football during the 2003/04 campaign.

Charlton found themselves fourth in the Premier League table when the January transfer window opened in 2004, with Parker having featured regularly throughout the first half of the season, contributing to victories against Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs.

Unfortunately for the Addicks, Parker joined Chelsea for a fee of £10 million towards the end of the January transfer window, which was one of the reasons why Charlton ended up finishing the season in seventh place and missed out on a place in Europe.

While Charlton supporters would have been disappointed when both Bent and Parker left, there is no doubt that the club struck gold by bringing both of them to The Valley.

Charlton only spent a combined £3 million to sign the pair, with Parker having joined for nothing as a youngster, so the fact that they were sold for a total of £26.5 million means they were both extremely shrewd acquisitions.