Charlton Athletic fans will always be divided on £3m Spurs transfer | OneFootball

Andy Reid was described as one of the "worst January signings" ever made, and he'd prove to be a divisive figure when he went to Charlton too.

Midfielder Andy Reid was described as one of the "worst January signings since the transfer window was introduced in 2003" after his 2005 transfer to Spurs, but Charlton spent £3 million on him nevertheless.

By the summer of 2006, Charlton Athletic had enjoyed their most successful period in decades.

A club that had flirted with extinction in the early 1980s and had spent seven years away from The Valley between 1985 and 1992, won promotion to the Premier League in 1998 - following relegation and promotion straight back - and had enjoyed six uninterrupted years in the top flight without too many fears of relegation.

But this was also a period of change for the club. The man who'd overseen all of this, Alan Curbishley, left the club after 15 years at the end of the 2005-06 season and replaced by Iain Dowie, and Dowie was given a hefty transfer budget that summer as the club sought to shore up their Premier League status in the absence of his long-time predecessor.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Djimi Traore, Scott Carson, Ben Thatcher and Souleymane Diawara respectively were amongst those to arrive at The Valley that summer, along with a midfielder who'd already been the subject of a protracted transfer which had led to a move which turned out to be disastrous.

Andy Reid had already been the subject of one of the "worst January transfers" by the time he arrived at Charlton from Spurs

Although born in Dublin, Andy Reid started his career in the youth system at Nottingham Forest.

Graduating to the senior squad with his first professional contract in 1999, he made his Forest debut in November 2000 and went on to make 158 appearances in all competitions for the club over the next five seasons.

But in the summer of 2004, Reid handed in a written transfer request, saying that: "I feel I have no other choice than to formally state my desire to leave the club."

Tottenham Hotspur had been interested in taking him to White Hart Lane, but Reid said: "You only have to look at the fees other clubs have paid this summer for experienced internationals who have only ever played in the Premier League to realise that I have been vastly priced out of a move."

Negotiations stretched out throughout the first half of the 2004-05 season before a deal was agreed for Reid and another Forest player, Michael Dawson, to move to Spurs for a combined fee of £8 million at the very end of the January 2005 transfer window.

To say that it didn't go well would be something of an understatement.

In a 2008 list of the 25 best and worst January transfers since the introduction of the January transfer window published by The Times, Reid's move to Spurs was in the number seven position.

Over the next season-and-a-half, he'd only make 26 appearances for Spurs, of which twenty would be starts.

Charlton Athletic had a chaotic 2006-07, but still turned a profit on Reid in 2008

Charlton Athletic paid £3 million to take Reid to The Valley in August 2006.

It was clearly a gamble. He'd failed to replicate the performances he'd made for Nottingham Forest at Spurs.

But it turned out that Charlton's problems throughout the 2006-07 season were greater than any one player. By the time Iain Dowie was sacked on the 13th November, they were rock bottom of the Premier League, having lost eight of their 12 matches to that point.

And the club's choice of his replacement was mystifying. Les Reed had previously been involved in the England team's coaching set-up, but he had no managerial experience and the club was clearly in a dangerous position.

Reed's brief spell in charge of the Addicks that season has gone down in infamy as one of the most disastrous in the history of the Premier League. He lasted just six weeks in charge, winning just one match and getting them knocked out of the League Cup by Wycombe Wanderers, 1-0 at home.

The press treatment of Reed was savage. He was sacked on Christmas Eve after just 41 days in the job, the shortest managerial spell in the history of the Premier League at that point, with the Daily Mirror describing him as "Santa Clueless." He was replaced by Alan Pardew.

As Charlton's season slid towards relegation, Reid's role at his new club was peripheral. He made just 16 appearances for the Addicks all season, scoring twice. They were eventually relegated in 19th place in the table, four points from safety.

But the following season, back in the Championship, his form did pick up again. The club had kept faith with Pardew despite the previous season's relegation, and by the latter stages of November 2007 they were second in the table behind West Bromwich Albion.

This upturn in form hadn't gone unnoticed. He scored six league goals in the first half of the season, including two penalties in two minutes to give Charlton a 2-0 win against Norwich in November 2007. By this time, Pardew had appointed him as Addicks captain.

He made his final League appearance for them on the 15th December 2007, in a 4-2 defeat to West Brom, and at the very end of the January 2008 transfer window he returned to the Premier League with a £5 million transfer to Sunderland, with Sunderland's Greg Halford going in the other direction on a six-month loan as part of the deal.

It represented a decent profit for a player who'd only cost them £3 million in the first place.

Reid's time at Sunderland wouldn't be especially successful, but in 2011 he returned to Nottingham Forest, the club at which he'd started his career, and would play for them for a further five years, making a further 130 appearances for them before retiring in 2016.

Speaking to The Coaches' Voice in 2023, Reid shone a light on his time at The Valley, and in particular the strong bond that he had with Alan Pardew. He even admits in the article that he didn't want to leave Charlton in January 2008, but that the club's financial position meant that they had to accept Sunderland's offer.

And it's unsurprising that Reid divides opinion among the club's supporters. On one hand, he was a supremely talented player, with an outstanding passing range, and he always played with his heart firmly on his sleeve.

On the other, he was also part of a chaotic season, one which marked the end of their most successful spell since the 1940s and the beginning of more than a decade of problems under more than one owner, with some fans also expecting more from the midfielder given the fee they paid for him.

But the truth remains that the problems that Charlton Athletic faced at that time were far greater than one player could ever be. That it took the club the best part of two decades to get back to stability afterwards, is proof of this.