Charlton Athletic gambled on Liverpool’s Champions League hero - it failed in just five months | OneFootball

Charlton paid £2 million for defender Djiimi Traore in 2006, but it didn't take long for his move to South East London to fall very flat indeed.

When Charlton Athletic paid Liverpool £2 million for Djimi Traore in 2006 they were getting a Champions League-winning defender, but his move to London didn't take long to start turning sour.

By the summer of 2006, Charlton Athletic were a reasonably well-established Premier League club. They'd spent seven of the previous eight seasons in the top-flight, and the one they'd missed had seen them win promotion straight back with 91 points.

But by the end of the end of the 2005-06 season, things were changing. All of this progress had been achieved under the managership of Alan Curbishley, who'd been in charge at The Valley since 1991, but Curbishley declined the option to extend his contract beyond the end of that season, leaving Charlton hunting a new manager.

They settled on the former Luton and West Ham striker Iain Dowie, and it wasn't a move without controversy. Dowie left Crystal Palace at the end of that season by mutual consent after having told the club's owner, Simon Jordan, that he wanted to be closer to his family, who lived in Bolton.

Eight days after leaving - with the £1 million compensation to which Palace were contractually entitled having been waived - he was appointed as Curbishley's successor, and given the job of freshening up his squad of players for the new season.

Djimi Traore had already won the Champions League by the time he arrived at The Valley

The first player to arrive at The Valley that summer was Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who arrived on a free transfer from Middlesbrough, but no money was spent until two new players arrived on the 8th August, when Amdy Faye and Djimi Traore were signed for £2 million each from Newcastle United and Liverpool respectively.

Malian international Djimi Traore already had one very piece of silverware under his belt, having won the Champions League in Istanbul two years earlier, where he'd managed a goal-line clearance to keep his team in the game. He'd also won the FA Cup with them at the end of the 2005-06 season.

Traore arrived at Charlton 11 days before the start of the new season, with 141 appearances under his belt for Liverpool, including 88 in the Premier League. He'd never been the most consistent of performers at Anfield, but he had a high ceiling, and that was important, if Charlton were to improve on their 13th-placed finish from the previous season.

Traore's stay at The Valley was brief and unhappy

Traore made his Premier League debut on the opening weekend of the season away to West Ham United, and all seemed to be going pretty well for Charlton when they took an early lead. But then, having already picked up a yellow card for a rash challenge on Lee Bowyer, in the 26th-minute he kicked the ball away when a West Ham free-kick was awarded and was sent off for a second yellow card. West Ham went on to win the match 3-1.

After serving a one-game suspension for their next match away to Manchester United, Traore returned to the Charlton team for their third game of the season, at home against Bolton Wanderers, which went considerably better, with the Addicks winning 2-0. But in their first match back after the start of September's international break against Chelsea, he suffered a hairline fracture of the leg, leaving him out of the team for the next two months.

This turned out to be a very eventful couple of months for Charlton Athletic. The Chelsea loss was the first of five straight defeats which dropped them to the bottom of the table, and on the 6th December Iain Dowie was sacked and replaced by coach Les Reed.

Traore returned for Charlton's 1-1 draw with Everton at the end of November, but Charlton's form had collapsed. Reed left and was replaced by Alan Pardew in January 2007, after just 41 days in charge. He was back in the first team, but not for long. Pardew decided that Traore was surplus to requirements at The Valley and left the club in the January 2007 transfer window, signing for Portsmouth for £1 million, half the amount they'd paid for him in the first place.

Traore went on to play for Rennes and Birmingham City on loan, and then Monaco, Marseille and Seattle Sounders, before retiring at the end of their 2014 season. Charlton Athletic, meanwhile, had bigger problems that Djimi Traore. Their form didn't recover in the second half of the 2006-07 season, and they were relegated at the end of the season. They haven't returned since.

The 2006-07 season was a pivotal one for Charlton Athletic. Without the glue of Alan Curbishley to hold them together, the collapse that they endured would end up leaving a lasting mark upon the club. They haven't managed to finish higher than ninth in the Championship since that relegation, and have spent eleven of the nineteen years since in League One.

Djimi Traore's brief spell at The Valley was a case of the wrong player being at the wrong club at the wrong time. He may have won some silverware with Liverpool, but his overall spell with the club was patchy, and this seemed to be overlooked by Charlton when they signed him. He was always a gamble for the Addicks, and on this occasion it was a gamble that the club lost.