Grant sold to Huddersfield

For an undisclosed fee. Roundly expected to have been £2m.

It was Bob Peeters who gave Karlan Grant, or Karlan Ahearne Grant as he was known then, his league debut at just 17-years old. He was nowhere near ready. The following season Guy Luzon and the infamous Karel Fraeye also threw him into the fold as the club staggered from one debacle to the next, eventually we were relegated as all matter of soft toys would rain down onto The Valley on a regular basis.

Grant was played in wrong positions, was horribly mismanaged, was sent out on loan, and bounced between youth football and the bench as other young strikers were loaned in ahead of him and all the while every time he looked up he had a new manager to talk to. Yes, Grant has been at Charlton since he was 12, but does he owe us anything?

Other than Steve Avory, Grant does however owe a lot to Lee Bowyer and Johnnie Jackson. Bow brought him back in preseason, backed him after whatever happened in Spain in the summer, and entrusted him to play up top with new signing Lyle Taylor. He and Taylor hit it off, both on and off the field, and without any doubt Taylor has been very good for Grant.

Grant has been excellent. Scored 14 goals, has a fistful of assists and many of his goals have won us points. His pace, utilized by Bowyer, like Kewell did at Crawley, to its full potential is a huge asset, and like any young homegrown player we’ve all enjoyed watching him flourish.

But sure enough like every young homegrown Charlton player, good ones anyhow, he is flogged at the slightest sign of someone showing up at the door with a cheque book. A classic Duchatelet move to bank another couple of million putting the interests of the club just slightly below him buying a new pair of shoes.

That’s the galling part isn’t it? There we were getting excited that Taylor and Grant could break the Hales and Flanagan goalscoring partnership, getting excited than other than the Belgium git, something good is brewing, getting prematurely excited, that promotion could be a real possibility, and after what seems like a lifetime excited just to be a bloody Charlton fan.

And then, whack. What’s that? It’s another kick in the balls. They just never seem to stop.

Now, in a sketch we have seen too many times, we are in the last couple of days of the transfer window and we are short of players. Question is can Bowyer and Steve Gallen pull a rabbit out of the bag. And if they can, Will Duchatelet pay for it?