Charlton Atletic recruitment chief on how they landed Chuks Aneke from Birmingham City
Steve Gallen has broken down Charlton Athletic’s move to bring Chuks Aneke back to SE7.
The 28-year-old forward rejected a new Addicks contract in the summer and signed for Birmingham City. But last week Charlton agreed a permanent deal – reported to be a transfer outlay of £300,000 – to once again land the former Arsenal and MK man.
Aneke signed a deal until the summer of 2025.
Gallen, director of recruiting at the League One club, told Charlton TV: “We didn’t want him to leave in the first place. I’m going to put the blame all on him! He chose to play for Birmingham in the Championship. I understand it.
“He had a good deal there. I had no problem at that stage. But we never let it go, I always wanted to bring him back – also supported by Thomas and Martin Sandgaard – they were very keen to bring him back too.
“A couple of weeks ago Lee [Bowyer, Birmingham boss] said: ‘Look, if you want to try and do something – let’s try and agree a fee’. We did with Birmingham. Then we had to persuade Chuks via his agent to come back – it wasn’t that difficult. All the way along he wanted to come back to us.”
Aneke scored on Saturday – a late leveller at Cheltenham. He went straight into Johnnie Jackson’s side with injury issues for Jayden Stockley and Conor Washington.
“You could see we were just a little bit light without two good, experienced strikers,” said Gallen. “The young boys have done well – Mason Burstow and Josh Davison – they have worked so hard and got good attitudes. But we needed another senior one and we lost one at the end of the last transfer window in Ronnie Schwartz.”
PICTURE: KYLE ANDREWS