Board back Pardew on Varney & Iwelumo joins on free As expected Charlton signalled their intent with the signings of both Chris Iwelumo and Luke Varney this morning. 6ft 4 Iwelumo was a free and although the 28-year old's career hasn't been the most sparkling, he proved himself last season in the fizzy pops scoring 18 goals and assistant manager Phil Parkinson will know of him well after signing him for the U's in 2005.

We haven't had a big target man striker for a while, Bartlett being the last one, and as John Pearson, Mark Bright & Andy Hunt showed us, height, power and assists are essentials in the lower tier.

Varney signed from Crewe for an initial fee of £2million, which sounds a bit lumpy when you consider that the 24-year old began his professional career late and only started to make a golascoring impact this season in League 2. Like Iwelumo on a 4-year contract it represents a gamble, but I would have thought that Pards would have seen Varney play many times in his stalking of Dean Ashton 18 months back.

Add Chris Dickson to the mix and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a (very) experienced Teddy Sheringham join next. Questions now remain over Lisbie, Marcus Bent and of course Darren Bent. Have we spent part of his transfer fee already? It was certainly interesting to read Pardew's comment about thanking the board for backing his judgement on Varney, and I expect this had more to do with the fee than the player.  ¶ 15:33