Madjid Bougherra

....Don't Blame It On The Sunshine, Don't Blame It On The Moonlight, Don't Blame It On The Good Times....Blame It On The Bougherra


So there we have it, a bespoke song for our new central defender when he slices one into his own net at Bolton. Despite no confirmation yet from the club, it seems that Monsieur Bougherra is convinced he's signed for us judging from his own website. That's good enough for me, because you can rest assured that if and when the club confirms it, their own official site will be down for 24 hours.

Despite barely having muttered a word since in anger, memories of my A-Level French course are just about vivid enough to offer a rough translation:

"It's official, Madjid Bougherra will wear the Charlton colours. He signed today for the London club for 4 1/2 years. The transfer fee is £2.5m."

"Charlton occupy 19th place in the English Premiership and are three points behind Wigan, the first team outside the relegation places."

"The 24-year old Algerian international will try to help Charlton (worst defence in the Premiership) to keep themselves in the Premiership."

"He is very excited about playing alongside Kevin Lisbie."

Ok I made the last bit up, but it seems finally on Jan 27th we have made another signing. On paper at least, it didn't exactly scream 'great value', but having watched the YouTube video above, it looks like we've signed Algeria's answer to Franz Beckenbauer. He's also the right age and is obviously comfortable playing in the Championship in the event that we return there. That in itself should be a pre-requisite for anyone else we sign in the coming four days.

Having not seen him play properly (videos of his best moments aside), it's hard to say very much more, though interestingly the BBC website suggests that his English wasn't great as recently as Jan 2006. Given that we know Souleymayne Diawara doesn't speak great English either (but also speaks French), hey presto we now have a central defensive partnership that understands each other (don't forget Talal El Karkouri too - Ed).

However I'm sure for £2.5million, the club could have afforded to recruit the best English teacher in the land for Diawara, and still have some spare change left over for a central midfielder (then again, the lad does look the business).