The club have given Mark Kinsella permission to join the coaching staff at Charlton Athletic.

This came as a bolt from the blue, with no rumours being circulated before the announcement yesterday evening.

Kinsella was originally given a coaching role at the club by Paul Merson, in what turned out to be one of his few decent decisions, but it is not in the coaching capacity that he’s likely to be most missed. Kinsella, having been frozen out of the playing side during Merson’s tenure, has, this season, despite limiting his opportunities, been one of our better performers in the centre of the park. Kinsella and Dobson has certainly been the best looking partnership.

Richard Money has said that we had an agreement with Kinsella that he would be allowed to leave, should a Premiership team come in and we could hardly stand in his way, especially when it is a team where he had such a successful playing career.

A compensation package has been agreed and it will prove interesting how Dicky Dosh will go about replacing the former Irish International both on and off the field. Rumours have already started that Nick Barmby is one target.

Charlton have given us permission to play him on Saturday, which will give fans a chance to give him a decent send off, not to mention help us over the current midfield injury crisis.