17/01/04: Everton 0-1 Charlton
By Michael Lynch
January 17 2004
| Everton | Charlton Athletic | 36,322 | |||||||||||||||||
| Stuart 41 | |||||||||||||||||||
Alan Curbishley said: "It was all public and I suppose he could see a Champions League club wanting him. Offers from such clubs do not come along too often.
"Scott has to be focused, and if he is not you will not get a performance."
Curbishley said: "It has been a very unfortunate week. We were not expecting it, but we have handled it the way we had to and just got on with it.
"He knew the bid was in and he knew we dismissed it. We did not encourage anything. I cannot stop clubs bidding for our players.
"But we are not in the position we have been in the past when we have had to sell.
"It was unwelcome, but we made a decision to leave Scott out. We will have to see what happens now over the next few days.
"I do not know what his worth is, we have not discussed it. But there are not too many players like him about.
"Obviously we have got to talk to him. To be fair to him he did want to train, but I did not think he was in the right frame of mind. "I have to think of 24,000 season ticket holders, the board and myself. I have been here 10 years and have the strongest squad I have ever had.
"Obviously we have had a difficult week with the Parker business but we put it all behind us, got our noses in front and defended exceptionally well.
"Mark Fish at the back, Matt Holland in midfield, they were excellent. But they all were.
"Everybody realised what a big game it was for us, they dug in and got what they deserved. It is a great result, a fantastic win."
Curbishley revealed he will discuss the situation with Parker and is still determined to hang on to the youngster.
He added: "Obviously Scott is one of our best players. But you cannot disrespect the rest of our players, we have a decent squad and they just decided to get on with it without him.
"We knew that if we could get something here, on a day that Liverpool had a difficult away game, we could really open up a gap and that is what we have done."
|
