Charlton Athletic have begun to consider ways of returning to the Barclays Premiership after the 2-0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on Monday evening that confirmed their relegation. Peter Varney, the chief executive, hopes that Darren Bent, the England forward, can be persuaded to stay and Alan Pardew, the manager, has given warning that the team cannot afford to put on any Premiership airs and graces if they are to gain promotion.

“Next year we have to put our egos to one side because if you take that to the Championship you are going to get found out,” Pardew said. “I know from my experience at West Ham that relegation costs people jobs, and it is not players but people who have worked here for ten, fifteen years. That is the sad part, and hopefully, if we put our egos to one side we can bounce straight back.

“But we have to know that it will not be an easy campaign. Somewhere along the line we will get beaten by Macclesfield at home in the league or something, and we have all got to wear that and stick together, because at some point you do have difficult results.” Pardew seemed to have imagined that the club had gone down three divisions – Macclesfield Town are in Coca-Cola League Two – but things are not quite that bad. He expects “90 per cent” of his squad to remain intact, but the big question concerns the other 10 per cent. Underachievers such as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Dennis Rom-medahl are unlikely to be at The Valley next season and few imagine that Bent, the club’s greatest asset, will not be traded in either.

“There are all sorts of ifs and buts about Darren,” Varney said. “He’s an England international and will obviously want to play at the highest level and I don’t know the answer yet. But we’ve got to keep the strongest squad possible to get back in the Premiership. You have all got to stay together. Nearly 17,000 fans have already renewed their season tickets and did that before they knew what status we had, Championship or Premiership. That shows the faith they have got, for Alan Pardew in particular. We’ve got to work on that, build on that, and create an atmosphere that gets us back up.”

One way Charlton could afford to keep Bent – in the unlikely event that he would be willing to play in the Championship – might be to listen to a takeover bid that is reported to be forthcoming from a consort-ium of businessmen from Europe and the Middle East. The club denied yesterday that any approach had been made, but it appears that the vultures have been hovering for a while, and that the group, which had been interested in Liverpool, was planning to bid whether or not the club stayed up.

Despite relegation, Charlton would be an attractive target, not least because of the significant potential for the growth of the club’s fanbase, with massive housing programmes planned for its Kent and East Sussex hinterland. The club already runs “Valley Express” coaches to home games from areas that would once have been considered Gillingham’s catchment area.

However, the idea of a con-sortium of outsiders running Charlton does not chime with the recent history of the club, whose supporters fought long and bitter battles to return it to The Valley after a period of exile at Selhurst Park and Upton Park.

A bid may be forthcoming, but that does not mean that it will be entertained, especially if the valuation has been lowered from £80 million to £50 million after relegation – not that Varney was impressed.

“I didn’t see many sheikhs at the game last night,” the chief executive said yesterday. “As far as I’m concerned it is total nonsense.”