On 20 December 2006, Charlton Athletic made a joint offer for Brown and Thomson, which was rejected by Hibernian. This sparked a further round of speculation, as Brown and Thomson demanded to know why they had not been informed of the offer before it was rejected. Thomson was stripped of the captaincy on 2 January 2007 and was replaced by Rob Jones. Thomson was told by manager John Collins to concentrate on his game because he believed that Thomson's performance levels had dropped since the transfer speculation began.