Punching above your weight this season to be fair. At the start of the season I think most tipsters would have gone for Wigan, Blackburn and a Duchatelet-less Charlton. What an achievement it will be if we can get out of this p1ss hole of a league with the Belgian Virus still here. It will be the footballing equivalent of running a marathon with a ton of rocks on your back.
25th April update; I removed Peterborough from the contenders' list this morning. After four straight defeats Posh can only finish on a maximum of 67 points. I'm pretty sure that will not be enough to finish in the play-off places. Peterborough do still have to play Portsmouth, and with any luck they will beat them. But Portsmouth themselves can only finish on a maximum of 69 points, so Pompey's play-off chances are extremely low anyway. Also I have removed Rotherham United, because they are 99.9% likely to finish in 4th place now. Rotherham currently have 76 points, and of all the play-off chasing teams only Scunthorpe can finish with a maximum of 76 points.
Greeny, after we lost to Scunny at home a lot of us (well me & Dick to be precise... well more Dick than me if I am honest ) thought our play off chances were over... we had away games at Shrewsbury and Portsmouth coming up and a lot thought we would be out of the race by now ..... but we did not take account of Bow-Jackson tearing the players new rear holes and telling them exactly what they thought of the Scunny performance.... we beat Shrews 0-2 and Pompey 0-1 and are right back in the mix. The Fat Lady has still not planned her trip to Devon just yet
Agreed. 2 play-off places up for grabs and three main contenders; Scunthorpe United - slight favourites with 3 games to play, can finish on a maximum of 76 points. Charlton Athletic - well placed right now, 2 games left to play and can finish on a maximum of 74 points. Plymouth Arglye - 3 games to play and can finish on a maximum of 74 points BUT Plymouth and Scunthorpe cannot both finish on their maximum points because they play each other. So it is quite possible one of them will finish 5th and the other 7th, while Charlton will probably finish 6th. Portsmouth and Bradford City are not mathematically out of the running yet, but they are long shots.
Punching above your weight this season seems a tad patronising to me. Everyone starts on zero no matter who they are or what their history has been. The operative word in that is "has been" because we are all in league one due to that being where we have earned being and that has nothing to do with history. The bookies run books to earn money and have no more info apart from how much funds a club is likely to have than anyone else and base their books mostly on history rather than knowledge. Many a "big" club has come into a lower one with everyone expecting them to rise automatically the next season. A load of them don't and what a shock that becomes to their faithful. The Conference is full of ex league clubs who have struggled to get back into the football league in seasons let alone one. I suspect Sunderland might get a shock or two come next season.
Maybe I should have thought that one through before I posted it! But even to be on the edge of the play-offs with 3 games to go after just being promoted from League 2 is pretty good going Greeny. Back-to-back promotions are a rare thing and to be in with a shout at this stage is something to be pleased about. You've still got a better chance than Pompey. Charlton have only ever won back-to-back promotions once in our entire history, under our greatest ever manager Jimmy Seed... 1934-35 ... 3rd Division (South) - Champions. 1935-36 ... 2nd Division - finished 2nd place, 1 point behind Manchester United. 1936-37 ... 1st Division - finished 2nd place, 3 points behind Manchester City. Just a couple of wins (2 points for a win back then of course) away from 3rd tier to Champions of England. Those were the days
Having a look at things, sixth place is probably the better one to finish up on. Out of the teams playing Shrewsbury would be my ideal
You'll be pleased to hear Elf that Charlton have never suffered back-to-back relegations. The nearest thing to it was our relegation from the Premiership in 2006-07 then our relegation to League One two seasons later in 2008-09.
No worries lardiman I was only kidding with the indignation anyway. We very nearly managed 3 consecutive relagations a lot mote recently than I care to dwell on. We were in the Championship looking quite settled when the financial crap hit the fan. We were a basket case and sold everything for a pittance that could be sold including any player anyone would give us a couple of quid for. We sold Bolaise for £25k for christ sake with no sell on clause. How we stayed in the football league I don't know but we just did. It's why the greens get so easily excited these days. It's going to be an interesting last few games and let the best 2 teams out of the 3 win.
29th April update; A fantastic home win against Blackburn Rovers at the Valley yesterday means that Charlton's play-off chances are 100% in our own hands. No result in the game between SCunthorpe and Plymouth on Tuesday night can knock Charlton out of the top 6. That means if we beat Rochdale at Spotland on the last day of the season, Charlton will be in the play-off semi-finals. It is possible we may not need a win to qualify for the play-offs. Here are the three possible scenarios after Tuesday's Scunthorpe V Plymouth match; A) ... Scunthorpe win 5 ... Scunthorpe United - 73 6 ... Charlton Athletic - 71 (goal difference +8) 7 ... Plymouth Argyle - 68 (goal difference lower than +4 depending on how many goals Scunthorpe win by) This would be the best scenario for Charlton. Our GD will be at least 5 better than Plymouth if Scunthorpe beat them on Tuesday. So (for example) even if we lose to Rochdale, if we lost 1-0 Plymouth would have to win away at Gillingham 0-4 to take 6th place off us. For every additional clear goal we lose by, Plymouth would have to score one less against Gillingham. Now some fans might think Gillingham may 'deliberately' cave in and let Plymouth score a hat full in order to deny us the play-offs. I would like to believe the Gillingham manager and players would have more self-respect than to behave in that manner. However, the Gillingham goal difference factor would only come in to play if we lose against Rochdale. A draw for Charlton would make the Gillingham V Plymouth result irrelevant. 1 point for us would be enough to secure 6th place. B) ... Scunthorpe draw with Plymouth 5 ... Scunthorpe United - 71 (goal difference +13) 6 ... Charlton Athletic - 71 (goal difference +8) 7 ... Plymouth Argyle - 69 (goal difference +4) If this happens, Charlton will need at least a draw drom the Rochdale game if Plymouth win. Even if we do draw, should Plymouth beat Gillingham by 5 clear goals then Charlton would drop down to 7th place. Once again, I would hope that Gillingham are too professional to just roll over and let Plymouth fill their boots. But anything is possible. So a draw for Charlton does not guarantee the play-offs as it would in scenario A. However, if Plymouth fail to beat Gillingham then Charlton will finish 6th even if we lose to Rochdale. C) ... Plymouth win (by fewer than 5 clear goals) 5 ... Charlton Athletic - 71 (goal difference +8) 6 ... Plymouth Argyle - 71 (goal difference better than +4 depending on how many goals they beat Scunthorpe by) 7 ... Scunthorpe United - 70 (goal difference lower than +13 depending on how many goals they lose to Plymouth by) This is the scenario we really do not want. If Charlton lose against Rochdale then Plymouth and Scunthorpe would only have to draw their final games (against Gillingham and Bradford respectively) to push Charlton out of the play-off places. Even if we get a draw against Rochdale, Charlton could still finish 7th if Plymouth and Scunthorpe both win. If Scunthorpe win on the last day of the season and we draw with Rochdale, in theory Plymouth could even push us out of the top 6 if they only draw with Gillingham - but only if Plymouth beat Scunthorpe by 5 clear goals on Tuesday night. That does seem pretty unlikely. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So in a nutshell; A Scunthorpe win on Tuesday evening gives Charlton the best chance of finishing the season in the top 6. A draw would be the next best result for us, a win for Plymouth would be the worst result from our point of view. But none of this will matter if Charlton beat Rochdale on May 5th. If we win, there is no scenario that denies us the play-offs - whatever happens on Tuesday.
I'm sure Lee Bowyer will not allow any kind of complacency to creep into the Charlton dressing room. We need top go out there on May 5th and blow them away with ruthless attacking play. Two early goals and then keep tight to them and break up their response. The more Rochdale then try to get back into the game, the more opportunities they will give us to get in behind them. They cannot park the bus unless they score first.
I would say we have the hardest game next week and it is no forgone conclusion that we will make the play-offs. Both Plymouth and Scunthorpe are well capable of winning their games and Rochdale must beat us to have a chance of staying up.
Talking of promotion failures, I was busy over on Millwall 606 last night offering my sincere condolences to TC, Ringo & the lads
Blimey, the glasses are half empty this morning for sure. After a string of fantastic results against Plymouth, Rotherham, Shrewsbury, Portsmouth and now Blackburn, would it hurt to have a bit of belief that Lee Bowyer and the team can rise to this last challenge of the regular season and get the points we need away at Rochdale? I believe we will win on Saturday, 1-3 or better.
Blind euphoria can be found on that other site you post on @lardiman I think we are realistically optimistic - personally I put the percentage odds on our promotion at 60%.
