Many a war has been forecast to "be all over by Christmas" and, sadly, this has usually proved a false hope, but I wonder if promotion could be in the bag for the Addicks by end February? Not just because we are 7 points clear with a home game in hand, but also because our promotion rivals will be busy kicking lumps out of each other over the next few weeks. MK Dons have a particularly tough program in the near future: Stevenage v MK Dons MK Dons v Sheffield Wed Huddersfield v MK Dons Charlton v MK Dons Huddersfield v Sheffield Utd Sheffield Wed v Stevenage Stevenage v Huddersfield Charlton v Stevenage Sheffield Wed v Sheffield Utd and the Sheffields are both still involved in the FA Cup. I wish them both a long run in that with many replays! Meanwhile we have four very winnable games coming up, and a big squad of players. If we don't slip up in those, draws against MK Dons and Stevenage would probably be good enough to give us an unassailable lead. Remember, for us to miss out on automatic promotion it needs two of our rivals to have a fantastic run-in and, given they are all playing each other, I cannot see that happening. One, maybe, but not two. Our reserves are playing at Margate (7.45pm) in the Kent Senior Cup on Tuesday. I expect Stephens will get an outing. I wonder if Alonso is fit enough to play, too?
I dont think we'll have promotion wrapped up by the end of Nov as there will be more than 30pts still available I do think though that the Huddersfield in Apr is their last chance of stopping us, but by then i also think it will be too late
If we win it by end of Feb- I will throw a house party at my expense. A2C will be on the door though, and entertainment will be provided in the form of Nick Gray.
It would be lovely to get Alonso playing, he is a ball winning defensive midfielder who passes well..... just what we need at present.
Eddie, your Doctor has told you before not to stop taking the tablets ! Its actually a very good point that we have virtually got all the tough games out of the way - however, who have we lost to so far this season ? It would be interesting to understand how many games we have won by going behind first this season - prob not a lot, mainly because we havnt let a lot of goals in - but CP has obviously set his side up this season from a strong defensive base, and mainly to play people on the break, knowing that when he's got BWP, he will put away chances and Jacko when it comes to set pieces - it would be brilliant to be up much earlier than the others because that puts us in a very strong position when negotiating for new players for the following season, and i hope that CP looks for good players from L1 that we have played, and also the best from the relegated teams
Be interesting to see some of the fringe players / youth getting debuts if we do win the League with a few weeks to spare
Eddie, you back in blighty? or sunning yourself in the Caribbean with your girlfriend making you hand-picked fruit cocktails? You sure you're real name isnt Buster Edwards ?
Eddie seems very happy about winning yesterday's six pointer. In the driving seat, no more, no less. 60 points also means that we're likely to have avoided relegation, as long as our goal difference doesn't take too big a hammering in the run-in.
I hope not. He's dead, isn't he? But you're right. There are lots of dodgy characters in the Dominican Republic. Once Spain applied to join the EU and had to agree extradition treaties, they all started to move here. Still, there are compensations! I think I will stick around for a bit longer, until my money runs out! I am doing a lot of charity work here, helping impoverished young ladies. I assume you mean "Feb" not "Nov". Obviously I don't mean mathematically certain, but with a lead over all challengers that has never been overturned in past season in any division. I think that situation is certainly possible for the reasons I gave. I'm not a betting man, but would that be the situation where bookies stop taking bets on it?
Whoops yeh I did mean Feb rather than November. I hate to say it but if we're not talking mathematically I think we're promoted - When you look at the list of fixtures from your first post Eddie I dont think the others can put a good enough run together whilst relying on us to drop points. I think after Brentford's performances against us and against Huddersfield last night, they could also help us by denting the others promotion hopes
Logically guys you are all dead right. But I have the scars of too many collapses on my back to join in with this. I can't see us slipping up now either but lets not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Gets coat and finds the door.......
I agree ybab, we're all getting a bit ahead of ourselves and assuming that promotion is inevitable. We still have months of football left to play.
Spot on. This is how we all got so depressed in the first place. Expectations. When it happens I'll celebrate. In the meantime I'm enjoying the ride.
I've been giving this some thought and I stick to what I said before the two Sheffield games, in that I'm rather more concerned about our performances in the next four games that I was about the two 'big games'. There must be a great tendency to let out a huge collective sigh of relief that we've got six points from our two nearest rivals and now we can get on to playing teams that seem to be out of contention as rivals for promotion. All the stops have got to be pulled out at the club to avoid an 'after the Lord Mayor's Show' banana skin episode and I'm sure this will be happening right now. We've got coming up next, Exeter, Bury, Rochdale and Chesterfield. Winnable games, but by no means easy. Bury seem to have got their mid-season blip out of the way but even so, I don't have too many concerns about them, but the other three are in very precarious positions and are going to be scrapping for their lives. IMO, if we approach any of these games with any less determination than we approached the Steel City games, we're going to get turned over. We've proved already that we can bounce back immediately when we l*se, now we've got to show that teams that might, and did, pose us problems last season are to be taken in our stride. We set out our stall from the very first game this season - time now to reflect (briefly) on how successful that's been, and then forge ahead once again towards promotion.
three teams in and around the Relegation scrap Tewks - These have always been our boggie clubs. Ever since we showed we stood a chance of going up I wanted one thing.... to have a nice sizeable lead by March as we all know what happens then.
Re-looking at our games til end of Feb, we have 7 games. The other teams amongst us are likely to have 6 because of FA Cup and also game in hand. We will prob get at least 16 points from those taking us up to 76 points. I suspect that because of playing each other, the 2 nd best team (we need 2 teams to overtake us ) will get max of 12 points - therefore i think we could well be 14/15 points clear of 3rd place team by the end of Feb. It will take one hell of a down-turn for us to not go up from there !
Having looked down our remaining fixture list every game bar two are definately winnable... Only 1s id be worried about is the Stevenage and MK Dons games! Id say Mid April we could/should have it wrapped up if we continue our impressive form!
I would think by the end of February the worst Charlton could achieve would be a play off place. Settle for that in the next 5 weeks, then take the next step - guarantee a top 2 finish
