Charlton expects...

Every League One side to do their duty. Brighton played their part last night by proving their winning performance at the Valley the other week was no flash in the pan. They bettered fourth place Colchester away from home last night but couldn't break the deadlock. Still, it was two points dropped by another of our chasers and Colchester have now lost the ability to leap-frog us. Their game in hand is another home fixture against Brentford in a few weeks but superior goal difference should mean that they can only draw level on points at best assuming they match us in the meantime.


This evening sees our hopes pinned on home performances of Tranmere, MK Dons and Carlisle as they host Leeds, Swindon and Millwall respectively. None are easy games; shaky Leeds will face a test at Tranmere who managed a very creditable win over Southampton on Saturday; Swindon must recover from a four-nil derby tonking at home and try to get a result in another derby-of-sorts at Milton Keynes, with Paul Ince's men playing in the Last Chance Saloon; that leaves League One's form side since Christmas, Millwall, who escaped with a point at Walsall on Saturday courtesy of a last minute goal and they will need another battling display to get anything on the Border. Fingers-crossed for a Millwall sending-off or a couple of key injuries at Carlisle as well as a morale-sapping defeat.

I am feeling more positive about our opponents inability to win at the moment than our chances of playing well. My money would be on two out of three going our way tonight.

I have also delved into the record books again to check on progress against the promotion campaign of 1980-81 and find that we are three points behind after 35 games played. The side of '80-81 collected another 15 points in the run-in winning four, drawing three and losing four. Spookily enough, that looks pretty close to what we might achieve here which might give us a matching third finish which was good enough in those days for automatic promotion. The players really do need to be focused to concentrate and up the ante in every match we play from here on in if we are to have any hope of avoiding the lottery.