Good day in SE7

The weather promises to hold for today and tomorrow. We could even see a little late Summer sun this afternoon in what is an important game for Charlton Athletic.

Blackpool arrive warm favourites for the match as they sit in sixth place, some 13 points better than us. You can get 8/5 on Charlton for a home win and I will be taking a piece of that in a treble. If we show the same sense of urgency and commitment going forward that we managed in the second-half against Forest, then we should have a great chance. 

Jordan Cousins should be bursting to play today after a decent display on Tuesday and having signed a three year deal yesterday. If we can get a spark from the midfield around him, then maybe we can score the goals we beed without the mercurial Yann Kermogant. Marvin Sordell will be looking for two in a week and my bet would be another from Simon Church to keep his scoring rate ticking over. We will need to keep Ricardo Fuller off his shooting peg and he will need a close second marker. If we can do that and win the midfield then I am confident of a result. They haven't beaten us on their last three visits and I see no reason why we should succomb today unless we have another Millwall performance or cop some more bad luck.

A win would only move us up a place or two at best but it should open a points gap on the bottom four, who frankly, look like contenders for the drop already - Barnsley, Bolton, Yeovil and Wednesday. Assuming we can win the night-match in hand over the previously impressive Doncaster Rovers, that would have us approaching half-way after ten matches (or equivalent). That would represent a decent recovery and give some optimism for the rest of the season. If we were to lose today, it would give us a home start of 1-2-3 with that shocking start against Doncaster to take into consideration. It's the home form that makes or breaks you in this division especially, so let's hope we can level it up today.

I don't expect too many Seasiders to make the trip so we might have to rely on our own fans to generate some atmosphere today. It worked pretty well on Tuesday, so get behind the boys. I have a mate and Aberdeen fan down for his 14th Charlton game today and he is looking for his third win - c'mon Charl-ton!