I’m not sure if anybody noticed, but our forthcoming FA Cup opponents Charlton Athletic (or should that be Charlton Arthritic as I’m sure Stress and Pie would call them) lost at home to League Two Wycombe Wanderers in the quarter finals of the Carling Cup last night. Wycombe overcame Notts County in the previous round, so it was probably a case of “what might have been” for our neighbours – but certainly it’s another nail in the Charlton coffin – and surely their confidence taking a battering is good for us?
Charlton have a run in of Middlesbrough away, Fulham at home, Aston Villa at home and then Arsenal away before facing the trip to hardly-a-fortress City Ground on 6th January – not the toughest run-in, but for Charlton there are no easy games at the moment, so hopefully their poor run will continue and build to an almighty humiliating crescendo against Arsenal leaving the Addicks bereft of confidence when finally wending their way up the M1 to face us. Having checked their fixtures, bless them, they still have the date for the FA Cup semi final on their fixture list!
Of course, the flipside of this could be that Charlton do indeed hit something approximating rock-bottom, and bounce back to get a result against us which may well kickstart some semblance of a fight against relegation from them. But let’s not think about that! Whilst it still grates a bit, we are the underdogs, and we really don’t have that much to lose, so long as we don’t get spanked, of course.
I suppose the other interesting thing to come from that match were the goalscoring antics of their Welsh forward Jermaine Easter – he’s scored in every round of the Carling Cup so far; and will surely be attracting interest from higher levels, such is the nature of “giantkilling” type performances, often players are picked up for higher levels. As a forward he’s not exactly what we need I wouldn’t say really, but certainly we may well end up playing against him after January should someone be looking to replace a striker in a hurry, someone like Scunthorpe, perhaps?
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