What follows is an exercise in counting chickens. Let's hope that they all hatch:
Our next three opponents all drew with lower division opposition yesterday. That's got to be great news for us as they'll all have an extra match to plan for either just before or just after our game. Then add the facts that two of them are in the relegation zone and one is mid-table and we are not (by a long way) and you'd have to say that 9 points from the next three games is distinctly possible. That leaves us with just the Os this side of new near. They lost to a little League 2 side yesterday and have only won twice at Brisbane Road this season. So that's another 3 points that we should be able to pick up.
If we do manage that, it would give us a superb total of 58 points at new year. That isn't enough to beat Reading's 2005-6 total of 66 points by new year, but there is a crucial difference; not that they had Leroy Lita and we don't, but that they had played 27 games whereas we will have only played 23. If (and I appreciate there's a lot of hard work to do) we can beat the next four, that would give us an average of 2.52 points per game that would be better than the 2.44 Reading managed. I don't know, but I think that might be a record. Sunderland are the club with the second highest league points when they amassed 105 in 1998-99. By new year they had 56 from 26 averaging 2.15 per game; we could lose 2 of the next four games and still beat their points per game average.
Comments
Club Points Season Division
Reading 106 2005/06 Championship
Sunderland 105 1998/99 Division 1
Plymouth 102 2001/02 Division 3
Swindon 102 1985/86 Division 4
York 101 1983/84 Division 4
Fulham 101 1998/99 Division 2
Wigan 100 2002/03 Division 2
This is a class team - at least as good as Brighton last season and Norwich the season before that. Personally, I think we've already had our 'dodgy' spell when we got five pts from four games in that period around the Stevenage game. This is a team that knows how to win and really enjoys the feeling. They're addic(k)ted to success and they're going to keep on getting their fix. If they are denied one week, it is only going to make them more determined the next game.
I'll tell you how good we are : if this side played the Charlton side from this time last season or the one from the season before, the current lot would be disappointed not to run out 4-0 winners. And the side of two seasons ago was in the play-offs and last season's side was something like fifth at this time last year.
Well done to Chris Powell and the entire squad and the backroom team: they've won every single game since I've been in South Africa. Met Sean Bartlett out here last week and he's absolutely delighted at Charlton's revival. He's on SA tv every weekend, doing studio punditry on the English premier league and reckons it wont be long before he's being paid to talk about his old club...Lovely man with the fondest memories of his times at the Valley.
But I digress. I'll be back for the Oldham game which should take us past 50 pts before Xmas - as Old Incorruptible's Almanack predicted.
Keep well, everyone and enjoy the good times. They've been a long time coming and everyone involved in this club from MS and TJ to the humblest fan deserves what is happening to CAFC right now.
Boxing Day is the banana skin . . . Fulham in the cup . . . it's 80-81 all over again, I tell you (but actually I think it's even better).
Couldn't believe we had lost at Oxford on Boxing Day 1980.
The moral of the story is bank as many points as possible as early as possible.