Portsmouth vs Charlton Athletic Preview

Last updated : 21 October 2005 By Keith Allman

After a decidely average start to the season, Pompey now face a Charlton side sitting 5th in the table. Oh, how I wish we could face them in March or April during their traditional end of season slump and get a confidence boosting win under our belts; indeed, the last time we faced Charlton was Alain Perrin's first game and some daring substitutions secured a much-welcomed 4-2 win. And I don't think there's a Pompey fan alive who wouldn't like more of the same (although perhaps with less of the "two goal lead throw away" of last time round. Why not go for four-nil).

Matches are now getting to a relatively crucial stage; after Charlton we face Sunderland and Wigan, both teams who - regardless of current position - have to be viewed as games we can get something out of, especially with two of those three games at home. And then after that I'm sure I don't need to tell you we face Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and Spurs in consecutive games. So hoarding points before what could be a long couple of months wouldn't go amiss - although knowing what we're like we'll probably get trounced by Wigan and then beat Chelsea.

Charlton have proved themselves a tough nut to crack this season, not least on the road where they have won all four matches so far. Their team seems to have handily clicked at the right moment; Darren Bent has re-written the rulebook of "lower league players doing crap" in the Premiership, Danny Murphy is back to his form of a couple of years a goal, Alexei Smertin is holding things together in midfield and even former lazy wasteful gits like Rommedahl are starting to do their bit. Still, let's not turn this into a complete Charlton love-fest; we haven't been playing badly this season and will no doubt be fired up to finally get our first win in front of the Fratton fans.

Hell, even the pundits seem to be desperate to jinx us. Mark Lawrenson has us down for a win, would you believe, whilst Gordon McQueen was dishing out praise last week whilst commentating on Sky (nothing to do with him being a mate of Joe Jordan, I'm sure). I'm sure we can still rely on Charlie Nicholas to have a bad word or five to say though, as long as Milan can hold his tongue this time rather than feeling a desperate need to reply.

For ourselves there's still a couple of injury worries. Lua is still missing up front and may be until December, and Karadas is recovering from an injury. The biggest rumour/story of the week however is that Collins Mbesuma was dropped from the reserves in midweek, despite appearing in every other game so far this season - could he finally be in line for a place on the bench or in the starting line up? Alain did say about three or four reserve matches ago "he needs three or four more reserve matches", and he's beginning to show that he's got the fitness to last out ninety minutes - so the team sheet might be an interesting one on Saturday.

The worst news of the day comes in defence though; Griffin and Priske are both "doubtful" and of course Linvoy and Cissé, two other options at right back, are still fighting back to be fit. This could see us forced into playing about with the defence, although hopefully we can patch one of them in and chuck them into the line-up.

I'm not really sure about this game at all if I'm honest. I'm not confident, I'm not nervous, I just genuinely have no idea which way it could go. If we can keep Bent quiet and grab an early goal then we've got as good a chance as anyone. If we're slow out of the blocks and the fans are nervous then it could be heading straight for bores-ville. The midfield battle is crucial too; we need whoever plays - be it Viafara, Diao, Vukic, Robert - to make sure they're on top right away and get control of the game. Charlton have shown they don't go away to grab a point and we need to be ready for their approach to the match.

Oh, and we still need someone who can actually score regularly.