Eleven months on from Charlton’s play-off struggles against Shrewsbury, the Addicks are well placed in the League One play off places.
Sitting 11 points ahead of 7th placed Peterborough United and nine games left to play, it looks like it could possibly be a fruitful season for the south-east London side.
At the time caretaker manager Lee Bowyer oversaw two 1-0 defeats at The Valley and Montgomery Waters Meadow in their playoff semi-final clashes against Shrewsbury last year.
In his first season in as the full-time manager, Bowyer will be hoping they can sneak into the automatic promotion places as they are eight points behind 2nd place Barnsley.
Winter Setbacks
December was a horrible month for the Addicks with five losses in seven league and cup matches, with further misery compiled as the second top goal scorer Karl Ahearne-Grant left to join Premier League side Huddersfield Town later in the January transfer window.
With a poor run of results and losing one of their most creative sparks, it could have seen Charlton fall away from the pack.
On the contrary, it has improved the Addicks enough to catapult them into possible promotion contention.
Home Comforts
The key to Charlton’s promotion push will be their home form which has left them unbeaten in 13 home league games.
Their last loss coming back on the 6th October, when Coventry took all three points home from The Valley, the last team to do so.
A recent 2-1 home victory over play-off rivals Portsmouth closed the gap between the two sides and solidified Charlton’s place in the top six.
This performance was crucial as Pompey were five points ahead and could have increased their own chances of automatic promotion. With not many ‘difficult’ games left for Charlton, Addicks fans may just start asking “what if?”
The Run-In
With only eight games left in their campaign, there are more than enough games to make up the eight-point deficit to second place Barnsley.
The main factor for any possible optimism is that Charlton host league leaders Luton Town and the other seven games are against teams that are below the 12th place of the league table.
They will welcome Bradford City, Luton Town, Scunthorpe United and Rochdale to The Valley, whereas they will have to travel to Bristol Rovers, Wycombe Wanderers, Oxford United, Plymouth Argyle and Gillingham.
Charlton’s away form is not as good as their home form but there is a slight possibility of a top two place and if they fall short, they are well prepared for another play-off clash.
