This Tuesday night, Charlton welcome Yeovil Town to the Valley for a fixture which must be one of a handful of really key games in the run in on the quest for Championship survival.
Three points for Yeovil (with a two goal swing in their favour) could see them jump from their position at the very bottom of the league to the safety of 21st place, a position currently occupied by the Addicks. On the other hand, a home win could put five points between Jose Riga’s red army and the chasing pack with only five games to play.
Following eight games in just under a month since the departure of Chris Powell, his replacement Jose Riga opted to reshuffle his pack at the weekend. Unfortunately, it didn’t work to great effect as the Addicks were sunk 1-0 by play-off chasing Reading. However, with a squad of fresher options at his disposal, a win on Tuesday night and Riga’s decision to give key attacking options a rest at the weekend may prove to be a masterstroke.
Yeovil themselves are not blessed with a large squad of options from which manager Gary Johnson can choose and with what must be the smallest wage budget in the Championship, it’s no surprise to see them embroiled in the relegation dogfight. One piece of good news for the Addicks is that Ishmael Miller, the man who almost singlehandedly clawed back a point in the reverse fixture, has left the club following a dispute with coaching staff at Huish Park. Miller recently notched his tenth goal of the season for the Glovers and will surely be a big miss during the run in.
That said, the strikeforce of James Hayter, Kieffer Moore, Tom Lawrence and Joe Ralls should be more than enough to keep the Addicks’ defence on their toes with 11 league goals between them so far this season.
We are likely to see a settled Yeovil defence with Jamie McAllister and Byron Webster flanked by the impressive Luke Ayling and Shane Duffy, the latter of which is on loan from Everton.
The Addicks have only played in two league games in which both sides have scored since the turn of the year. Everything points towards the first goal being crucial to the result and I sense a cagey game of few chances unless the Charlton fans really get behind the boys.
We’ve been known to create a great atmosphere for pivotal midweek games in the past and this Tuesday it might just be enough to make the difference. Could tomorrow night’s game be one of them? It’s up to us to be the 12th man, encouraging the Addicks to victory.