Charlton seek first league goal at Bradford for 31 years

Charlton's league record at Bradford City  (played 10; won 1; drawn 2; lost 7) is far from encouraging. Last December's 0-0 draw (Robinson's second game in charge) was at least an improvement on the 0-2, 0-1 and 0-1 defeats  suffered on the previous visits in 2001, 1998 and 1997. The only away league victory over The Bantams in our history was at The Osdal Stadium in March 1986 when goals from John Pearson and Mike Flanagan gave us a 2-1 win. This was Bradford's first defeat in the rugby league stadium they had been forced to adopt after the Valley Parade fire the previous May.

We did manage a 3-0 win up there in an FA Cup replay in January 1990. This was after a late Andy Jones equaliser at Selhurst Park had spared us the embarrassment as a First Division team of being beaten at home by Second Division opposition.

Bradford seem to have got over the disappointment of losing last season's play-off final to Millwall even if we haven't, and they also seem to have coped well with the loss of Billy Clarke and Mark Marshall. They sit in third place with a record of 8 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats but they will not be pleased at dropping points in their home game with Oldham (1-1) on Tuesday. This followed a 1-3 defeat at Bury last Saturday and suggests that their confidence may not be sky high. They have lost twice at home this season (0-1 to Blackburn and, surprisingly, 0-3 to Fleetwood at the end of September) so they are far from invincible.

Their danger man is Charlie Wyke who has scored seven this season and 13 in 26 appearances for them since he signed from Carlisle. Second highest scorers are central defender Romain Vincelot and Andy Poleon with four.

One thing we can be assured of is that the Charlton players will be performing in front of the largest crowd to watch them this season so far. The imaginative pricing of Bradford City season tickets means that crowds of twenty thousand plus are the norm at The Northern Commercials Stadium and 21,403 were there to see the Blackburn match. Unless Charlton go on a cup run with an attractive away fixture it is possible that Saturday's crowd will be the largest of the whole season.

The teams performance against another promotion rival Oxford on Tuesday was solid but not inspiring. They could have won the game but they equally could have lost it. It will be interesting to see whether Naby Sarr is again preferred to Ezri Konsa at centre back because, although Sarr played stylishly on Tuesday night, he never looked too far away from a catastrophic mistake.

One definite starter will be Tariqe Fosu who has now scored the team's last five goals. Can you name the last Charlton player to score five goals in succession without a team mate chipping in? It wasn't Johnny Summers or Derek Hales and, in fact, our player went one better and notched six. Answer next week.

Another 1-1 draw would not be a bad result.