Brunch-Time Battle: Praying for victory in the Cathedral City
After our team's dismal performance on Tuesday against Crawley, we head into Saturday's early kick-off against Lincoln City beginning to fear that a relegation battle is becoming more likely than a punt for the play-offs.
As the festive fixtures loom large, Addicks know that even a win would do little to ease the dismay at our current situation.
With the promise of a Christmas feast of football on the horizon, the team will be looking to serve up three points just to push themselves into the top half of the table. But in recent times our trips up to the LNER Stadium haven't brought too much joy. Having not faced the Imps since a couple of League Cup meetings in the 1980s, we've now made four trips up to the hallowed heights of Lincolnshire in the 2020s, with no wins for our sins; having one draw and three defeats to date.
Last time out, in October 2023, Michael Appleton suffered his first defeat in eight games as Charlton manager, as the Addicks went down 3-1, turning the tide of our season in the wrong direction. This time out, we'll be hoping for things to turn in the opposite direction, to build on the momentum of away-day wins at Burton and Walsall. Unfortunately, Tuesday's home defeat to Crawley was another case of slipping down the snake instead of climbing up the ladder.
We're now at a point where we desperately need a couple of wins before Christmas. Otherwise very soon a couple of wins won't make much difference to where we are in the table. We're five points behind Lincoln in ninth and eight points behind Reading in the last of the play-off places. Lincoln have lost three games on the trot against the League's pacemakers Wycombe and Wrexham, and then Rotherham in midweek. Despite that, they're closer to play-off contention than we are in a division where everybody seems able to beat anybody on any given day.
Lincoln have a couple of ex-Addicks in their ranks too. Reeco Hackett-Fairchild and Conor McGrandles both appeared against Rotherham on Tuesday night, with the latter more established in their midfield. McGrandles never really got settled at Charlton, going out on loan to both Cambridge and Lincoln, during his 18 months with us. However we've a bit of a track record when it comes to TV cameras and ex-players, so when you get both together, it might be nicely cued up for the Scottish midfielder to get his second goal of the season in Lincoln's red and white stripes.
Thankfully though, much like our own, Lincoln's performances have been stripy so far this season - shades of hope and disappointment sitting alongside one another in equal measure. From looking at comments after their most recent match against Rotherham, there appears to be a sense that change is needed in the Cathedral city, unless results start picking up soon. Although 150+ miles from SE7 to LN5 8LD, some of the murmurings across the terraces might be similar.
On the same afternoon that the famous Notre-Dame Cathedral re-opens in Paris, both sets of fans will be praying for a much needed victory so that they stay in communion with the play-off hopefuls. As for the exclusive guest list heading northwards for the early kick off, we hope it's the Addicks who come up trumps in the cathedral city. We need the points before we face Mansfield and then another visit to Northampton who put the finishing touches to the Appleton era.
But for those visiting, Lincoln's a lovely city and it's a proper old-school ground, as the picture taken a few years ago when they were in the National League/Conference demonstrates. They had a sojourn there between 2011 and 2017, three divisions below us at one point. A win on Saturday and we reduce the gap to three points. It's much needed. We are where we are, a long way from where we want to be, but maybe the steep climb upwards starts with Saturday brunch.
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