On the back of impressive results against Northampton and Cambridge our team faces a far stiffer challenge on Sunday when Wycombe Wanderers - the country's top goal scorers - come to The Valley.
The Chairboys sit second in League One and arrive in SE7 unbeaten in nineteen league games. Having begun the season with two defeats (albeit by Birmingham and Wrexham) they have now accumulated 47 points from nineteen games and until last weekend's 0-0 draw with Bolton they had scored in every game. Their total of 46 goals is eight more than any other side in League One and seven more than their nearest rivals Leeds United.
Eleven of those goals have been scored by Richard Kone who arrived in the UK in 2019 to play in the Homeless World Cup. For three years he represented Athletic Newham in The Essex Senior League while visa problems stopped him from playing professionally. Having scored 125 goals in 148 appearances he was offered a contract with Wycombe in January this year after an extended trial. Last season he managed just three in seventeen appearances but he already has nine this season in sixteen outings. Former Millwall favourite Fred Onyedinma has netted six times and 37 year old Garath McCleary has two goals, although he seems to be used from the subs bench these days. He might find himself sharing the bench with Tyreeq Bakinson who has an unfortunate habit of scoring against Charlton.
However, our defence has looked a lot more secure since the return of Lloyd Jones and our overall defensive record (20 conceded) is top-six level. After 21 games last season we had conceded 29 goals and had kept only three clean sheets. This term it is 20 with eight shut-outs. We have good reason to believe that we can keep Wycombe at bay just as we did Birmingham.
Our first ever encounter with Wycombe was the ignominious 0-1 defeat as a Premier League club in the 2006/07 League Cup but, since then, our record has been quite good with seven wins and three defeats. Last season's 3-1 win at The Valley was one of the few highlights as we savoured goals from Miles Leaburn, Slobodan Tedic and Corey Blackett-Taylor. Something similar on Sunday would do nicely.