Saturday's game at The Valley brings together two in-form teams that have gained maximum points over the holiday period so far.
Reading's 3-1 win at Cambridge on New Year's Day means that they will arrive on Saturday in fifth place - seven points ahead of Charlton, having played one game more. The victory followed home wins against Mansfield (2-1) and Northampton (4-1).
Building a play-off challenge is particularly impressive in light of the fact that The Royals continue to be under a transfer embargo imposed by the EFL because of late filing of the club's 2022/23 accounts. They lost some important players in the summer (notably Nelson Abbey to Olympiacos and Femi Azeez to Millwall) and it was only by special dispensation that they were able to bring in one player on loan - Chem Campbell from Wolves until January 5th.
They have also survived the departure of manager Ruben Selles who jumped ship to the possibly calmer waters of Hull in November. His replacement - former player Noel Hunt - had a choppy start with one point from his first three games which included a surprise 0-3 home defeat by Blackpool. However, it now seems that the club is back on course. They have won two and drawn three of their last six away games.
Although they might be forced to sell players in the January window to help fund the ongoing financial crisis, Hunt is determined to hang on to what he has got. "I want to keep every single player that we have in the building," he told BBC Radio Berkshire. "For us to have the chance to continue doing what we're doing and to build and grow is really important. They [the board] know my feelings on that: what will be will be. We just have to make sure we put up a fight."
Players like Lewis Wing, Charlie Savage and Sam Smith (9 goals this season) caused our team problems when we suffered our first defeat of the season at The Select Leasing Stadium in September. Although Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan is currently out injured, Harvey Knibbs is also a goal threat. He scored twice at Cambridge to bring his tally to six so far. We will need a similar performance to the one we provided last year when Corey Blackett-Taylor was on fire and our 4-0 home win was Reading's worst defeat of the season. Highlights here:
Nathan Jones was disappointed that the Crawley game was postponed on Wednesday but has put an upbeat spin on it:
"The positive to come from it is that we have had extra time on the training pitch ahead of Saturday’s match during an intense period of fixtures."
Reading are expected to bring about 2,500 supporters on Saturday so Charlton fans will need to wrap up well and turn up in good voice. After 22 games we have seven fewer points than Lee Bowyer's promotion squad of 2018/19 so there is still a lot to do if a play-off place is to be achieved.
Photo by Rhea Spencer-Newell