The winning streak may have stopped on Saturday but it was still a very good point in sour circumstances for Bolton – now it’s a home game against Charlton to try and make it a third league win on the bounce at home.
We won’t be able to move up a place with a win, but if everything went our way we could at least cut the gap to the top six down to ten points, at which point maybe the impossible can become merely the improbable…
Team news
As it stands, Ricardo Santos is still suspended after the dubious red card at the weekend, although an appeal has been lodged. Gethin Jones will be available though after being rested at the weekend having felt some pain where his injury had been. Kieran Lee should be available too after coming off at half-time on Saturday.
Possible XI: Trafford; Jones, Almeida Santos/Aimson, Johnston; Fossey, Williams, Morley, John; Afolayan; Charles, Bakayoko
Last time…
We last hosted Charlton in January 2017, in our ultimately successful bid to get promoted from League One. This game didn’t go to plan though. Despite a red card for the visitors’ Lewis Page and Zach Clough’s 13th minute goal, an equaliser from Patrick Bauer then a first half injury time goal from Nathan Byrne meant the Addicks ended up 2-1 winners.
The opposition
Charlton come into this game level on points with us. They sacked Nigel Adkins after a few more poor results following our 4-1 win in the reverse fixture, replacing him with Johnnie Jackson, a substitute in the aforementioned 2017 clash. Jackson became interim boss before getting the job on a full time basis, and he has moved the club into the top half, winning the last three matches. Like us, they have a decent Northern Ireland international striker, Conor Washington has nine goals this season. They were busy in January, signing Chuks Aneke and Scott Fraser, while Nile John came in on loan from Spurs. They also took Juan Castillo on loan from Chelsea, while selling young striker Mason Burstow to the Blues, but have been allowed to keep him until the end of this season. They will thankfully be missing Corey Blackett-Taylor, the left wing-back was very dangerous in last Monday’s win at Portsmouth, almost scoring after a magnificent solo run.
Prediction
Charlton are no mugs, but our recent form at home, being back on our own patch and with the Marlon Fossey and Gethin Jones partnership back, we should be confident of another win. 2-0