Looking Forward To Scunthorpe?

Just for a moment I'm going to forget about the possiblity of Andy Reid leaving. Injuries or not, he's our one player of class and we cannot afford, even at 4M, to let him go.

So on to other things. You'll be surprised to learn that if the Addicks was in Spain and about to play the team that they faced on Day 1 of the season, then we'd be exactly half-way through the season. Yes, a system more in tune with Teutonic efficiency than Spanish practice, reigns when discussing football fixtures here in España. All nice and neat every game runs in sequence for the first half of the season and then the teams play the reverse fixture all in the same sequence during the second half. So at the half-way point everyone's played everybody else and they even declare a Winter Champion and you know exactly where you are in the scheme of things.

In England, however, its all a bit of a mess and we don't know where we are and to compound the issue, there's more money seemingly floating around in mid-winter as teams bring in reinforcements during the sales and confuse us even more.

So, anyway we don't care about all that stuff, and we don't apparently worry too much if Reidie does decide to leave, 'cause after Tuesday we're on a high. Who's next for the chop, you're all demanding and in contrast to all the tough home games that we have lined up, its a team right down there in the basement, 23th placed Scunthorpe United.

Three points just waiting to be grabbed from a team looking like relegation certs with only 3 home wins and the second to worst record at home in the Fizzies, second only to Colchester.

The first game of the season was clearly not a good time to be playing them and after being in 6th place at the end of September, its all been a slow relentless slid down the table since then.

They've now gone 4 games, including a cup fixture at Preston, without scoring and have only have 1 win, away at Preston again, in their last 18 games. Their last home win was, once again over Preston, back on September 18, and since then from 11 games at home they've only managed 5 draws and 6 defeats.

But beware Pards, nothing can be taken for granted in this League as Kelly Youga will tell you. January 1st saw them almost overturn Barnsley at home, and they went 2 goals up thanks to Kelly himself getting his first League goal before 2 late goals meant another home draw, at 2-2.

And perhaps it should disturb someone that we don't seem to be at our best against the lowly teams. In our 7 games against the bottom 6, we've only got 9 points from 2 wins and 3 draws while against the current top 6, its 10 points from only 6 games with 3 wins and a draw and only 2 defeats.

So we're lost the same number of games against the bottom 6 as the top 6, although from one more game played. A situation that may be alright if you're thinking about any Play-Offs chances but a bit of a downer if you want to crowned Champions.