Charlton Athletic and manager, Lee Bowyer, have made an impressive start to the new Championship season so far upon their return to the second tier, and the hosts head into this Saturday afternoon’s clash with London rivals, Brentford, in confident mood.
Charlton posted back-to-back wins against Blackburn Rovers 2-1 away and a convincing 3-1 home win against a beleaguered Stoke City outfit to come out of the blocks in explosive fashion, and although they’ve drawn their two subsequent matches, The Addicks still remain unbeaten this term.
The 2-2 and 1-1 draws with Barnsley (away) and Nottingham Forest (home) respectively mean that Charlton sit amongst the early leading pack in the Championship having collected 8 points from their first 4 matches of the season.
Charlton manager, Lee Bowyer, has always maintained what a great set of players he has at his disposal, and now we’re starting to see the fruits of their labours, as The Addicks are now unbeaten in their last 16 league matches at The Valley.
By comparison, Brentford have made a slow start to their new Championship campaign as The Bees find themselves in the lower reaches of the early league standings, sitting in 18th place after gaining just 1 win from their first 4 matches of this new second tier season.
That solitary win came in the shape of a slightly surprising 1-0 win away at Middlesbrough; surprising, because Brentford have only posted 4 away wins from their last 27 matches on their travels in the Championship to date.
The other 3 wins were at Middlesbrough (last season) as well as at relegated Bolton Wanderers and Rotherham United, who both fell through the Championship trap-door to League One at the end of last season.
Brentford have also lost last season’s leading goalscorer, Neil Maupay who bagged 25 goals last term to Brighton, as well as midfielder Sawyers (6 assists), and they might just be missing that extra cutting edge up front if this season’s results to date are anything to go by.
A 1-0 loss at home to Birmingham City emphasised this point as The Bees battered Birmingham’s defence without breaking through, could only muster a point in a 1-1 draw with Hull city, and lost 1-0 at Leeds United (when last season they held Leeds to a 1-1 draw) - the scorer for Brentford that day was Maupay.
Given Charlton’s start to this season and Brentford’s lack of goals up front to date, Charlton may just edge this one.