Charlton Boss – Villa In ‘R’ Battle

Charlton boss Alan Pardew says Villa aren’t out of the mire yet, he said: ‘We are five points off Villa and I would not be sitting too comfortably if I were them. I know that feeling and that is why we have to keep applying pressure. For sure, it is going to affect them, the bigger clubs more so. It gets to a point where the stadium becomes affected and psychologically it becomes a problem. We do not have that we have a super-positive stadium. I would suggest that without doubt, of the bottom eight clubs, our stadium is the most positive. That is an advantage.’

Martin O’Neill meanwhile was hoping to pick up maximum points from the Everton and Blackburn game to get back into the top ten.

‘Until we get the points on the board, I’m still worried about the drop, absolutely. I was looking really positively at the table on Monday afternoon thinking we could go 11th in the table. Then following that had we have won at Blackburn we’d definitely be in the top 10. Then suddenly we are staring at no points with less than 10 minutes to go. So we still need the points.’

Adding on avfc.com ‘I went down to watch Charlton -Wigan last weekend and it’s interesting they listed all the teams’ fixtures – and we were quite rightly included. They went for the last eight teams on their list. They didn’t include Newcastle and Middlesbrough, but quite rightly included us because we had 34 points at that stage.’

‘That wasn’t how I look at it, but I don’t think you can help it until you get the points on the board. While you want to be positive, it’s well and truly in our own hands. I’d think 40 points would make us relatively secure. The boys were buoyant in the dressing room after Monday’s game having got something from the game. It was a complete turnaround from the first half performance.’

So, still to come:

Blackburn (away)
Wigan (home)
Middlesbrough (away)
Portsmouth (home)
Manchester City (away)
Sheffield United (home)
Bolton Wanderers (away)

21 points to play for, we are currently on 35 points.

Fulham are on equal points, Wigan 33, Sheff Utd 31, Charlton 30 and barring a miracle, West Ham and Watford are gone.

We shouldn’t be looking over our shoulders, if this was during the O’Leary reign we’d all be spitting feathers, just shows where he went wrong was fan and press relations! With that many points still to play for and not a win in sight, we’ve just go to keep battling for points and hopefully pick up maximums against Wigan and Sheffied United, then get this god forsaken season out the way and hope for a totally different Villa next year!