Charlton Athletic Online

Just when the club is at it's lowest ebb for two years, we find that the next game in what is going to be a long, long, season is against the current European Champions!

What chance of a Charlton win then? Not a lot, but then again this is the sort of match that our boys tend to rise to...I doubt we will win, or even draw, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we took a fearful hammering, but I oh-so-hope for one of those days when you skip out of the ground at the end of the match with a smile on your face.

It's unlikely that Curbs (above) will change the line up too much - we don't seem to have many options just now...Unless the couple of knocks that Curbs mentioned today prove the undoing of someones fitness, this is the obvious team -

Myrhe will be in goal; Young and Powell the full backs, and Fortune and Hreidersson the centre backs. In midfield, Smertin and Kishishev will start, and Ambrose or Hughes or both will also do the Premier league handshake routine first up. It would be great to see Jerome Thomas (left) start tomorrow night, as he seems to be a shining light in a very long tunnel just now, but that depends on Curbs mood and whether he thinks Scouser Hughes will be needed once more. Up front, it'll be the Bent boys, and probably a switch back to 4-4-2 from the start.

Other options apart from Thomas? Not many; Holland is injured, as is Rommedahl. Lloyd Sam seems to have disappeared from view with a long term injury, and Jason Euell is out of favour and in a boat rocking mood. Sorondo has been out for six weeks (the length it was said he would miss with the broken foot he got on Boxing Day) and neither Perry or El Karkouri offer much of an improvement at the back. Up front, Bothroyd and Bartlett could be subs, but neither will start in front of a Bent.

For Liverpool, they will probably have Jerzy Dudek in place of the suspended face-slapper Reina. I expect Benitez will chop and change from Sundays starting eleven, so Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Riise, Warnock, Traore, Luis Garcia, Kewell, Alonso, Sissoko, Hamann, Crouch, Fowler, Morientes, Agger, Kromkamp, etc, etc, will have to wait and see who starts. I bet that youngster Robbie Fowler is looking forward to playing against our defence eh?!?

My one-to-watch tomorrow is going to be Mervyn Day (left). Merve the swerve gets a lot of stick these days, and if the events on the pitch get too awful to bear, I'll switch my gaze to the pot bellied one, and see what he earns his match-day money doing.

Pedro45's score prediction, if I really have to make one, is the same as I predicted for the recent Chelsea game - a 4-0 defeat. At Stamford Bridge I was proved very wrong as our boys came from behind to almost snatch a glorious victory; hopefully we can repeat this sort of result or better.

The score may be influenced by an "unknown" referee - Mr Andre Marriner of the West Midlands - who has reffed two previous Charlton games, both last season. We won both (Norwich home 4-0 and Grimsby away 2-1), so we are on a hat-trick with Andre! This also appears to be Andre's first 'Pool game, so he may either spend all match being chatty with the superstars and give them lots of benefit, or ratty with the millionaires and flash lots of cards!