Charlton Athletic vs West Bromwich Albion - The Race for Promotion

Although Sky’s massively hyped Super Duper Grand Slam Dunking Great Sunday hogged all the headlines in England over the weekend, elsewhere in the Championship another important game took place involving two sides desperately trying to make it into the Premiership for next season.

In a repeat of their FA Cup 3rd round clash Charlton Athletic took on West Bromwich Albion at the Valley, as Alan Pardew’s men sought to reverse a run of poor form that had seen the Addicks slip down the table to 10th. West Brom meanwhile looked to make the most of the two games in hand they have over the league’s frontrunners Stoke and Bristol City by taking all three points with them back to the Midlands.

The Championship this season has been nothing if not unpredictable. Though there were surprises last year, Colchester United’s exceptional season and the downfall of Leeds United being the two most remarkable, Championship football in 2006/2007 generally followed a foreseeable pattern. The four teams that made it into the playoffs last season (Southampton, Derby County, West Brom and Wolves) have all experienced Premiership football before, while those who gained automatic promotion were two of the league's biggest spenders, Sunderland and Birmingham City ploughing upwards of £10million pounds each into securing promotion.

Conversely, a quick glance at the top of the table going into the final few games of this campaign sees a host of unexpected names all in with an excellent chance of making it into England’s top flight. Less fashionable sides like Stoke City, Hull City, Plymouth Argyle and Bristol City are all frantically making their final push towards the Premiership, and with no side really grabbing an automatic promotion spot by the scruff of its neck right now, the league really is there for the taking. Of the three teams relegated from the Premiership two of them currently languish in mid-table, a place in the playoffs appearing to offer the only realistic shot at promotion for Sheffield United and possibly even Charlton now, while Watford, although persisting with their philosophy of turning football into a re-enactment of bloody trench warfare scenes from an R.C. Sherriff play, remain well in contention for automatic promotion.

Still despite their promise, Stoke have languished in the lower divisions for nigh on 23 years now, Bristol City were plying their trade in League One only a year ago, Plymouth have rarely experienced such a lofty position and Hull is the biggest city in Europe never to host top flight football. So for the generally more savvy duo of Charlton and West Brom, Good Friday’s clash offered the chance to try and steal a march on their less experienced rivals in the hunt for a Premiership berth.

It did little for both sides’ promotion prospects therefore that the game ended 1-1. In an entertaining if not occasionally cagey game, Greg Halford’s header handed the hosts the lead in the 30th minute only for veteran goal poacher Kevin Phillips to equalise with a cute finish on the stroke of half time. West Brom came closest to taking all three points in the final minutes of the game when Zoltan Gera hit the crossbar with a rasping volley, but in the end the 23,412 strong crowd had to settle for a stalemate that suited the Baggies more than it did the hosts.

Charlton Athletic are a nice club. Content you might say. On one of the advertising hoardings a graphic of a goldfish intermittently swims onto the screen, and every time this happens the crowd chant ‘Fiiisssshhh’ before letting out a collective chuckle. The chants are in tribute to Mark Fish, the South African centre back formerly of the Addicks, but in many ways they epitomise the pleasant feeling that pervades the club. This niceness is in one sense appealing, but can tend to take the edge out of the Valley atmosphere. As the home team the emphasis was on Charlton to intimidate the FA Cup semi-finalists and harass them into mistakes, but really that aggression was lacking both from the crowd and in Charlton’s play. West Brom were allowed to show off the passing game that makes them the most attractive side in the division and, having dominated the second half Tony Mowbray’s men could well feel that they should have taken all three points. The enchanting nature of their incisive, counter-attack style of football would have warranted it.

Pardew’s side did their best to contribute to an open, free-flowing game too, but on this evidence you garner the sense that Charlton are having something of an identity crisis in the Championship. It is fair to say that, when it all comes together, they are up there with West Brom as the best footballing side in the division, and the only other outfit that would be well enough equipped not to do a Derby if they were to go up. The problem is it does not all come together too often, and in trying to balance elegance with the necessary characteristics of grit, power and strength - attributes evidently crucial in a division so physically unforgiving, they appear to have sacrificed some of their guile.

Charlton hoofed too many aimless long balls up to the front pairing of Leroy Lita and Andy Gray, which often led to nothing as Lita invariably latched onto them leaving Gray loitering around for a flick on – completely at odds with both players’ strengths. In fact Gray was hardly involved. Jerome Thomas was a constant threat down the wing, but would often get into good situations and then casually knock it into the box for no apparent reason and with no-one in support. And the few telling crosses he did provide were attacked by no-one in particular. It was almost as if the Addicks’ boss wanted to prove that what is good enough for Tony Pulis or Aidy Boothroyd is good enough for Alan Pardew. Before the end of the game, and with West Brom on the ascendancy, Pardew decided on counter-attacking tactics. However there was just one problem – Chris Iwelumo and Andy Gray were the pairing upfront, and neither is the type to speed effortlessly from one end of the pitch to the other, tearing defences apart with rampant precision and skill. Both are big, burly frontmen. Pardew’s strategies were, on this occasion, confused and ineffective. The tactics did not suit the players and vice-versa. And while Charlton seem more than capable of putting a run together to make sure of a playoff place at the very least, Pardew has to decide whether to utilise the passing game or the long ball game and then stick to his decision. Otherwise the Addicks will be left fishing around in the Championship for a while longer yet.