Addicks plot a great escape

But not this time. Charlton's remaining eight games are as big as they come as the club scraps desperately to cling on to the Premiership football that has been largely taken for granted in the past few seasons.
The players must be sick and tired of hearing about must-win games but this Saturday's home clash with Wigan is exactly the kind of game for which the term 'six-pointer' was invented.
Should Alan Pardew's side carry on their victorious home run - they have won their last two matches at The Valley - it will keep the pressure up on the teams just above them and haul their opponents right back into the relegation mixing pot.
If they lose, on the other hand, it will send Paul Jewell's side nine points clear of Charlton and, in all likeliness, will remove them as a serious contender to replace the Addicks in the bottom three. A draw isn't much use, either.
This certainly wasn't how the board, players and fans imagined it would be back in August, and definitely wasn't how - or where - Alan Pardew thought he would be finishing the campaign.
Never in their most vivid nightmares did anyone at the club imagine the transition from the Alan Curbishley era would be as traumatic as it has proved; nor that after 17 years with one man in charge they would have had three managers by the end of December.
But the Addicks have seen such a transformation under Pardew both on and off the field that there is a genuine feeling around The Valley that they may - and it is still only a 'may' - be able to get out of this mess.
The good news is that while every game must be treated as a cup final, the players are so far standing up to the test. Newcastle were vanquished before the international break, while the thrashing of Curbishley's West Ham was followed by a late equaliser away at rock-bottom Watford.
And in keeping with the idea that their luck may finally be turning, the Addicks are benefiting - on paper at least - from a kinder run of fixtures after the nightmare start to the season the FA's computer conjured up.
After Wigan and Manchester City, Pardew's men take on Reading, Everton, Sheffield United and Blackburn before ending the season against Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool.
Those last two matches are more tricky but there's no doubt Charlton's run-in looks less painful than those of their relegation rivals, or that the potential to pick up the four wins Pardew believes will be enough to survive is there.
But to have any chance of pulling off their own tale of escapism, the Addicks have to turn games into points and that process starts all over again this Saturday.
Wigan have been about as inconsistent as Charlton this season but in front of a sell-out crowd will be there for the taking. The Addicks should have almost a full squad to choose from with only long-term absentee Andy Reid definitely out, although Alexandre Song and namesakes Darren and Marcus Bent all picked up knocks against Newcastle.
If Charlton manage to stay up, they will have done it in a fashion that no one at the club would care to repeat. But at least it makes a change from watching meaningless games at the end of the season just because you've got the season ticket. And perhaps it brings home just how precious Premiership football really is. 
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