Town boss Mick McCarthy believes it’s likely the Blues will need to win both this week’s home games to stand a chance of making the play-offs. Second-bottom Charlton visit Portman Road this evening with Brentford, who are 17th, making their way to Suffolk on Saturday.
McCarthy says Town, who are eighth, five points plus goal difference off the top six, will probably need to take six points from the two matches.
"It looks that way but who knows, we could go to Middlesbrough, Derby and Sheffield Wednesday and beat them, that’s not beyond the realms of possibility," he said. "But the likelihood is that we’ll need the points at home, of course.”
Town needed 78 points to make sixth place last season, but the Blues boss expects the total to be lower this time around with plenty of the contenders still to play one another.
"I’m not sure how many points it might take,” he added. "I was looking at Birmingham’s fixtures, who they have in their extra game and I think that fixture is Leeds at home on the 12th when we don’t have a game.
"That’s not easy and from there I just had a wider look at the fixtures and thought we’ve all got tough games. We’ve got Derby, Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday at the top.
"It’s not like anybody’s got a run-in where you think, ‘That’s easy, isn’t it?’, even us with Charlton, Brentford, Fulham and the MK Dons, who are down at the bottom end of the league. Since when have they been easy to play against? It’s just isn't.
"And quite a few of us have got to play each other. So it won’t be as many as last year’s 78 points. I don’t think it’s going to be that.”
Looking back to the goalless draw at Wolves, McCarthy said: "Frustration was probably the biggest emotion on Saturday but also a sense of pride at the way we played, that we went back to Wolverhampton and played against a good team and dominated the game really. But it was frustrating that we couldn’t score and didn’t win the game.”
While he admits Town haven’t scored enough goals this season, he says those that they have would have been enough to see them into the play-off places had his side conceded fewer.
"We haven’t, but had we not given away so many stupid goals, the goals that we’ve scored would have been enough,” he continued.
But while goals have hardly flowed latterly, the Blues have scored only eight in their last 12 games, defensively Town have been more solid recently, recording clean sheets in two of their last three matches.
"Our back four or five, or actually six with Gerks because over the last two or three seasons it’s been Chambo, Christophe, Tommy, Gerks or Bart plus Cressy, Tyrone Mings or Jonas, have been outstanding, the amount of games they’ve played.
"I’m just having a whinge about the goals we’ve conceded because we have, and last-minute goals which have cost us dearly. But they’ve been fantastic over the course of my time here, they’ve been brilliant.”
He added: "I stuck by them because it’s not just the goalkeeper and the back four who are to blame when goals are going in, it’s people marking at corner kicks, somebody giving it away in a bad area and suddenly we get picked off.
"It’s not always just down to the back four. Me being an ex-defender I appreciate that more than anybody because when I played, if the ball ends up in the net straight away they start looking at the back four. And it’s not always the case.”
The Town boss says he wasn’t unhappy to see Charlton defeat the Blues’ play-off rivals Birmingham at The Valley on Saturday.
"I’m kind of pleased that they won because although they’ll be full of it and confident - and so will we after the way we played on Saturday - they’re not coming back where they need a reaction, they’re not coming back from a bad defeat when they’re coming here.
"It should be a good game. It shows, I think, the spirit in their team that despite everything that’s going on at Charlton with the demonstrations and balls coming on the pitch and anti-ownership protests, that the team and the manager are still a really tough unit.
"They went 1-0 down, there was a demonstration from minute one and they won in the 94th or 95th minute. That shows some guts, for me.”
Although he isn’t anticipating a particularly open game, he says the Addicks have been far from wholly defensive with their recent approach.
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"They haven’t been a closed book, they’ve been playing 4-2-4, when they’ve got the ball they’ve been quite expansive, but when they lose it they certainly want to get back and defend their half, as they did against Middlesbrough,” McCarthy continued.
"It’ll be great if it turns out to be an open game, but I’m not sure that’ll be the case. But like us, they do need to win the game because games are running out for both of us.
"Us to get in the play-offs and them to stay up. Let’s hope it is an open game and the best team wins.”
He says Charlton, who are six points off fourth-bottom Fulham and the safety, are fighting for their lives just as the Blues did in his first season: "I haven’t found the formula for getting relegated or for going up that you can just rely on where you can judge and gauge every game because, as we saw here with Rotherham, they were no mugs.
"And these aren’t. They’ve just beaten Middlesbrough, they’ve just beaten Birmingham, albeit at home.
"I think teams that get themselves in that position, there’s nothing but that scrap and that scramble and trying to get out of that bottom three.
"Strangely enough it’s when you get out of that bottom three, you all heave a sigh of relief, ‘Thank goodness for that’ and you get beaten the following week and you drop back in.
"But they’re still at that point where they’re scrapping and fighting for everything and they can see that they’ve got a chance.
"And while they’ve got a chance they’ll keep fighting and they’re playing well, actually, they’ve put in some good performances.”
McCarthy will probably stick largely with the team which drew at Wolves with keeper Bartosz Bialkowski having the usual back four of skipper Luke Chambers, Tommy Smith, Christophe Berra and Jonas Knudsen in front of him.
Having set his side up in a 4-3-3 system at Molineux, with Ben Pringle ahead of Cole Skuse and Jonathan Douglas in the central three, he may look to switch to 4-4-2 with Pringle and Liam Feeney as the widemen and Skuse and Douglas in the centre with Freddie Sears and Brett Pitman up front.
The Town boss has confirmed that Teddy Bishop and David McGoldrick will both be on the bench with Daryl Murphy out with his calf injury and a doubt for Saturday’s game against the Bees.
For Charlton, who have won three of their last five, on-loan Arsenal forward Yaya Sanogo is back after a three-game ban following a red card.
Defender Chris Solly was back in the 18 at the weekend after an ankle injury, while Patrick Bauer returned to action with the Addicks’ U21s yesterday but won’t be involved tonight.
Midfielder Ahmed Kashi is also making progress after an achilles injury but won't feature against the Blues.
Striker Reza Ghoochannejhad picked up a hamstring injury while away on international duty with Iran.
Town just have the edge historically having won 23 games (19 in the league), Charlton 18 (15) and with 10 (nine) ending in draws. The Blues are unbeaten in six games against the Addicks home and away, winning five of them.
In November, Daryl Murphy scored twice and Freddie Sears once as the Blues comfortably beat Charlton 3-0 to record their fourth successive victory at The Valley.
Murphy put Town in front in the 28th minute, Sears added the second just before half-time and the Irish international sealed the three points on 68.
The teams last met at Portman Road at the end of December 2014 when Tommy Smith, Daryl Murphy and David McGoldrick were on target as the Blues beat Charlton 3-0 to claim their first double of last 2014/15 season.
Smith put Town in front in the 31st minute, Murphy added the second just before the hour and McGoldrick, who earlier had hit both posts and the bar, netted the third in the final minute.
Blues striker Luke Varney was with Charlton between May 2007 and January 2009 having joined on a £2 million fee from Crewe Alexandra. He made 42 starts and 19 sub appearances for the Addicks, scoring 10 goals.
Town winger Cameron Stewart, who is currently on loan with Doncaster, was on loan at The Valley during the 2013/14 season, making 15 starts and three sub appearances, scoring three goals.
Charlton keeper Stephen Henderson spent two spells on loan with the Blues from West Ham in 2012/13, making 24 appearances.
Their current first-choice number one, Nick Pope, was a schoolboy with the Blues academy before being released at 15 and moving on to Bury Town and then Charlton in 2011. Defender Morgan Fox was also at Playford Road before being released at 11.
Tonight’s referee is Oliver Langford from the West Midlands, who has shown 79 yellow cards and four red in 34 games so far this season.
Langford’s most recent Town game was the 2-1 home defeat to Leicester in November 2013, in which he booked only Blues skipper Luke Chambers.
The only other Town game he has taken charge of was the 2-0 defeat at Leeds in April of the same year when David Norris, by then with the Whites, was the only player cautioned.
Squad from: Bialkowski, Gerken, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Foley, Berra, Smith, Digby, Hyam, Douglas, Skuse, Tabb, Bru, Bishop, Pringle, Feeney, Maitland-Niles, Touré, Sears, Pitman, Varney, McGoldrick.