...Carlisle away anyone?

I'm just recovering from the great result and performance on Saturday.

Every man in a Charlton shirt stood up and were counted. United are without a doubt the best side we've seen at the Valley this term. And at times, we did ride our luck a bit (Well Hamer did anyway). However it is the way teams apply themselves, their resolute refusal to lose that defines champions. And that's exactly what we are now looking like.

It was one of those games that really in all honesty could have gone either way, I think we were just a bit better at rolling our sleeves up and giving it the proverbial 110% when challenging for every ball.

In Captain Jackson we have a real gem of a player. He is obviously greatly improved and matured since his days at Spurs, and he really needs to be gracing a higher division than the third tier.

The double sending off incident is one that is always open to debate. Russel's challenge was two footed but not malicious. Under what would seem like the current guidelines for ref's there's really no room for interpretation. If you see the studs from both  boots the player goes off.  I'm not sure it should be as clear cut as that. One of the things most of us love about football is a bit of blood and thunder. Crunching but not overly intent on breaking limbs type of challenges.  I think that on Saturday it was at best a bit over zealous, at worst had a touch of intent to give a bit of 'pay back'.

Beattie charging over like some tit in a playground and doing a bad impression of Albert DeSalvo was just indefensible. I'd have thought that someone of his experience would have the nous to behave in that type of situation.

So now we sit on 60 points (I keep having to do a double take when I look at the table and see our points total) and are really beginning to look like champions elect to be fair.

Based on our rivals (Huddersfield, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday) all keeping up with their current points per game ratio along with us retaining our own I've calculated that we would be promoted on 14th March. The irony being that it will be away to Carlisle, where we won one of our few but great promotions back in 1986.

One thing that is for sure, this seasons campaign will be defined by two games in January and two fantastic free kicks from our captain.