The London News Shopper¹ has provided the first reaction from Charlton Athletic manager Phil Parkinson to the League One Play-Off Semi-Final draw against Swindon. The matches pit the two teams against each other on Friday 14th May at the County Ground and the return leg on Monday 17th May at The Valley. Parkinson said:

“Play-off games are always exciting. The quality of the football is at a higher level. You are never sure because there can be tension. We are going to go there and relax, set our stall out to put in a good performance and keep performing the way we have been. An exciting game for me would be 0-0 there and 1-0 at our place. It’s all about getting through and I’m sure that is what the supporters want us to do. Swindon are a good side and we fully respect them. We’ll be going there to put on a good solid performance.”

Talk about stating the proverbial obvious. No Phil, I’m sure the Charlton supporters want you to give up and forget about the potential Wembley trip?! We all know Charlton will approach the game at The County Ground negatively as they did in the 1-1 game back in March.

“We spoke about getting a home second leg in the week but we didn’t want to make a big thing about it to the players. Obviously if it hadn’t gone our way today there could have been the situation where there would be negativity.”

Of course every team ideally wants to play the second leg on their own ground, but I can’t recall any public negativity coming from Swindon Town of the situation we find ourselves in. The Charlton squad are clearly under significant pressure to deliver and will be all prepared for their ideal result. The more Town can do to upset the balance, and as soon as possible, on Friday night, the better chance we have in the tie.

Compare Parkinson’s comments to that of Danny Wilson post match on Saturday.

“When we set out at the beginning of the season and we were aiming for the play-offs, and that’s part one of the job done. But we don’t want to just let it peter away now, we want to see it through if we possibly can. We’ll have a tough test against Charlton home and away, but we’re underdogs and hopefully that can help us play with that sort of relaxation we’ve seen today. But we don’t have anything to lose, as we didn’t have today, and hopefully that can help us get to Wembley which will be fantastic.”

I couldn’t agree more. Charlton evidently have it all to lose.

¹ – Link