The Championship season starts today with the visit of Charlton Athletic to St Andrews. The Addicks, who won League One haven’t played in the second tier for three years and will be looking to make an immediate impression on their return. Blues, who thrashed Barnet 5-1 in the Cup in midweek will be looking to make it two wins in two at home as they start their quest for promotion to the top flight.

Charlton Athletic

Chris Powell’s Charlton Athletic ran away with the League One title last year and will be itching to show that they can compete in this division too at St Andrews against a Blues side that suffered playoff semi final agony against Blackpool. However, they will have to bounce back from a surprising midweek defeat to Leyton Orient in the Capital One Cup after bowing out on penalties at the Valley.

Charlton will be missing Andy Hughes (achilles), Nick Pope and Yado Mambo (both knee) but may offer league debuts to recent signing from Stevenage Lawrie Wilson, former Sunderland striker Jordan Cook and former Rangers attacking midfielder Salim Kerkar. Interestingly, Chris Powell was the man who ended Lee Clark’s 43 match unbeaten run with Huddersfield, beating them 2-0 at the Valley at the end of November 2011.

Blues

Apart from long-term injury absentee Keith Fahey, Blues are sweating on the fitness of Stephen Carr and Jonathan Spector. Carr apparently only has an outside chance of making the team for the clash and with Spector not having played a pre-season game and Will Packwood a raw rookie Lee Clark has to make a tough decision on the right back slot. Ravel Morrison came off on Tuesday with a niggle but is expected to be fit; however the midfield against Barnet looked a little ropey at times and it might be that Morrison is left out in favour of Darren Ambrose in central midfield with Nathan Redmond or Wade Elliott playing wide left, particularly if Hayden Mullins has to play at right back. Jack Butland is expected to make his full Blues debut an amazing three days after winning his first senior England cap.

Clark will no doubt be concerned with how slow the team were to come out of the blocks against Barnet and hopefully he’ll have worked in training to ensure that the kinks have been worked out of the side; Blues will not be able to blow Charlton away with the same step up in class that they did against Barnet.

This is a tough fixture first up. Charlton will be eager to make an impression on the division and despite having lost in midweek will be confident of picking up something from Blues. Blues will need to ensure that the defence is up to snuff from the off today, and that the midfield won’t get as over-run as they did in the first half against the Bees. That being said I think Blues will win this; they’ve got some firepower this year and if King can play as well as he did on Tuesday he’ll notch again – I’m sure of it.

Tags: Charlton Athletic, Curtis Davies, Darren Ambrose, Hayden Mullins, Jack Butland, Jonathan Spector, Nathan Redmond, Ravel Morrison, Stephen Carr, Wade Elliott, Will Packwood