Don’t be fooled by Megson’s kidology, insists Town boss Clark

Charlton Athletic lead the way in the third tier and after beating Sheffield Wednesday last weekend, Owls manager Gary Megson suggested his side could not catch the Londoners.

Clark, however, is adamant that any one of the top five can still finish on top of the division. He said: “It was may be a bit of kidology on Gary’s part. He is an experienced manager so that may be it. But I feel there are 20 games to play and so many points still to play for. I am not giving up on any position.

“I have also seen some comments made by Chris Powell. He had a fantastic start to his managerial career but then for the last three months he couldn’t win a game.

“That will be in the back of his mind. Charlton are the outstanding team, I am not taking anything away from them. They beat us down there and then went to Sheffield Wednesday last weekend to get a magnificent result.

“Charlton deserve to be top but it is so easy to slip in this game. When you are winning, you never think you will lose. But also when you start losing, it can be difficult to see where a win is going to come from.

“You have to keep going. If Charlton maintain their consistency then they will go up. But I am not conceding anything. Charlton still have to play the teams around them.”

Town go into this weekend’s fixtures sitting third in the table, seven points adrift of Charlton in pole position.

With Huddersfield’s home game being shown live by Sky, Clark’s side may have slipped a place to fourth by the time they kick-off at 5.20pm. Charlton, who host Sheffield United in a top-of-the-table clash, could also have opened up a 10-point advantage on the West Yorkshire side.

Despite that, Clark does not feel kicking off after all their rivals for automatic promotion today will necessarily work for or against the Terriers. He said: “While we will be out on the pitch preparing, the other games will be going on so the players won’t necessarily know what is going on.

“The pressure is there regardless of when we kick-off because there are five or six clubs up there looking to win automatic promotion. They are all on great runs and everyone has great points returns.

“I look at the other leagues and the teams at the top don’t have a return anywhere near ourselves, Sheffield Wednesday and MK Dons, who are all out of the top two.

“It shows how tight this division is going to be and how hard-fought the second half of the season is going to be. Consistency will decide everything.”

On today’s game, Clark added: “Brentford are a good team who have a terrific away record thanks to some tremendous results. But we are confident.”