Play It Again Al

The trip to St Andrew's tomorrow sees Alan Curbishley spoilt for choice with regard to players available for selection, but facing no real selection dilemmas with regard the starting eleven. There is no need to change a winning formula and chances to make changes will soon come about in there own good time through injuries, suspensions or, as with Smertin next week, unavailability.

The return to fitness of El Karkouri, the availability of Sorondo after suspension and the addition of new man on the block, Jay Bothroyd, to the squad means that whom to pick as the four outfield substitutes will pose the biggest headache for AC. Myhre is a given as the substitute keeper whilst for me Spector also deserves a place both for his performances in pre-season and his versatility, covering both centre-half and left-back positions. I also expect El Karkouri to replace Fortune on the bench as he was our best centre-half last season but he cannot expect to walk back into the first team when fit if others are performing well. With Spector and El Karkouri on the bench then Sorondo will miss out completely. Bryan Hughes deserves to keep his place on the bench for a couple of reasons. He can cover across most of the midfield area and in cameo performances at both Sunderland and Boro' he provided excellent passes from which Bent duly scored on each occasion. The last place on the bench is a straight battle between Bartlett and Bothroyd and I expect Bartlett to get the nod. Not because I particularly think he is better than Bothroyd, whom I've not really seen enough of to form a decent opinion, but because he knows our game better and would probably slot in easier as a replacement for Bent.

It could be possible that another striker could replace a centre-half on the bench and although some may counternance Spector or El Karkouri starting at centre-half with Hreidersson reverting to left-back in place of Powell I really cannot see what this would achieve. Chris Powell has performed excellently so far and, as I'm sure he'd admit, at his age he is not going to be able to keep it up week-in and week-out but the time to rest him hasn't arrived yet.

I expect a very tight game at St Andrews with Charlton just nicking it by the odd goal in three.

Finally, one player definitely not featuring at St Andrews is Kevin Lisbie who has joined Norwich City on an initial one-month loan deal that could be extended by a further three months after that.