Charlton's Crock Hunter

It's about time I paid a belated posthumous tribute to self-styled Croc Hunter, Steve Irwin who was killed by a sting ray on 4th September.

He was certainly no stranger to controversy but he was a genuine animal lover and conservationist at heart, and as someone who increasingly finds he prefers animals to people, I hope he is resting in peace.

Like a typical Aussie, he had a great sense of humour so I hope he will forgive the following inappropriate suggestion....as one 'Croc Hunter' passes away, a new 'Crock Hunter' is reborn in the shape of Charlton boss, Iain Dowie.

During the summer Dowie made ten signings in total including Gonzalo Sorondo (crocked), Cory Gibbs (crocked), Djimi Traore (crocked), Andy Reid (crocked) and Souleymayne Diawara (crocked). With Jerome Thomas and Jonathan Fortune also crocked, and Hermann Hreidarsson suspended, we approach an important home game with Portsmouth with just 15 or so genuine first-team players, and three of those are goalkeepers. In short we have just one recognised centre-back (El Karkouri) and both our natural left-backs would be debutants (Youga and Ashton).

If Dowie wanted a gentle return to Premiership management, he has been left disappointed. If he didn't have enough problems with his own club, Simon Jordan would be feeling an acute sense of schadenfreude I'm sure. In just four games, our new gaffer has been required to undertake two post-red card reshuffles, to (unsuccessfully) navigate his way past England's two finest club sides and now he has an injury crisis of worrying proportions.

Desperate times call for a gallant captain's performance and Luke Young's role will be key on Saturday. It is well-known that he can play at left-back if required, but it is often forgotten that he began his Spurs career as a centre-back and is more than capable of fitting in there too. However in my view, the karma of the team would be negatively affected by moving Young from his comfortable right-back position and doing so would risk damaging the team twice. After all, we are not exactly flush with right-back alternatives for Young, the next-best option being.....erm, well Kishishev or Sankofa.

Dowie has refreshingly put some of the fuzzy thinking of the Curbs era to rest already this season with his cavalier approach to being reduced to ten men, so it's time to continue that trend by giving either Kelly Youga or Nathan Ashton their debut, something I suspect that his predecessor surely would not have countenanced.

Given that we have plenty of cover in central midfield with Kishishev or even Omar Pouso able to step in to the breach, it seems that Amdy Faye will be asked again to step into central defence. Meanwhile, I hope that the Herminator has been castigated financially for his role in this unfortunate dilemma.

I will be joined for the en pub live coverage by an entire family of holidaying Addicks in New York. I am then heading a hundred miles south to Philadelphia for a spot of sightseeing and another half-marathon (I told you it was an addiction). Despite having entered the race some time ago, I was having second thoughts about actually running it until I noticed there will be groups of vivacious cheerleaders (their adjective, not mine) along the course, competing for a $2,250 first prize for their high school. Ever the philanthropist, I felt it would have been rude not to don my running shoes for such a noble and educational cause. NYA Predicts: 1hr 52 mins, and Charlton 1 (Bent D), Portsmouth 3 (Benjani, Kanu, Mendes)