With injuries making it difficult for Guy Luzon to fill his substitutes bench, it was surprising to see Harry Lennon join League One Gillingham on loan for a month on Friday.

Lennon had a spell at the Priestfield last season, and is likely to go straight into the Gills’ squad to play Oldham on Saturday. Lennon has been on the bench for the Addicks recently, and his temporary departure will futher stretch Luzon’s wafer thin squad.

Charlton will not face Fulham until Sunday. The high noon showdown will be shown live by Sky. The Addicks last won back in August, when they snatched a late, late winner to beat Hull.

Since then, they have drawn one and lost five of their six fixtures. Though unlikely, Charlton could go into the game as low as 23rd in the table.

The Cottagers go into the game on the back of mixed recent results. Last Friday, they had a thumping 4-0 televised win over West London rivals, Queens Park Rangers, at Craven Cottage.

Kit Symons’ side could not repeat the feat when Wolves visited the Cottage on Tuesday, going down 3-0 to Kenny Jackett’s promotion chasing outfit.

Luzon does not believes in making excuses and had this to say ahead of the game:

“In this kind of situation everything I say will sound like an excuse. I don’t want to be a person who says ‘we have slipped up because of that, because of that and because of that’. I can only blame myself and my team.

“It’s our responsibility to perform better. We are working hard to show our quality because we know it’s not enough at the moment.

“We are disappointed with our recent performances. We are not happy. The only way to overcome and come back is to work hard, like we did this week.

“It’s a challenge and, of course, when you have a great challenge you also have a great opportunity to show your quality. I really believe in my team.

“I know that we have the quality. I know that we have to show it, to show the football that we played in the first four or five games to get our good results back. We are working hard to do it.

“We will come with all that we have against Fulham to try and win the points. All of the bad things happen when you’re having tough results, but we can’t focus on what has already happened before.

“We need to stay positive, I know it’s not easy but its the only way to behave. We need to do everything to bring back the good results.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries. I don’t want to use it as an excuse but it is a fact. We have missed Makienok, Ceballos, Jacko, Henderson, Reza, Igor and there are more, but we need to overcome this obstacle – it’s part of this game,” said Luzon.

Currently, the head coach has few options. None of the injured players he mentioned are likely to return on Sunday, although Alou Diarra is available again after being suspended for the trip to Wales.

He may be able to make a change or two to the team that started at Cardiff though.

Luzon may opt for with this side:

Pope; Solly, Diarra, Bauer, Fox; Kennedy, Cousins, Kashi, McAleny; Gudmundsson, Watt.

Subs: Mitov, Sarr, Bergdich, Ba, Moussa, Ahearne-Grant, Umerah.

The referee will be James Linington from the Isle Of Wight.

Everyone connected with the club will be desperate to see the Addicks return to winning ways, but it will be a far from easy task.