ADDICKS boss Chris Powell feels optimistic there are up to seven teams in the Championship which aren’t as good as his squad.

Charlton have struggled in their second season back in English football’s second tier and currently sit just one place – and point – above the relegation zone having won only one of the last seven games.

This year’s woes come on the back of raised expectations following a ninth-placed finish in May, but the manager is quick to point out perhaps if things had been the other way round then people might not be so surprised.

Powell said: “It’s hard to take, our fans are looking for us to build on last year and of course we did over exceed, but sometimes you end up where you deserve to end up and that’s where we ended up.

“Now I think a lot of people would have felt the season we are having now is what we would have had last year.

“I really think people would have said if you finished fourth from bottom last year that would have been a success, but actually we played to our maximum and got results when we shouldn’t of when people didn’t expect it and vice-versa.

“This year we’ve been in a position to do that again but of course it just hasn’t happened for us so we’ve got to fight through it.

“That’s my character, it always been that we are going to have to get through it and it won’t be through the want of not trying because I can definitely see us getting through it.”

Powell added: “There is no way in the world this Charlton Athletic squad doesn’t have at least six or seven teams I feel that should be below us.

“But we are where we are, let’s not hide behind that.

“We have to come out the other side with points and then move this great football club forward and up the table.”

Charlton travel to Bolton this weekend and are without the injured Ben Hamer and Leon Cort, as well as suspended skipper Johnnie Jackson.

Marvin Sordell is unavailable under the terms of his loan deal from the Trotters but Chris Solly, an unused sub in last Saturday’s home defeat to Derby, played an hour in Monday’s 5-2 friendly win over Cardiff and is edging ever closer to full fitness.

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