Inside view with Charlton's Deon Burton
13:31, 27 August 2009
updated: 13:31, 27 August 2009
I don't think you could ask for any more than four wins from our first four games this season.
I know we are among the favourites for promotion and we are certainly aiming to get back to the Championship at the first attempt but it’s one thing talking about it and another putting those words into practice.
Teams who have been relegated have often grown accustomed to losing. All too often, we’ve seen clubs struggle to adapt to life in a lower league following relegation.
That’s not been the case with Charlton this season, however. We finished last season well, only losing one of our last eight games (although that was too late to avoid the drop), and we’ve worked hard behind the scenes to get rid of that losing feeling.
We’ve approached the season and the games positively and that’s been reflected by results so far.
Indeed, although we’ve got a smaller squad, you could argue that we’ve improved in all areas since last season.
We’ve shown resilience when we’ve had to, against Wycombe Wanderers; we’ve killed off matches when we’ve had to, even away from home against Hartlepool United; and we came from behind to beat Leyton Orient. Perhaps we would have taken just a couple of points from those three matches last season – this term, we took the maximum nine.
The key now is to keep on in the same fashion. We are only four games in and there is an awful way to go.
When I’ve played in League 1 before I’ve been with teams that perhaps weren’t favoured to get promoted, so things are slightly different this time round.
There are bigger expectations here and every team is going to want to come to The Valley and beat us.
I’ve been pleased with my own form. As a lone frontman, my job is largely to hold up the ball and bring team-mates into play but I’ve also got two goals so far – and every striker likes to score goals!
Both were lobs over the goalkeeper and I could have got another one against Walsall on Saturday. It’s strange because I can’t say I’ve scored that many lobs in my career.
After my goal against Orient, I celebrated with Usain Bolt’s ‘bow and arrow’ pose, which I know has prompted a fair bit of comment among fans.
I know Usain a bit, because when I played for Jamaica we used to train at the same facility.
He’s a funny kind of guy, really laid-back and you wouldn’t expect him to be the fastest man in the world.
We were all watching the 100m race last week and myself, Lloyd (Sam) and Dicko (Chris Dickson) were all saying how we couldn’t believe how fast he was.
We had a little bit of banter about it and I just thought that it would be appropriate if I scored that I did the Usain Bolt celebration.