‘Happy times at MK but now I’m focused on Charlton’
Karl Robinson will put emotion to one side when his Charlton side face his previous club MK Dons at The Valley on Saturday.
The 37-year-old managed the Buckinghamshire club between 2010-2016 and led the team to Championship promotion in 2015.
He said: “I obviously have a strong emotional connection to MK Dons but I’m completely focused on winning games for Charlton.
“My respect for MK Dons will be put to one side for the 90 minutes on Saturday because I have a duty to win games for Charlton Athletic and the fans.”
The Addicks are unbeaten in the league since a 1-0 away defeat to Gillingham and their only home defeat came to second placed Wigan.
Robinson said: “The players cannot wait to be playing at The Valley again. Visiting teams will only find playing here intimidating if we’re producing good performances.
“We’ve made some poor starts to our home games this season but the fans have been magnificent and been right behind us.
“On current form, we’re on course for two points per game which on average, would earn a team automatic promotion. At no stage will we feel comfortable because it’s a long, difficult season but we’re very happy with our progression up until this point.
Robinson is waiting on the fitness of winger Tariqe Fosu, who pulled out of the EFL Trophy defeat to Portsmouth last week. The 22-year old is Charlton’s top scorer this season with his seven goal all coming in League One since his summer transfer from Reading.
He added: “We’re still assessing Tariqe so we’ll have to see how he gets on in the next few training session before deciding if he’s fit to participate against MK Dons.
“We’ve had some injury issues this season but this is why strong recruitment is so important. To compete at this level, you need two quality players for every position who are challenging each other for a starting place. We’re fortunate that we have that in this squad.
“We’ve had good preparation but 21 days is a long break without playing any league games. But we’ve still played a lot of football in the last few weeks which have all been very competitive fixtures.
“Over the course of a season you must be prepared for every eventuality. We’ll have a packed schedule of Saturday and Tuesday games for the next three weeks so this rest period could end up being important for us and it also gave us a chance to rotate the squad.”
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