Michael Appleton hopes it will be third time lucky against his former charge Ian Evatt this weekend.

The Charlton Athletic boss is banking on his club’s impressive goal return at The Valley over the last month after a disappointing 3-1 defeat at Lincoln City in midweek.

The Addicks have scored 14 times in their last four home games, leaving Appleton upbeat about the chances of getting a first win against the man he once managed in the Championship at Blackpool.

Both previous meetings between the pair occurred when Appleton was in charge at Lincoln City in the 2021/22 season – and Bolton were triumphant on each occasion.

Charlton have had some solid results at The Valley since Appleton replaced former Wanderer Dean Holden at the start of September.

“We’ve seen with the group that they are capable of winning those type of games,” he told Charlton’s official website.

“We’ve played some decent sides so far and, if anything, the bigger the club, the better the performance.

“It’s at the Valley, which has been good to us in recent weeks. We’ve scored lots of goals and haven’t conceded many there, so hopefully that will be the same on Saturday.”

Charlton went 1-0 up at Sincil Bank on Tuesday night, with Alfie May grabbing his ninth goal of the campaign in all competitions.

But after Hakeeb Adelakun scored either side of half time to put the Imps 2-1 to the good, Appleton did not like what he saw from his players.

He said: “Once the second goal went in, there were one or two players who looked like they didn’t really think they could get back in the game.

“I’ve not seen that yet, so that’s something that I’m certainly aware of tonight and I don’t want it to happen again.”

Wanderers are undefeated on their last four trips to The Valley and have won the two times they have played there under Evatt.

Aaron Morley and Dion Charles were on target in a televised win in January, and the Whites won 4-1 back in September 2021 thanks to a brace from Kieran Lee, bookended by goals from Dapo Afolayan and Antoni Sarcevic.