You see, victory at The Valley could set us up for another season of drawn matches and the occasional disappointing defeat, leading to a similar finish to last year.
Until the start of October last season, we were unbeaten. But a number of those games were drawn, games that should have been won. Newcastle, Arsenal, Middlesbrough and Fulham all managed to grab draws against us in games that we dominated- in three of those games we took the lead as well!
But cast your minds back to Chelsea's last opening day defeat, back in 1998 against Coventry at Highfield Road. What happened after that?
Can't remember? Well, luckily, I do- we went unbeaten until the end of January and were challenging for the title until the penultiamate day of the season.
I think that losing the game against Charlton could bring out the true character of the side. Unlike last year, the players will know that two defeats early in the season is not good enough and I believe they will raise their game to the standard of title challengers, if we're lucky.
No one has even considered us for the title, and Luca's boys weren't fancied in the 98/99 season, so who knows what could happen?
I'm not saying that we should try and lose the game, but it could be the eye opener that we need to get the Blue machine rolling...