"Obviously it has been a long while since we have had a game," he says, "but it has given the players the chance to focus again since the Fulham defeat.
"We'd had a nice little run and we want to start that sort of run again.
"Luckily for us it has been more up than down recently; we were disappointed to lose the Fulham game but the three previous results were fantastic.
"Fulham are a good team, play some attractive football and on the day they just about deserved to win.
"Even though we lost, the positive thing was that we kept going until the end - we had to accept it just wasn't going to go for us.
"You do get those games, even the big teams do, but we stayed at it whereas in the Everton and Blackburn games we collapsed completely.
"But we still have got a lot of hard work to do and if we go and win against Charlton we could be halfway; the league is so tight at the moment, and we want to be around halfway or above so we can push on, and we certainly don't want to be in the bottom five, that's for sure."
He admits the top six is a tough nut to crack, however, and adds: "I think there are five or six outstanding teams that it is going to be very difficult to finish above.
"The rest of the teams are very closely matched and it is about how you perform against them; it is almost two leagues though you can get in amongst the top six if you put a good run together."
He is pleased with the character shown by the players after the drubbings at Goodison and Ewood Parks and says: "I think after the two defeats at Blackburn and Everton it would show what we were made of and whether we could stand up and be counted and take the criticism, and I think we answered that.
"We need to look back on those games that we won and if we regularly produce those kind of performances we should easily be in the top half of the league, which is where we belong."
The last away trip, to Ipswich, produced the first win of the campaign on our travels, and Nigel says: "We came under pressure at certain times of the game but not for very long, and I think we deserved to win."
He played wing-back in that match with Scott Minto making his first league appearance of the season in the back three and Nigel says: "It is always hard playing there but I don't mind as long as we keep winning and move up the league.
"Scott came to the club before me and has had a lot of injuries so it was nice to see him come back, and hopefully he will be involved a bit more.
"We are getting players back all the time but we need those players because we haven't got a big squad and one or two injuries can really put us in trouble."
Squad: Hislop, James, Winterburn, Minto, Schemmel, Dailly, Repka, Foxe, Carrick, Hutchison, Sinclair, Di Canio, Kitson, Defoe, Lomas, Moncur, Kanoute, Cole, Courtois, Potts.