CHARLTON goalkeeper Dean Kiely remains firmly focused on the Barclays Premiership campaign, despite the club enjoying a rare FA Cup run.

The Addicks' cup form has been poor in recent years, and they have not been past the fourth round in the past four seasons. Among those results was a third round defeat to Gillingham last season and being beaten by Walsall at The Valley in 2002.

Victories over lower league opponents Rochdale and Yeovil have seen the Addicks progress to the fifth round this term, and lifted hopes among supporters of an extended run in the competition.

Although Kiely wants to remain in the Cup as long as possible, the league remains his priority.

He said: "The cup is fantastic, romantic and it would be great to get into the final. But the day-in-and-day-out bread and butter, and the reason I get out of bed every day, is to make sure this team is a force in one of the best leagues in the world.

"We don't want to be in relegation dogfights, or scrapping tooth and nail in six-pointers, we have to be picking league points up more often than not."

The former Republic of Ireland international is unsure why the Addicks' cup record is so bad.

"I don't see any rhyme or reason for our record. If I had a shot in the dark it would be because the way we have cemented our place in one of the best leagues in the world takes an awful lot of time, attention and endeavour."

This season Charlton have hit form at just the right time for the FA Cup and have been able to carry their good league performances into cup matches.

"The one thing we don't have to worry about is rotating squads and keeping multi-million pound players happy," said Kiely.

"We are on a decent roll in the Premier League. The cup games come along in between that and we roll it all in together, so the Yeovil game was in with the Everton win the previous week and then into Tuesday against Liverpool.

"The big clubs have the luxury of a Premier League squad and then other players for the FA Cup. We don't have that, but I think it works in our favour because we have a squad of players who have total belief and faith in everyone who takes to the field."

Kiely is still remaining cool about Charlton's prospects in the competition this season.

"You have got the big three in Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, and you never know what sort of teams they will put out. There are another 14 or 15 Premier League clubs who have a good shout of going really far in it, and we are in that shake-up now."