But with improved results comes that irritating bedfellow - heightened expectations, and it is with these which the team are struggling to cope.
"Our average league position over the last five years is 10th. That is a tremendous achievement. The trouble is, expectations have grown," said Curbishley.
The Charlton boss has recently come in for stick from fans who claim he is not capable of taking the club to the next level. It is one of the few occasions during his 11-year reign at The Valley he has been criticised and he refutes it, saying: "I have been very successful but it's now taken for granted. Our record is better than some of the bigger clubs. There's nothing I'd like to see us do more than qualify for Europe."
The critics point to the lack of a regular goalscorer (this season's top poacher is Shaun Bartlett with seven goals), a defence that have leaked 50 league goals and an over-reliance on the fashionable 4-5-1 system.
Then there were last summer's influx of new signings, of whom only the accomplished Moroccan centre-half Talal El Karkouri and Danny Murphy could be said to have been successful, a word that could not be applied to Dennis Rommedahl and Francis Jeffers.
Yet Wednesday's draw and clean sheet was particularly welcome after four games in which they had conceded, by Curbishley's own admission, "some dreadful goals, goals that I can't imagine other sides letting us score".
He added: "It should give us a bit more confidence going into the remaining matches. It keeps us alive for Europe. We go to Norwich at the weekend and if we get a result there, then who knows?"
