Tuesday 19th August 2014
Football League Championship
The Valley, Charlton
Admission: Season Ticket
Programme: £3.00
Attendance: 15,317 (1,434 away fans)
After a surprisingly entertaining and dramatic opening home
game of the season at The Valley on Saturday, more of the same was certainly
hoped for as I set off on the Valley Express coach service to the stadium after
work. The match certainly didn’t disappoint!
This game promised to be even more of a tough assignment
than Saturday’s. Like Wigan, Derby are one of the favourites for automatic
promotion, probably more so, as they were beaten finalists in the play-off
final last season, losing to a last minute goal against QPR. They have retained most of last season’s squad, but
they have had a quiet start to the season, scoring one and conceding none in
their two games so far in their home win and away draw so far, and progressed in
the League Cup thanks to a 0-2 win at Carlisle. Charlton made a couple of
changes, with two youngsters coming in to make their full debuts. Goalkeeper
Nick Pope retained his place after coming on for Stephen Henderson on Saturday,
and Joe Gomez came in at right back for Chris Solly.
On a cool but dry evening, Charlton made a great start to
this game, again showing a brand of passing, intelligent football that hasn’t been
evident at The Valley for many years. On 11 minutes, they took the lead.
Gudmundsson sprayed the ball out to the left wing to Jordan Cousins, very
reminiscent of Cousins’ goal on Saturday, but this time he passed the ball low
to Tucudean in the area, who took a touch before firing low into the bottom
left corner of the net, a very good finish. That did seem to wake the visitors
up, as they imposed themselves more and more on the game with their brand of
passing football. They equalised on 31 minutes, when Jamie Ward ran onto ball played back to him from the byline, took a touch and thumped thumped a powerful shot across Pope and
into the top left hand corner of the net from the edge of the area. Derby went on to dominate the rest of
the half and it did seem only a matter of time before they would take the lead.
It was Charlton though who were given an opportunity to retake the lead right
at the end of the first half, when Tucudean showed good footwork in the penalty
area but before he could get a shot away, Derby captain Richard Keogh brought
him down. When a red card seemed inevitable as Keogh was the last man, the referee
didn’t even show a yellow card, but Yoni Buyens stepped up to confidently send
Lee Grant the wrong way for the final kick of the half.
Derby continued to play good possession football in the
second half, although it was an even half which could have gone either way,
both sides carving out decent chances to score. On 78 minutes, it was Charlton
who scored what would surely be a killer third goal. Captain Johnnie Jackson
sent in a good cross from close to the right corner flag, substitute Lawrie
Wilson headed the ball towards the far post, and Igor Vetokele nodded into the
net for his first of what will surely be many this season. However, five
minutes from time, Derby were given renewed hope when they were gifted a goal.
After an initial shot was blocked, the ball fell to Ward towards the edge of
the area, and his innocuous looking shot inexplicably went through Pope’s hands
and legs for his second of the game. A very poor goal for the young keeper to
concede, but hopefully he will learn from it. It proved to not be costly
anyway, as despite sustained Derby pressure in the final minutes, Charlton held
on for another three points. This was probably an even better performance than
on Saturday. The two weak links then – Tucudean and Wiggins – had much better
games, Wiggins not putting a foot wrong and Tucudean looked much more at the
races, showing some good skills and getting stuck in more. Buyens was again
superb in midfield, and the Bikey-Ben Haim partnership at the back looks very
solid. Gomez looked very assured and competent on his full debut, and Pope had
a decent game apart from his mistake, and stood up well to a lot of Derby
pressure, both from their players and their fans. I dare to dream that this may
indeed be an enjoyable and perhaps even successful season ahead, although the
two away games, at Huddersfield and Brighton, will be further big tests of
where the squad is at. One thing is for certain, the passing football and
inclination to attack even when in the lead is a very refreshing change from
the recent years of aimless punts upfield and sitting desperately on any lead
that we gained.
Video highlights of this game can be found here
Video highlights of this game can be found here
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