Saturday 24th February 2024, Kick-off 15.00
EFL League One
The Valley, Charlton
Admission: Season Ticket
Programme: £3.50
Attendance: 16,732 (3,155 away)
A match report can be read by clicking here , also copied and pasted below
Brief video highlights can be viewed by clicking here
Kevin Nolan’s Valley View: Charlton Athletic 0-0 Portsmouth
Can the Addicks escape the drop from League One? A goalless draw with the league leaders offered grounds for optimism, reports KEVIN NOLAN.
Still without a win in sixteen games since Cheltenham Town were beaten 2-1 at The Valley nearly three months ago, Charlton are still in dire peril near the foot of League One. But this second successive show of defiance against another serious promotion candidate offered genuine hope of survival.
After sharing the points with Bolton Wanderers in a six-goal thriller, they achieved a first clean sheet since they demolished Reading 4-0 as far back as October 21st.
Portsmouth arrived in SE7 comfortably top of the table and did their chances of automatic promotion little harm despite dropping two points against a side trailing them by a hardly believable 39 points. They were, however, no better their desperate hosts and left grateful they hadn’t lost. At times during this forgettable game, that seemed entirely possible.
On the basis of horses for courses, Portsmouth were far from unwelcome opposition at this stage of Charlton’s battle to stay in this dreadful division. To say the Addicks have had Pompey’s number for some time now is no exaggeration and it comes as a surprise that they trail 46-40 in clashes between these fine old football clubs.
There have, of course, been many draws, the most recent of them a 2-2 standoff at Fratton Park earlier this season, thanks to Conor McGrandles’ added-time equaliser.
Describing this bang-average game as forgettable is admittedly misleading. There was too much at stake for both teams and nervous tension alone made it compelling. You couldn’t actually take your eyes off it, below standard though it was, and the explosion of local relief when referee Robert Madley’s whistle brought to an end seven added minutes told its own story. It had, by that time, become unthinkable to lose.
Hyperactive Charlton boss Nathan Jones, though still winless, has introduced an unmistakable core of steel into his new charges. Every one of them gave every inch and every ounce for the cause, the pick of them rock-solid centre-half Lloyd Jones and teenage midfielder Karoy Anderson.
Jones won everything in the air, while snuffing out 15-goal top scorer Colby Bishop; up-and coming Karoy, as they say, covered every blade of his home grass to devastating effect. The kid’s looking like a hot property so keep it to yourself.
There was much to admire in a gutsy performance, which put into shameful perspective some of the spineless offerings which brought Charlton to the parlous position in which they find themselves. Most football fans will range behind a team, whatever their shortcomings, if they can see they’re giving their best.
That was clearly not the case earlier in this dismal season. And if players improve like Jones, Anderson and Daniel Kanu, another 19-year-old with considerable potential, that support will be unshakeable.
It was Kanu who came closest to purloining all three points as early as the third minute. Set up by Anderson and the ever-industrious Alfie May, he beat Will Norris with a low drive but was dismayed to see the ball rebound off the far post and neatly into Norris’s hands.
There were other half-chances in a defence-dominated game, the first of the visitors’ arriving a minute after Kanu’s near miss.
Favoured by the run of the ball, Bishop took aim from close range but Isted rose to the occasion with an instinctive save. Having blown his opportunity, Bishop disappeared into Jones’s pocket and was no bother to anyone for the rest of a tense afternoon.
Before the game settled into stalemate, there were occasional moments at either end, none so pulse-quickening as the double chance which the visitors squandered in the 16th minute. Joe Rafferty’s right-wing cross presented Callum Lang with a point-blank opening which was brilliantly parried by Harry Isted but instantly returned by Paddy Lane’s looping header.
Isted was a helpless witness as the ball rebounded off his crossbar.
Before the break, the lively Tennai Watson’s hard-driven cross was met at the near post but bundled wide by a May-Kanu partnership.
May had contributed a hardworking stint but currently needs a goal for validation. He was replaced on the hour by Chuks Aneke, who brought with him his customary combination of chaos and effectiveness. Soon after replacing May, Charlton’s big talisman helped an impressive Thierry Small fashion a fleeting chance, which Rarmani Edmonds-Green (Reg to his mates) scuffed awkwardly at Norris.
Pompey’s best prospects of breaking the deadlock, meanwhile, lay in converting one of the flurry of setpieces which raised the tension on and off the pitch.
To that end, dead-ball specialist Jack Sparkes was introduced just past the hour and wasted no time in making an impression. His viciously swerving corner was superbly touched to safety by Isted, who distinguished himself again when Sparkes stepped up to take a free kick, conceded by George Dobson’s clumsy foul on Marlon Pack. Another wicked curler from Sparkes was finger-tipped over the bar by the defiant keeper.
The entire Valley held its breath two minutes from time when substitute Myles Peart-Harris broke away from the halfway line and closed on Isted’s goal, with Macaulay Gillesphey and Jones in frantic pursuit.
As Pompey’s speed merchant shaped to shoot from near the 18-yard line, Gillesphey executed the cleanest of recovery tackles, which whisked the ball off Peart-Harris’ toes. It was a thing of considerable beauty and most of the ground rose to salute it. From a prone position underneath his press seat, your reporter gamely joined in.
Sooner or later, so we hope, Charlton will experience again the satisfaction of winning a league game. In the meantime, they are being kept alive by draws, of which this is the 13th. Only seven games have been won.
It can’t go on. The fire down below is waiting to consume us. Somebody do something!
Charlton: Isted, Edmonds-Green, Jones, Terell Thomas, Small, Dobson, Tennai Watson (Gillesphey 77), Bakinson (Camara 77), Anderson (Edun 90), May (Aneke 60), Kanu (Tyreece Campbell 90). Not used: Maynard-Brewer, Ladapo. Booked: Bakinson, Jones.
Portsmouth: Norris, Ogilvie (Sparkes 61), Pack, Bishop, Rafferty, Raggett, Moxon, Kamara, Lane (Peart-Harris 73), Lang (Yengi 73), Shaughnessy.
Not used: Macey, Towler, Saydee, Martin. Referee: Robert Madley
