Charlton Athletic 1 v 0 Leeds United

Saturday 28th September 2019

EFL Championship
The Valley, Charlton
Admission: Season Ticket
Programme: £3.00
Attendance: 21,808 (3,179 away)

After my previous visits to The Valley this season were full of optimism as The Addicks made a terrific start to their return to the Champuonship, today I reverted to the more feelings of pessimism.

After star striker Lyle Taylor was injured in the last international break playing for Montserrat, Charlton carried precious little threat in the last home game against Birmingham, which the visitors won 0-1 in a thoroughly disappointing and frustrating encounter. And Charlton followed that up with a 0-2 defeat at Wigan last Saturday, and apparently we were a well beaten outfit on the day. And after those two defeats in a row, Charlton have dropped to ninth in the table, with four wins and two draws from their opening eight league games. And the visitors today were Leeds United, one of the strongest outfits in the Championship and red hot favourites for promotion, and came into this game in second place, following five wins and two draws from their opening eight league games, with a perfect away record, winning all four league games away from Elland Road, scoring twelve and conceding just one in the process. Although Lyle Taylor would again be absent, Leeds would also be missing one of their top forwards in Pablo Hernandez.

And indeed, it looked like it was going to be a long afternoon for Charlton, as Leeds went on the attack right from the kick-off, forcing several corners and decent saves in just the first couple of minutes. And as the half wore on, Charlton really rode their luck as it looked surely only a matter of time before the visitors would open the scoring, but were denied by good saves, blocks and fortune shined on them a couple of times when defenders diverted the ball only just wide of their own goal. But miraculously, it was Charlton who took the lead on 32 minutes, when Tom Lockyer's shot was blocked by the keeper, rebounded off a defender and then hit Macauley Bonne to bounce over the line, to give him a goal on his first league start for Charlton, after his transfer from Leyton Orient in the summer. Quite surprisingly, Leeds' threat seemed to diminish as the game wore on and whilst they still looked to have a goal in them, they were nowhere near as threatening as in the opening half hour.

And so Charlton held on for a terrific, and improbable win. Leeds certainly had the better players and looked the more threatening. But they couldn't turn their 72% possession into goals, and although they had 19 shots (to Charlton's three), only four were on target. They will surely be there or thereabouts for promotion come the end of the season, but after those defeats for Charlton, the performance today was a big relief, full of solidity and desire which makes us very hard to break down and beat, and that is making being at The Valley a really enjoyable experience right now. It was also really pleasing that we did not use any of the anti-football tactics employed by Birmingham a fortnight ago to close the game out. Today's result took Charlton up to sixth place in the table, but the tough games just keep on coming, with a visit from second placed Swansea City to come on Wednesday.

A match report can be found by clicking here and video highlights can be viewed by clicking here