EFL League One
The Valley, Charlton
Admission: Season Ticket
Programme: £3.50
Attendance: 12,756 (782 visiting)
This would be Charlton’s second home fixture, and first evening game, of the new season. Normally, midweek games at Charlton are not ideal for me, having to leave work early and after arriving back home well past midnight, the following day at work can prove difficult. But happily I managed to work from home today, and had the following day off work.
After much excitement following the takeover, some very decent looking signings, and an opening day victory at home to Leyton Orient, the mood had already filled slightly, following a league cup defeat at Newport County (albeit with a much changed team) and a 0-1 defeat at Peterborough on Saturday. These games have come at a physical cost too, with several players already suffering injuries, exposing just how thin the squad looks at the moment, and highlighting the desperate need to get a few more bodies in by the end of the August transfer window. Bristol Robers, under Joey Barton, have opened their league campaign with a couple of 1-1 draws, at home to Portsmouth and then away at Barnsley, but they also bowed out of the League Cup at the first hurdle, away at Championship side Ipswich Town. When the two sides met last season, Bristol Rovers completed the double.
A match report can be viewed by clicking here, also copied and pasted below
Brief video highlights can be viewed here , while extended highlights can be viewed here
Kevin Nolan’s Valley View: Charlton Athletic 1-2 Bristol Rovers
A last-minute sucker punch left boos ringing out around The Valley as the Addicks were beaten by Bristol Rovers. KEVIN NOLAN was there.
For the second time within four days, the age-old dichotomy between performance and result reared its controversial head and left Charlton empty-handed and bereft again. On Saturday, Dean Holden declared himself “pleased with the performance” but “disappointed with the result” after his men had done enough to deserve at least a draw from their visit to Peterborough.
The Addicks returned from Peterborough with a burning sense of injustice which, according to your point of view, was either entirely justified or merely the bellyaching of sore losers. The bottom line was, of course, the unpalatable reality that in a game of evenly distributed chances, Posh had taken one of theirs and Charlton’s inability to reply in kind condemned them to narrow defeat. Not for the first time, their soft defensive underbellly proved their undoing.
At The Valley on Tuesday evening, the clash between performance and result was even more acute. Seven added minutes had expired when Joey Barton’s Gashouse Gang emerged from a torrid going-over, no doubt grateful for a point but still hopeful that all three remained up for grabs. In a last, convulsive blur of action, Grant Ward crossed from the right, last minute substitute Luke McCormick skilfully chest controlled and volleyed crisply through a tangle of bodies. Rovers had smash-and-grabbed the spoils and a previously subdued Jimmy Seed stand erupted in a mixture of disbelief, euphoria and unrestrained glee. There really is nothing quite like the last gasp matchwinner.
Shame that Charlton are, more often than not, its victim and very rarely its perpetrator.
Bitter experience aside, there had been little or nothing to suggest that the Gas had enough to pull off such a barefaced felony. They had resisted stubbornly and stayed in the game as their hosts dominated large portions of a scintillating game but were clearly second fiddle while the Addicks played some of the best football they have produced in recent memory. Without, it must be conceded, adding a cutting edge to the top-speed bouts of passing and intelligent movement that bewildered their visitors.
During a first half of almost effortless control, it was in fact an old nemesis who came closest to opening the scoring. Sporting a deadly serious haircut, John Marquis almost lived up to his billing as pantomime villain but shot too close to Ashley Maynard-Brewer when unmarked and untroubled by defensive interference.
Much later, with his side already in front, Marquis seemed certain to score when fellow veteran Scott Sinclair sent him clear to round Maynard-Brewer and apparently apply the final touch. Doubling alertly behind his stricken keeper, Lucas Ness desperately cleared off the line, his heroics rewarded almost immediately by an overdue Charlton equaliser.
A second-half replacement for the industrious Jack Payne, Daniel Kanu had already made an impression when Karoy Anderson’s shrewdly-judged pass sent him clear of a tiring rearguard to shoot low across keeper Matthew Cox into the bottom left corner. A prolific scorer at academy level, Kanu had claimed a scruffy goal in the League Cup defeat at Newport but this one was far more memorable and significant.
His sharp 74th-minute strike deserved to be rewarded by a point and, in fact, seemed the springboard for a potentially better result. But that was to overlook Charlton’s chronic vulnerability to the late sucker punch.
With the Londoners well on top in the early stages of the second half, it was the West Countrymen who forged ahead against the run of play. Payne’s pointless foul on Ward set up Aaron Collins’ fierce free kick which was spectacularly saved by Maynard-Brewer; Sinclair alertly retrieved the rebound and scrambled it home. Whether his goal was deserved or not was a moot point.
Following Kanu’s equaliser, the home side looked increasingly likely to snatch that all-important second goal. Kanu’s clever pass set up Alfie May to shoot against the right post. May again threatened as Kanu cheeky ball theft played him behind Rovers’ square defence but his faulty control enabled Josh Grant to clip him from behind.
There was an instant clamour for Grant to be dismissed but referee Breakspear was probably correct in producing a yellow card. May was hardly denied a clear scoring opportunity and was neither free nor clear. Holden vocally disagreed and joined Grant in Breakspear’s notebook. You had to feel for the bloke. And for skipper George Dobson, who was outstanding from whistle to whistle.
Charlton: Maynard-Brewer. Jones (Hector 76), Dobson, Ness, Camara, May, Edun (Thomas 84), Payne (Kanu 64), Blackett-Tylor, Asiimwe, Anderson (Taylor 76). Not used: Isted, Kirk, McGrandles. Booked: Payne, Holden.
Rovers: Cox, Gordon (Grant 64), Sinclair (Finley 64), Ward, Marquis (McCormick 89), Collins, Thomas (Vale 64), Taylor. Evans (Loft 83). Crama, Hoole.
Not used: Hall, Connolly. Booked: Marquis, Grant. Referee: Charles Breakspear.
Attendance: 12,756 (782 visiting)
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