After three losses on the spin and nary a good performance to date this season, Charlton faced top-of-the-league, big spenders Birmingham City at the Valley. Changes to the Charlton formation saw Nathan Jones’ side looking to nullify Birmingham’s possession game. And thankfully, Charlton’s high-energy high press was back on display throughout, putting the pressure on Birmingham and looking to force mistakes. In the first half, this worked almost flawlessly and Daniel Kanu was on the end of a couple of chances that, on another day, may have gone in. One, point blank he’ll certainly rue. The next best chance fell to Alan Campbell, blasting just over the bar from outside the box.
Charlton kept up pressure in the second half, with Birmingham making three changes to start the half. It was from a set piece that Charlton opened the scoring, with whiley Matty Godden pinning his defender and poking the ball on the half turn past the keeper.
Charlton, to their credit, remained relentless to see the win out, limiting Birmingham to no shots on target and only three in total. The defenders did themselves proud as they kept May and Stansted Stansfield (ed) quiet, practically anonymous, throughout. But the big change was in midfield. Alan Campbell and Greg Docherty kept things tight in the middle, alongside Karoy Anderson and Connor Coventry, limiting Birmingham’s play to the wings. Of course, that’s where they ran into the in-form Kayne Ramsay on the right, who kept his man on a leash throughout, and the returning Josh Edwards on the left, who was solid.
Birmingham probably came in expectation of Charlton being a light touch today, but the Addicks had other plans. Charlton got the better of the midlands outfit throughout and this should remind the squad of what they’re capable of, and exactly what Charlton fans expect.
Charlton 1 Birmingham City 0
Over to you.
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Comments
Cognitive dissonance for the CL hive mind
Onwards and upwards
COYR
Just realised Alfie May wasn’t playing second half, had as many touches as he did in the first
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The amount of shots Birmingham have had in each of their matches this season
Lloyd Jones may have made money off his dating show, but he’s got £15m in his pocket tonight
Ramsey was blinding and thought the two Campbells done well too
Onwards and upwards
That being said I think that’s the best consistent 90 minutes I’ve seen us put together in a long long long long time.
Just hope our style can dominate against teams who won’t be as expansive as Birmingham.
Everything Birmingham do comes from letting Paik and Iwata control the game from the middle of the pitch. We stuck two terriers on them in Anderson & Campbell and Birmingham had no answer for it.
Deserved winners, and if the chances Kanu had, were Godden’s chances, we would have won that 3 or 4 nil
Love it 😍
Aaaaandd breath!
Probably an obvious thing to say, but that was easily the best performance of the season. I’d have said the same even if Birmingham had got back into it.
Felt confident we’d win from about the 40 minute mark, even with Kanu’s miss in the first half. Godden was quiet overall but showed the value of a natural goal scorer. Everyone else was very good to excellent, including the subs. Tough to pick a man of the match.
Still feel we need to find a way to weave a bit more creativity into the team. It’s no coincidence that our two best performances have come against teams that rigidly play out from the back and look vulnerable to a well organized and aggressive press.
Lack of creativity is a tomorrow problem though. NJ and the players got everything pretty much spot on today. Excellent stuff. Hopefully it stops the wobble and we can now build from here.
Hard to single out 1 player but Jones again was imperious, won everything, kept everyone around him organized so he pips the rest to MOTM for me
Just as you think Jones might be a busted flush, he makes a really clever tactical and personnel change.
He's still learning how best to use this sqaud and this was the start, hopefully.
Docherty was MOTM for me. Proper captain but Allan C and Kane R were also brilliant.
Godden also so clever and makes a massive difference to our creativity playing in front of a tough tackling midfield.
If we keep doing that we'll be up there.
COYRs
Look on the bright side though... Finally beat a team that started the match in the top 12