Millwall 0 Charlton 0
Kevin Nolan reports from The Den.
Backs-to-the-wall defiance was the order of the day for gutsy Charlton at The Den on Saturday. Roared on by over 3,500 supporters, many of them still emotionally scarred by the 4-0 capitulation in March 2010, the Addicks fought ferociously -like Lions, you could say- to resist a wave of attacks launched by bang-in-form Millwall. Under Chris Powell’s leadership, there was little prospect of that fiasco being repeated. Another surrender wasn’t an option. Like Nelson’s tars, his players had been left in no doubt about what was expected of them.
Unbeaten now in seven away games since their defeat at Derby County on September 18th, Charlton hung on grimly for this point. One of the surprise packets in the Championship, Millwall subjected them to a relentless battering but couldn’t break them down. A wall of defensive bodies, behind which goalkeeper Ben Hamer coolly kept his nerve, defied them during overwhelmingly one-way traffic. At the other end, untroubled David Forde could have slipped away for a quiet weekend in his native Galway without being missed.
Realistic as ever, Powell admitted disappointment in his side’s inability to create more offensively but sought encouragement in the one-for-all, all-for-one spirit shown by his men. Though reluctant to pick out individuals in a keenly contested but never violent encounter (at least on the pitch), he did make special mention of deputy centre back Dorian Dervite, who stepped in for suspended powerhouse Michael Morrison and stood up manfully to a daunting task. He might have added that Dervite’s tower block of a partner, Leon Cort, was equally magnificent and that new superlatives are needed to describe the massive talent that is Chris Solly. Must keep that last bit quiet until the January sales are history.
Cataloguing the chances created -and missed – in this pulsating atmosphere, makes for unbalanced reading. One side of the ledger records that the besieged visitors managed one shot on target and two shots off target. My notes remind me that Rob Hulse broke clear briefly in the first half before dragging his shot across Forde but wide. For the life of me, I can’t track down the other two efforts but I’m willing to be convinced they occurred. Kenny Jackett’s talented Lions, on the other hand, form a lengthy entry in the opposite column. In chronological order, they blew two points as follows.
Liam Feeney and Chris Taylor began the onslaught by cutting in from each flank to both fire wide of Hamer’s goal; Andy Keogh then stepped inside to curl in a dipping cross which narrowly eluded Chris Wood before Feeney arrived on the blindside to slide a shot harmlessly back across goal; Adam Smith centred, Taylor applied a faint touch but Wood’s weak prod barely reached Hamer; ex-Addick Josh Wright sent a soaring volley narrowly over the bar; Jimmy Abdou finished a determined run by shooting dangerously off target.
Bright and inventive in their approach play, Millwall resumed where they had left off after the break. A superb block by Solly foiled Taylor at close range; Keogh’s awkwardly bouncing cross was cleared by Cort, with confident appeals for handball turned down by scrupulously impartial referee Dean Whitestone; on a quick break following a rare Charlton attack, Keogh used intelligent runs on either side of him to make space for a powerful drive, which Hamer athletically touched over his bar. There were countless other skirmishes and scrambles.
With a quarter hour remaining, the Lions’ best chance fell to substitute Dany N’Guessan, unhindered as he met Wright’s outswinging corner at point blank range. His downward header was sneaking inside the left post until Solly, sensibly positioned on the line, cleared the danger.
A barrage of late corners, punctuated by Smith’s despairing off-target effort, was the last throw of Jackett’s dice, with Millwall’s admirable manager showing his usual fair-minded restraint in refusing to make much of Millwall’s penalty claim but possibly missing the point in lamenting that the Lions sorely missed absentees James Henry, Darius Henderson and Liam Trotter. Consistently prevented from naming an unchanged side, Powell could host a seminar in the skills of gap-plugging and cloth-cutting. He has made an art form of it.
Powell had the final say in this duel of bright young managers. His 81st minute introduction of Bradley Wright-Phillips for Yann Kermorgant brought last season’s discarded top scorer back into action and was rewarded by a lively cameo which suggests that the last hasn’t been heard from Charlton’s slim sharpshooter. They say you don’t miss what you’ve got till it’s gone. Let’s not test the theory.
Millwall: Forde, Adam Smith, Shittu, Beevers, Lowry, Feeney (N’Guessan 67), Abdou, Wright, Chris Taylor, Keogh, Wood. Not used: Maik Taylor, Racon, Batt, Jack Smith, Osborne, Malone.
Charlton: Hamer, Solly, Cort, Dervite, Seaborne, Pritchard, Stephens, Jackson, Kerkar (Green 73), Kermorgant (Wright-Phillips 81). Hulse. Not used: Button, Taylor, Frimpong, Haynes, Jonsson.
Referee: Dean Whitestone. Att: 18,013.
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