Charlton 0 Bolton Wanderers 0.
Kevin Nolan reports from The Valley.
Bone weariness is their implacable enemy, injuries have sapped them, but Charlton battle on. Their admirable spirit keeps them in with a good chance of avoiding relegation and this bitterly earned point turned out to be a step in the right direction. Home defeats for nosediving Blackpool and faltering Doncaster boosted them to fifth from bottom in a desperately cut throat melee. That game in hand (at home to Watford) might yet prove to be a handy ace in the hole.
The usual problems in juggling his resources faced Jose Riga yesterday. With left back Rhoys Wiggins out for the season and right back Chris Solly in need of nursing through his comeback, the full back positions again caused concern. Lawrie Wilson, himself a recent absentee, duly moved back from midfield to cover Solly, with 20 year-old Academy graduate Morgan Fox stepping in for Wiggins to make his full league debut.
Both deputies distinguished themselves but it was the cool, determined Fox who deserves special mention. Rising to the occasion as one of three youth products (Diego Poyet and Jordan Cousins being the others) facing Bolton, he didn’t put a foot wrong. With Solly expected to resume in Sheffield on Easter Monday, the total of organically grown first-teamers will rise to four. That’s impressive going. And there’s more in the pipeline.
The down side for Riga and Charlton’s equally exhausted fans is that the Addicks failed to score for the 20th time this season. Their microscopic total of 31 goals should, by any normal standards, have cast them hopelessly adrift on their way to League One but is more than balanced by the surprising statistic that, despite 23 defeats, only 55 goals have been conceded. It’s been far from pretty but stubborn defending can be an art form in itself, something that even the likes of mighty Barcelona are beginning to appreciate.
On two particularly hair-raising occasions, a 12th clean sheet of this troubled campaign looked unlikely. Just five minutes after the interval, Matthew Mills’ brutal near post header from Neil Dann’s right wing corner had Ben Hamer completely beaten, until Poyet acrobatically cleared off the line. The wisdom of placing a player on each post to defend corners was, hardly for the first time, vindicated. Seems commonsense to some of us.
A quarter hour from the end, Danns missed an easy opportunity to pinch the points. Set up by Jermaine Beckford’s marathon solo run, the Leicester City loanee checked inside Dorian Dervite but lifted a tame shot well over the bar.
Match Report Sponsored By Grant Saw Wealth Management
Charlton’s chances were fewer but, in one case at least, more contentious. Mere minutes after Poyet’s heroics, Simon Church hunted down a dawdling Adam Bogdan, nicked the ball off his toe and was caught momentarily by the complacent goalkeeper’s instinctively intrusive foot. Slipping as he sought to exploit his advantage, Church’s plaintive appeals for a penalty fell on referee Malone’s deaf ear. Recipients of only one spotkick this term, Charlton were scarcely surprised to be turned down this time. Bogdan was lucky but far from bang-to-rights anyway.
Faulty firepower aside, Riga will be pleased with his side’s resilience in standing up to the in-form Trotters. They gave as good as they got in an even first half, occasionally promising to open the scoring. Clever combination between Fox and his inspirational captain Johnnie Jackson helped Cousins set up Astrit Ajdarevic for a delicately curled drive narrowly wide of the right post. Shortly afterwards, Ajdarevic’s superlative delivery sent Reza Ghoochannejhad through the inside right channel but Bogdan alertly left his line to make a key block.
At the other end, the visitors were mainly under control but briefly dangerous. Danns made space to rifle a 25-yarder over Hamer’s bar, then picked out Lukas Jutkiewicz, who scored the winner for Middlesbrough at The Valley in August, with a soaring free kick to the far post. The big striker headed goalward but dangerously off the outstanding Michael Morrison for a fruitless corner. In the second period, an alarmingly unmarked Jutkiewicz forced an awkwardly shovelled save from Hamer at his near post.
A word, in passing, about Cousins by the way; the gangling kid wasn’t quite at his best against Bolton, which by no means implies he was at all poor. Incredibly, given his heartwarming improvement and selfless contribution to Charlton’s survival struggle, there were sporadic (and, to be fair, they WERE only sporadic) catcalls for his withdrawal, all of which were sensibly ignored by Riga. The manager is far too courteous to respond so allow me to do it for him. There must be a Belgian version of “Put a sock in it!”
So on to Hillsborough on Easter Monday, where Sheffield Wednesday will be re-invigorated by their splendid win at Bournemouth. You’ve noticed, of course, that all of Charlton’s upcoming opponents seem to be in inconveniently good shape. These viciously contested relegation dogfights induce paranoia in the best of us. But that could just be because everyone seems out to get us.
Charlton: Hamer, Wilson, Morrison, Dervite, Fox, Ghoochannejhad (Obika 65), Poyet, Cousins, Ajdarevic (Green 74), Jackson, Church (Hughes 84). Not used: Thuram-Ulien, Wood, Petrucci, Nego.
Bolton: Bogdan, Hutton, Wheater, Mills (Baptiste 65), Ream, Danns, Chung-Yong Lee (Hall 88), Spearing, Trotter, Jutkiewicz, Beckford. Not used: Lonergan, Knight, Robinson, Kellett, Iliev. Booked: Wheater.
Referee: B. Malone. Att: 15, 773 (924 visiting).