Charlton Athletic 2 Plymouth Argyle 1

23 shots on goal and 16 corners as the Addicks’ perseverance eventually paid dividends yesterday as we stretched our impressive run. I was following the match at Miami airport and from what I could make out, our midfielders were excellent 2nd half led by Reeves and Aribo as we pushed and pushed for a winner and didn’t take the option of just lumping it.
Good to see that we kept going to the very end and got the deserved 3 points. Bowyer didn’t appear to panic and just added Igor to the mix late on to chase as Bowyer’s men kept knocking on the door and the winner eventually came. Cue a longer than perhaps necessary fist pump at Gate E7 as gave my boarding pass to a concerned looking agent.
Plymouth have to better than their position suggests. Are they? They took the lead but we hit back instantly. Karlan is going great guns, which is so good to see and only just 21 this week. The boy is definitely coming of age.
Addicks at The Valley: Albury Addick; And Nothing Else Matters
Bow: “Our fans were outstanding again today from the first minute until the end. I know I keep saying it but it makes a difference, we scored another late goal but we are this season, we just keep going and going and that’s a credit to the fans and the lads. They just keep going until the end.”
Elsewhere: The Barnsley v Burton game was sadly cancelled. Pompey dropped two points at home to Wycombe, but the rest of the top six all won. Peterborough sit top after winning 4-2 at Gillingham, Walsall won at Oxford, Donny beat Bradford and Sunderland easily saw off Rochdale.
Plymouth’s No.10 was a real danger man (Carey)
He’s a good player isn’t he.
We played well and fully deserved the three points and generally looked to play through the midfield/wings rather than over it. Although there were 20 odd shots on goal there were quite a few shots charged down by some heroic last ditch defending. On balance Reeves was my MoTM, but there were a few candidates – Sarr played well, Karlan A-G took both goals well and Aribo fizzed around energetically. Importantly the side is settling down and playing some good football and even without Pratley we look to be stronger/tougher in midfield. And yep, Plymouth look better than a team who are bottom. Both teams though could do with being a bit more clinical in front of goal. I thought the missed pen was going to hurt us but the late goal (and it was coming) arrived just in time. We have a bit of momentum and the belief is growing.
Best performance for a long time. Played good football especially in midfield I thought that both Cullen and Ward fitted in well and Reeves had his best game so far. Taylor put in a lively performance and Grant is showing why I rated him. The downside was that Taylor got booked again. If Taylor is suspended or injured in the near future we do not have adequate cover Vetokele and Fosu are not number 9s but could support Grant if he took the centre forward role. We would then be short of height in set play situations so should use Bielik in a back 3 whilst Bauer is injured..