Portsmouth 1 Charlton Athletic 2

The transfer day weather was sunny periods with later dark clouds but as those lifted we had a football match and bloody good it was too.

Fratton Park has been a happy hunting ground and 1,230 Addicks were making all the noise again tonight in front of the Sky cameras.

In the opening stages we were a little bit ‘Bambi on Ice’ at the back, but Pompey were unable to make use of some slipshod defending.

However we grew into the game with Morgan and Gilbey starting to wrestle control of the centre, whereas Blackett-Taylor was causing havoc down the left wing. The ice had melted at the back too as we started to close the doors on any Portsmouth threats.

We took the lead on the half hour, although pictures showed Aneke being offside after his header was saved, but Washington stabbed home with no VAR to answer to.

For the rest of the half we were firmly on top. Gilbey hitting the angle of the bar and post the best of our opportunities.

The 2nd half continued in a similar vein, but equally Inniss and Clare were thwarting every Pompey attack. We went 2-0 up when an overlapping Clare put in a delicious cross which was turned into Portsmouth’s own goal.

Addicks’ fans were enjoying this now, patently not worried that the only train back to London had been cancelled. Sadly Inniss had to leave the field, and hopefully for no other reason than to stick him in an ice bath, but we weren’t quite the same after that and Pompey pulled one back out of the blue.

Now for 10 minutes plus 6 minutes of injury time we had to cling on in true Charlton fashion, but hold on we did, although two late substitutions only appeared to weaken us further.

One was Aneke though who was stupidly booked. His yellow and red card collection must be something.

Finally the whistle was blown, and it was great to see again the connection between Jacko, players and fans. This was a performance in the mode of the Jacko caretaker ones with extreme work rate fundamental.

More of the same please.

Jacko: “It can’t be that we’re only able to raise our performance level for these types of games. It has to be every single week now if we want to do anything with the rest of this season, and I’ve told the lads that.”

Crowley: “We can’t be focusing on the offside. That is beyond our control. It is down to us to take control of the ball and get on with it. I didn’t think we played well enough for long enough.”

Photo credit: Kyle Andrews