Charlton Athletic 3 Portsmouth 0
A lot of good things to enjoy tonight. No less than watching the game with a few fellow Addicks in the pub in Bermuda.
As a comprehensive a win as you could get. Some great individual performances, but pleasingly a team effort to really buy into.
Portsmouth are no slouches under Danny Crowley, they have recruited well and lost just once in the league this season. So all the more pleasing to win again on the back of the Exeter result.
With no Leaburn, Garner picked Kirk in the hole behind Stockley, and it garnered the best out of both. CBT was the CBT we hope he can be consistently, and credit to both him and his boss to conceive that kind of response tonight.
I am really starting to see something in the Dobson / Fraser partnership, both were really at it tonight and drove the team forwards and backwards creating spaces and closing gaps. Fraser was especially good.
Both the centre-halves scored, from good old fashioned headed set pieces. Now, defensive partnerships take time, and these two are not perfect individually or together, but night’s like tonight will only help.
Lastly on the team, our improvement has coincided with the return of Egbo and Sessegnon. We look miles better with them in the side. Square pegs in square holes.
A very enjoyable win, and particularly pleasing for those at a sparse Valley, who made a lot of noise. I reckon we will all sleep better tonight, Ben Garner needs some more of that special sauce on Saturday if we are make this winning a habit.
Ben Garner: “I think the standout for me was the team ethic, how hard all the players are working for each other, which is something we have spoken about and want as a minimum standard here. The pleasing thing for me is that I think we can still play a lot better and improve a lot more.”
Stats (CAFC first): Possession – 49% / 51%; Passes – 366 / 384; Accurate passes – 274 / 289; Shots (on target) – 11 (6) / 10 (3)
Photo credit: Keith Gillard
Chicago Addick 
I’ve said for the last couple of months that all we needed to do was start scoring and we aren’t as bad as a lot of people think. False dawn?? But there looks to be some winnable games (not Ipswich) coming up. A note to the idiot Saangaard family members and executives at CAFC that with performances like that and Exeter I am considering once again spending a proportion of my diminishing disposable monthly income – (note the words diminishing disposable income CAFC… I don’t think its just me who is affected) – on some match tickets, travel across London and of course a pie for the boy at half time….
Well it looks like BG is making me eat my words, he changes the blend to suit, his taste. A terrific performance against Portsmouth it appears they we’re starting to use their old tactics slow the pace by pretending to be injured. However they fell behind so couldn’t bring there tactics into force. Some excellent save by both goalie’s and good individual performances. Noted C Kirk. His best performance by a mile.Hope BG will not underestimate Shrewsbury Town, next match.
A very pleasing performance and result. Quite a surprise to see Kirk selected to play alongside JS but it worked a treat. Kirk is far from being a class act but he has got a ‘footballing brain’ and I do like to see that in any player.
The score could have been 4 or 5 in the end. During all my years of supporting CAFC (65 years in total) we have always tended to perform well against the stronger teams and faired poorly against ‘weaker’ teams, so it will be very interesting to se if we can raise our game for the next home match v MK Dons who are of course struggling.
If we can get at least a draw at Shrewsbury and follow that up with another home win then the season will get moving in the right direction.
Finally, going back to last night, how pleasing to see us playing a much more direct brand of football as opposed to hundreds of sideways passes. More of the same please! And, playing that way and getting results is the ONLY way to get higher attendances at The Valley.
A very nice win that. Hopefully BG has seen the light and will continue to play to our strengths eg. 4-4-2.
Crazy how two wins have lifted us from possible relegation candidates to just outside the play-offs. Still difficult to see us making the play-offs without some player investment in january.
At last, something for us supporters to be hopeful about. I have to say a great performance by all departments. The attacking always looked dangerous, the midfield was inspired in forward and defensive play and we were solid defensively.
Some excellent individual performances all over the park.
Lets see if we can take all that to Shrewsbury.
I must totally disagree with your comments regarding Egbo and Sessegnon, I thought that they where very poor and we were lucky that Pompey were unable to exploit the weakness. The Pompey defence was made up of four centre backs and the wider players in the four were unable to get forward effectively. They also did not have effective wide players in midfield or up front. Clare is definitely better than Egbo and Sessegnon is so right footed that he cannot pass forward along the touchline effectively. Receiving the ball on his right side means that is too easy for him to pass sideways or backwards, he may be better on the RHS (he does wear the No.2 shirt after all).
Also Fraser does not convince me in open play but his set play deliveries were very good for the Inniss and O’Connell goals. Dobson was superb (as nearly always). All the other players played well.
For Pompey, I thought Mingi, who you will remember I thought very highly of when he was with us, showed up well when he came on, three Cafc players were yellow carded for poor tackles on him. He left us because of a poor contract offer.
Kirk had his best game for us and his pass to CBT was superb. Stockley worked hard but is lacking confidence in front of goal, a goal will do him a power of good.
I personally thought that Garner took an undue risk bringing on Aneke when we had a comfortable 3-0 lead.
A great result but 2 set plays goals which were the 1st and 2nd of the season added the gloss.
I agree with rierti, with the exception of Egbo, as originally we all thought he would be rubbish, but has actually been a revelation and has really played well and has been the one defensive player who tries to go forward rather than sideways or backwards and also Stockley who though tries hards, just ambles around like a headless chicken!
Otherwise it was a really good game and has Garners finally see the light that we need to play two up front in this divsion! I hope so.
So many positives that it’s hard to know where to start, we moved the ball well and countered at pace and made the set pieces work. I don’t think we’ve scored from a set piece this season and then get two in one match…a coincidence? I don’t think so, especially as both goals went to central defenders. Defensively we were solid and competed in midfield and outdid Pompey upfront and all while sharing possession.
I like switch to 4-4-2, even if it was really a twist with Kirk playing centrally and more of an attacking midfielder which gave us more bodies in the centre of the park. That’s two wins in two games under this formation and seven goals. Considering that we struggled to get more than one a game that should indicate how we are going to play from now on. Credit to Ben Garner for switching things up and moving JRS to wide right rather than playing alongside Stockley.
Shrewsbury will be tricky, they might be happy for a draw, but we go there with some form and confidence.