Charlton Athletic 3 Burton Albion 2

Plenty of things there today to admire but stunted by some age old issues, but it’s a home win chalked up to send everyone home happy on Easter Monday.

Up to the giddy heights of 10th with the challenge of a trip to automatic promotion chasing Ipswich next.

The first half was great up until injury time when out of nothing we gifted Burton a goal as Maynard-Brewer came way to far off his line to collect a cross over numerous heads. The resultant dropped ball was hooked into an empty net to take the shine of an excellent first half.

Before that we had played well attacking with zest and zeal. I hate to think where we’d be without Jes Rak-Sakyi’s goals (and assists). I have tried not to popularize his talents on here, for no other reason than he is unfortunately from a bad home. Yet although with still so much to learn, he has some admirable talent and seems like a really nice lad into the mix.

He’s first goal was a peach. He often foregoes his right foot when his left is so captivating, but after jinking in from the wing, a left foot snap at goal looked closed to him, so he flipped it on to his right and hit an unstoppable shot past ex-Addick MacGillivray.

It was 2-0 ten minutes later after Fraser burst up the pitch and crossed for Rak-Sakyi to control and slip in a relatively easy, at least for him, manoeuvre.

Despite reservations as we kicked off the 2nd half we restored our two-goal lead with Macauley Bonne getting in on the act again. He played well today did Bonne, and he was on hand to get his second in two home games.

Bonne then had a shot saved before hitting the bar after we broke well.

Holden then made some wholesale changes as it looked like we were on our way to an easy 3 points – he really does need to watch us more….

Egbo came off after a very competent return. In fact the size of Egbo, Inniss, Hector and Thomas is quite something. Hector was again excellent I thought.

Holden said afterwards that it was “chaotic,” and that described what followed well. I struggled to see where players were playing and without Dobbo, Fraser and Morgan our new midfield had the frailty of an almost finished Jenga game.

Burton scored from another set-piece failure, and then the Brewers had their tails up. Although Rak-Sakyi almost scored a third on another break. He instinctively fired over the bar, when a ball back across the goal would probably have given Payne an easy finish to put the game to bed.

Payne, who has gone backwards under Holden’s management in my opinion, was sent off for two yellows in four minutes and we had to survive a couple of nervy moments as injury time climbed towards 5pm.

Survive we did as we move to 14-13-14 for the season with only Rak-Sakyi’s goals keeping us above the mid table fodder.

Dean Holden: “We had some issues during the game, Dobbo [George Dobson] obviously got a tackle during the game, he was feeling that, Scottie Fraser was flagging a bit, Macauley Bonne had cramp and Albie Morgan the same. It was a bit chaotic at the end but ultimately we’re stood here with three points and we’ve got to 10th in the division which three months ago we’d have bit out hands off for.”

Stats (CAFC first): Possession – 60% / 40%; Passes – 332 / 149; Accurate passes – 263 / 82; Shots (on target) – 6 (4) / 5 (2)