Charlton Athletic 2 Peterborough United 1
I didn’t think that winner was coming but they are starting to earn our trust and are planting the psychology of inevitability among us.
An unlikely winner, and I’ve criticized him on these pages, but I was really pleased for Macauley Gillesphey tonight.
First five minutes we were under the cosh and there were spells tonight I wondered why Peterborough are really struggling. They have some explosive attacking players.
We settled down and began to dominate using the width of the pitch well and created endless openings. Woodwork, poor finishing and some great goalkeeping from ex-Addick Jed Steer meant it stayed 0-0 at the break.
I really felt we had to have scored in the first 45, and that Darren Ferguson would get his team reset at the break making them an even harder proposition to break down.
Yet, we did courtesy of a penalty, which I thought was fortunate but if ball hits arm these days they get given, and Godden scored from the spot.
The next action saw Posh go down to ten men when Fernandez was shown a straight red for a rash and high challenge on Small. We were now ahead and had a power play.
Not so, five minutes later Posh were given their own penalty. I thought the initial challenge by Ramsey looked outside the box, but he could have gone. 1-1.
14 league games since we last beat them, and I thought Posh had our number again, but chances came and ‘game-changers’ were thrown on and we kept going.
A lovely guided missile of a corner from new boy Alex Gilbert found Gillesphey’s head who skillfully guided it into the net and we had found the winner at the death.
I thought Coventry on his 50th Addicks appearance tonight really grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, Cullen-like. Docherty and Godden excellent as well.
We have found habits, good ones. Up to 5th.
🎙️“Late goals are a mentality first and foremost. You have that mentality, you want to keep going. Then you have to have the fitness levels, the energy, the aggression to go and do it” – Nathan Jones
⭐️ Macauley Gillesphey
🏟️ 11,653 (714 from Posh)
📸 Paul Edwards
Kayne Ramsay got the wrong side of his man and had nowhere to go, maybe that was a weakness of playing a right back/RWB at centre-back? It did come come off a fast break so maybe it would have caught out any defender.
I’ve no issue with the penalty we were given, the defender’s arm, at 45 degrees, was not in a natural position and it clearly stopped a goal bound shot. A bit of tough call, because it was ball to hand, but that’s the law and the way it’s interpreted, refs are consistent with that.
I’m pleased for Macauley Gillesphey – but it was also a perfect corner by Alex Gilbert. We’ve lacked that ability to pick out a pass or find a Charlton player in the final third and create those sort of chances and Gilbert did the job he was brought in to do.
All in all the pressure told – we made enough chances to be ahead at half-time let alone at 90 minutes. I think that’s 9 wins from the last 12 games and 29 points from 36. We are playing with a lot more confidence than earlier in the season. Another point I’ve noticed in recent games is that the fitness/energy levels seem to be higher than our opponents. There were a lot of gaps in Peterborough’s midfield and I don’t think that was down to their being a man down.
Thanks for your synopsis…so pleased for all of long suffering Addicks…..we may not be playing the beautiful game but 5th place is a brilliant effort from the players and manager….Peterborough are always a handful so 3 points is an excellent result….Come on you Reds
At last the manager is getting some credit from someone on here 🤣. In NJ we trust 👍
The contact for the Peterborough penalty was outside the area but momentum meant the player fell inside the area only the linesman could have seen that clearly. The linesman gave a couple of questionable off side decisions in the first half.
I thought that Godden and Berry played well but our lack of height in midfield and up front costs us in set plays. In my opinion although Leaburn and Aneke did not have a chance to contribute much in open play their presence at the corner meant that Gillesphey had more chance to attack the ball as the Peterborough defenders were unable to deal with all our tall players.
Where is Ahadme? has he picked up an injury?
Can’t get anyone to sponsor his shirt for some reason. 😅
Ahadme is fully fit apparently.
Spot on CA another solid performance, but when they got their goal with 10 men, they seemed to play better then which many teams suddenly do when down to 10, couldn’t see us scoring. Plus fair play to Gillesphey, who has been the weak link in quite a few games, he played well and a good goal. Plus Docherty who goes missing in a lot of games also probably had his best game
MOM has to go to Coventry, who quite often goes under the radar for all the work he does, was everywhere, breaking up their play, moving the ball forward and defending like a demon. He is really coming on to his best football, if only we had managed to have kept Dobson, we would have had the best two midfielders in this division!