Charlton Athletic 1 Barnsley 0
Game management. We’ve had times, many times over previous seasons when we’ve been absolutely terrible at that.
Tonight however was another example of how the mentality and leadership has so vastly changed. Clean sheets are the foundation, but seeing games out to where that goal is rarely threatened is the nexus.
Barnsley are a good footballing side, and like to get on the ball and in the 1st half I felt they had the upper hand without causing any real concern.
Nevertheless it was the Addicks who broke the deadlock on 12 minutes, when Gillesphey took on the role of free-kick taker and whipped in a deceiving low left footer to put us ahead.
We were more in control in the 2nd half and although at the times there were pangs of anxiety, the Tykes had few chances.
Meanwhile Berry, Coventry with a rasping half volley and Leaburn who saw his effort saved all came close to putting more latitude between us.
It didn’t matter as we played out the six minutes of injury time to add three more points. Clean sheet win.
🎙️“The mental energy of the win on Saturday and what it took. I said if we don’t show up tonight and if we take a foot off the gas, literally feel sorry for ourselves because we’ve had to go to 96, 97 minutes but they were at it. The game changers that came on really added a real impetus. It’s a real squad game but we were excellent second half.” – Nathan Jones
⭐️ Macaulay Gillesphey
🏟️ 12,727 (316 Barnsley)
📸 Kyle Andrews
damn it, I am starting to dream, 8 games to go and 8 points behind wycombe….
12 games to go, Wolf.
Although we won I wasn’t very impressed. Campbell was very impressive and so was Small at times, but although the midfielders work hard there is little creativity. Godden also works hard but is not right to be the loan striker as he is expected to compete for too many long balls in the air, which is not his strength.
The goal was soft, the shot should have been saved by their goalkeeper, a reserve, as their main goalkeeper is injured.
I was hoping that Gilbert would get significant minutes as he has looked good in his cameo appearances.
I thought it was a hard fought game and most players worked really hard including Godden, but have to agree with you about the midfield and lone striker Godden.
In the last five games apart from a Godden penalty and goal from Leaburn coming on as a sub, the main strikers have not scored. Berry has done absoultely nothing, he is slow to keep up with play both in attack and defence and his free kicks and corners have also mostly been really poor and in the last two games he has missed two absolute sitters. If he was not one one of Jone’s ex Luton golden boys he would have been dropped about four games ago!
Godden works really hard but as you have implied he has no one really up front with him yet Leaburn &/or Kanu who for some reason doesn’t even get a place on the bench now, should replace Berry up front to assist Godden. Plus, surely as you have also implied, Gilbert should at least now get a start, especially with his three assists when coming on as a sub, in place of Docherty, another player who doesn’t add much to a midfield, where Coventry is really doing all the hard graft!
I think they’ve probably the best midfield in the division attacking, but defensively they aren’t so clever.
What we need to us is a Keillor Dunn or however you spell it as they don’t have a Coventry or Docherty.
roll on v Stockport. 1pt will do, then Crawley and Wigan.
hopefully an international break to recuperate!
I have a dream that might come true….momentum was the key !!!
Yep, game management and hard graft won the points. As a match it wasn’t much of a spectacle but these are the sort of wins that make a difference at the end of the season. Barnsley aren’t a bad side but we only gave them one decent chance in the match which they didn’t take while we took one of the four chances we created.
Both sets of players looked knackered and my fear is that they’ll run out of juice. We didn’t use Alex Gilbert last night, plenty of people thought he should be starting. I hope that NJ makes a couple of changes if only to give one or two regular starters a break before the run-in. He likes Luke Berry but he’s been running on fumes for the last couple of matches, either start Karoy Anderson there or Gilbert.
Assuming Gilbert can play 75-80 minutes I’d start him.
Teams find a way to win, and we won. Admittedly there were times we looked a little shaky, but we won. We can’t moan when he’s finding a way to win games. The free-kick was soft-ish but he’s still got to get it under the wall and on target.
Charlton are winning and, like Jones has said, it doesn’t matter how we do it, just win.
Playoff places 4,5 and 6 normally go to in-form teams. We’ve just got to keep it up.
After 6 straight home wins and 1 goal conceded, not sure I can find it in me to do anything other than say hats off. Fortunately NJ picks the team.