Mansfield Town 1 Charlton Athletic 2
When the Samba rhythm starts to play….
Great result tonight, fabulous 3 points on the road that we had to dig really deep for. Mansfield were no pushovers but we came and conquered.
I’m in London and snatched bits of the game on my phone. It’s late, so I will keep this short, hopefully you can fill in the blanks in the comments.
It looked like another quick out of the blocks start, and Godden punished a Mansfield error high up the pitch as we chased the ball down to give us the lead on 25 minutes.
The Stags equalized with a long range volley and we went into the break 1-1. They were deserving of their goal and finished the half in the ascendency.
2nd half we looked revitalized. Aneke entered the fray on 68 minutes along with Anderson, and Chuks was rewarded with an assist he threatened on Saturday laying in TC, who took the ball around a defender to fire home low into the net.
After that we saw the game out well to take three points back to SE7.
🎙️“At half-time we had a bit of a reset and spoke to the players. We were much, much better in the second half. We made some positive changes, got the goal and then saw the game out well. That is probably what it is all about.” – Nathan Jones
⭐️ Tom McIntyre
🏟️ 7,579 (839 Addicks)
📸 Kyle Andrews
The subs bench bench won it for us, off came Josh Edwards who I presume is still coming back to full fitness and Luke Berry, who were replaced by Chuks and Karoy Anderson. That meant a re-jig with TC switching to the right flank, a few minutes later thanks to Chuks assist he got the better of their left back McLaughlin and scored with one of those no back-lift shots of his that beat the keeper at his near post, technically it looked a good goal, the ball was running away from him a bit. On the left wing he was getting no joy out of Akins, a big lump, who simply stuck to him all evening, when he cut inside he ran into traffic.
Our first goal was a bit of luck – but we made that luck, the high press forced a careless back pass that Matty Godden pounced on and finished well. In between his goal and the winner Mansfield though looked good, they equalised and put some decent moves together but our defence was never overwhelmed and held out even without Lloyd Jones to organise things. Tom McIntyre impressed on his starting debut, he’s spent a lot of time watching this team play over the last two months so perhaps he knew what to do when in possession, elsewhere he looked organised and got goalside of his attacker etc. Curbs always liked to see how players did in away games when they don’t have a home crowd behind them, he came through the match well.
So three points dug out mostly through perspiration and hard graft, gamewise it was a total contrast to Saturday’s stroll. This season we have learnt to win games in different ways and this was very much one of those different ways.
Momentum is great….attitude great…application great….determination to win great…..fans fully behind Jones and squad great…..play-offs here we come….promotion is a dream and possible.
Not the best performance over the last few weeks, but we showed some steel and ground out the win. How many times this season have teams scored a ‘wonder goal’ against us. If we had three goalkeepers, they still wouldn’t have stopped that volley just before half time. But, we took it on the chin and bounced back. Something that we struggled to do earlier in the season. At the moment we are the team with momentum. Now we can dare to dream of a play-off place. NJ has instilled belief.
A great result. McIntre was outstanding which was a nice surprise. Edwards match time is probably being managed, but I do not like moving Small back into his position when he is subbed. I think McIntre should moved ( or subbed on if Jones returns) to LB.
I think as I said after Saturday that Campbell and Small should switch wings for periods during the game to unsettle the defence.
One negative last night was the poor performance of Anderson when he came on. Surely Gilbert would be a better option
It’s “when marimba rhythms start to play…”
Poor old Dean Martin will be spinning in his grave
I’d prefer the Marimba