Score Draw

Charlton Athletic 1 - Blackburn Rovers 1

The image of Blackburn Rovers in the media over the last year, has been one of a (chicken in a) basket case of a club.

Rovers have had sections of their fan base boycotting both home and away games, a manager who to the outside world seemed to be a dead man walking, plus a rather odd foreign investment from India, run by people who appear to have little clue about football.

The night before our game, Steve Kean finally cried 'fowl' as the 'poultry' amount of influence he had on affairs slipped from his grasp.
He headed home, leaving Rovers managerless for our encounter.
The fans had got what they wanted and the first fixture of the post Steve Kean era ended with their team grabbing a rather fortunate 1-1 draw.

Had Kean managed to get that point they'd probably have booed him back to the dressing room but all the Rovers supporters seemed to be quite happy with their haul at 5pm.

 Charlton were by far the better team for all but the opening 15 minutes.

 Nuno Gomes and Jordan Rhodes were largely anonymous, despite both arriving at the Valley with reputations to make defenders shudder. 

Morrison and Cort marshalled the defence so well, neither of them got a sniff all afternoon.

Ben Hamer won't be needing to wash his pristine white kit before our next match on Tuesday. 

He was mostly a spectator.

His major act of the first half was picking the ball out of the net when Charlton went 1-0 down.

Etuhu got through Solly and pushed the ball past Hamer, giving Rovers the advantage.

At that point, I imagined the depleted Addicks side were going to buckle but it seemed to be the kick in the pants the team needed.

From that moment on, Blackburn were never in it.

Cort was dragged down in the area and Jackson stepped up to smack the ball home from the penalty spot............... except he didn't.

The trailing leg of Paul Robinson kept the ball out.

Jackson was to wait less than a minute to make amends. 

His cunning deflection gave Robinson no chance and Charlton were flying.

Danny Green hit the post when all around me were already celebrating the goal. 
It was one way traffic towards the Blackburn goal until half time.

The second half was more of the same.

Unfortunately, bad luck arrived again when Jackson went off injured and was replaced by Bradley Pritchard.
Pritchard was lively and had a good game, adapting to the pace straight away.

Blackburn appeared content to sit back and hopefully counter attack. 

BWP got in the way of a certain goal from a Morrison header but the main talking point after the game was another "Did it cross the line?"

It was the first thing everybody mentioned in the post game discussions at the Rose of Denmark.

Odd that the BBC Football League Show didn't even include the incident in their highlights, while also hinting that Blackburn hadn't managed to get the deciding goal their strength deserved.

Anybody at the game knew that was a complete load of cobblers of course.

BWP almost claimed the victory for Charlton in the dying seconds. 
His rather spectacular volley was saved by Robinson and that was that.

It was a game we 100% deserved to win but in the circumstances, a point was gratefully received. 

 The injury / illness ravaged team lined up against what looked to be an extremely strong Blackburn side. 

We seemed set for a torrid afternoon.

As it turned out, the team, (all of them), held firm and gave what we like to believe is a Charlton Performance.
Well done to every one of them.

The anticipated return of former Addick Danny Murphy was a bit of a damp squib as he showed his legs have finally gone. 
His influence on proceedings was minimal, other than receiving the first yellow card of the game.

My memory tells me he left us under a cloud, very late in a January transfer window. 

His D list celebrity wife made enemies of Charlton with her comments about the club, (once he'd gone), in her newspaper column.

She was on the receiving end of what is now called 'banter' but to anybody old enough to vote should really be called 'abuse,' at our FA cup game against Fulham last season.

Some people really do deserve to be mocked. 
(I'm thinking Simon Jordan here). 

Personally, I don't think wives, children (or other relatives) of players and managers fall into that category.

I was quite happy for a chorus of boos to greet Murphy's first touches of the ball but less happy to hear thousands of people singing that his wife earns her money by dropping her knickers.

I think we're better than that.

A Casualty Rating.

I'm hopefully grown up enough to recognise a good performance when I see one, regardless of the shade of shirt the player is wearing. The Man of the Match was surely Blackburn's Paul Robinson. 

He was inspired.
 Robinson gained a point for Blackburn with his fine display.

The Charlton Lacoste polo is heading towards Lawrie Wilson who had a very good game.

I wasn't really a fan of his on first viewings. Of course, I wanted him to do well but things just didn't click for him a few weeks ago. 

I'm holding my hands up and acknowledging he had a good game at Ipswich and yesterday he was part of a fine defensive unit that looked quite unlikely to be plundered for the last 70 minutes of the game.

The Primark novelty slogan t shirt is heading to referee Deadman who had an aversion to any type of advantage being played.
Sooooo frustrating!

See you on Tuesday.