Gutted

Charlton Athletic 1 - Watford 2

Just home.

Walked past all the gloating 'fake London' Watford fans with their cheery faces and bright eyes.

In all honesty, tonight would have been the very best type of away victory for them.

Winning away, with just 10 men, is the kind of game you remember at the end of the season as one of your highlights.

The fact that Watford were battered for the majority of the game wouldn't matter one jot.

The scoreline is everything in these situations.

Charlton started strongly and it came as quite a shock to go 1- 0 down.

A rather unnecessary corner was given away and while Charlton supporters were moaning about the kick being taken from outside the arc, it was whipped in and a combination of wayward marking and flukey rebounds ended up with the ball in Ben Hamer's net.

Hoban was credited with the final touch.

Travesty!

Charlton came back and carried on as before, sending mostly one way traffic towards the Watford goal.

The expected equaliser finally came when Fuller ran onto a slide rule pass and tucked the ball away.
He never really looked like missing.

Just before Half Time there was the critical moment in the game.

Forestieri made the most appalling attempt at winning a penalty.
 His dive was so blatant it gave referee Mike Dean no choice but to issue a yellow card.
I'd forgotten he'd already received one for not retreating 10 yards at a free kick so it was an early bath for him.

This gave the Watford supporters a feeling of persecution.
They couldn't see how justified the decision was from their end and booed the officials.

In the second half, it was one way traffic again.
Watford barely got a sniff of a chance.

Referee Dean probably felt his dismissal of the Watford Tom Daley was enough for Charlton and gave us absolutely nothing throughout the second half.

The winning goal, when it came, was an absolute peach.

Watford were never going to score from open play.
Luckily for them they didn't need to.

Leon Cort gave away a foul and one of those 'wonder goal' free kicks was curled around the wall, leaving Hamer stranded.

Oddly, a few moments later, exactly the same kind of challenge occurred up at the other end, inside the penalty area this time, yet Mike Dean just waved play on.
The Charlton players were incensed.

We hear plenty about consistency with decisions.
This was yet another time when things just didn't fall for us this season.

Every single attack Charlton made, (and there were many), was blocked in the Italian fashion by holding down the forward and pushing the runner.
Very skilful when done well, which often it was -but there were also many times when it was just an assault.

BWP was put through on goal and he had 3 defenders tugging and pulling at him.
He did really well to stay on his feet but being pulled back so sharply meant his eventual shot went high and wide.
It looked the most obvious free kick in the world.

Yet it wasn't given.

 I was hugging my knees with the score at 1-1 due to the missed chances.
Surely we couldn't be so far and away the better side yet have to settle for a draw?

As it turned out, it was worse than that.

Fair play to Watford.
They had so few forays on goal, yet scored 2.

Charlton played well for most of the game but just needed that tiny little bit of luck to get what was deserved.

We can all criticise the referee but despite his odd decisions, especially in the last 20 minutes, it was down to our players to get the ball into the net.

Which they failed to do.

Sometimes football is a real sickener isn't it?