Smooth Criminals

Norwich City 0 - Charlton Athletic 1

Like most Addicks fans, I was expecting to be saying post game, something along the lines of, 

"Well, the unbeaten run was fun while it lasted but tonight the class of top of the table Norwich City proved too much for our cobbled together bunch of players".

How wrong were we / was I?

Norwich were in command for every one of the 95 minutes played but they just couldn't break down the heroic defending of a Charlton side who worked together to deny them.

As the game entered the final phase, I was hoping with all my heart we'd be able to hang on to the 0-0 draw against tremendous pressure.

Then on 87 minutes, Jackson let fly and Ruddy in the Norwich goal seemed to make a complete hash of it.

ONE - NIL UP!!!

This was more than we had hoped for.

More heroic defending, 5+ minutes of injury time, then some rather bad loser antics from a couple of the Norwich players and Charlton were sneaking off back to SE7 with 3 points in the swag bag.

Whatever happens at the weekend, we are now unbeaten into October. 

That's TEN games.

Heady days.

Five Star Performance From Charlton.

Charlton Athletic 5- Preston North End 2.

I'm going to swerve past the most obvious statement for November 5th, (the one proclaiming there were 'fireworks at the Valley') and I'll leave it to imagination free sub editors on the Sunday papers.

If you were at the Valley today, you'd have seen a fantastic first half performance that was as near to perfection as I've seen in many years.

Before the game, we'd commented that 10 goals in a week probably meant there'd be none today.

The record now stands at 15 goals scored in just 4 games!
Heady times.

The Charlton goals were all well worked. None relied on defensive errors or goalkeeping calamities.

The scoring order was Jackson (16 minutes), Morrison (22 minutes), Jackson again with a penalty (26 minutes), BWP on 38 minutes and finally, my favourite goal from Hollands on 69 minutes.

I'm being honest here and owning up to only brief memories of each of the goals (other than the sublime Hollands one).
I was just sitting back and enjoying Charlton taking apart a team that are expected to be in the Play Offs at least by the end of the season.
I do recall the penalty was well dispatched (down the middle?) after Yann Kermorgant had been scythed down by the goalkeeper. Oddly there wasn't a card of any colour shown to the fortunate custodian.

It's great to be an Addick just now.
I'll record the Football League Show later and hopefully find out what happened if they can squeeze the goals and chances into our regular 40 seconds.

Preston managed a couple of consolation goals with the game already won and only a couple of minutes left to play.

I'm hoping that Chris Powell uses those final few minutes of relaxation as the driver for the team to kick on next time, just as defeat at Stevenage propelled us into the present situation.

As it stands, we are 5 points clear at the top of League 1.
Obviously I want us to win every game but we can afford to only draw against Brentford and even lose against Huddersfield, and still sit at the top of the pile.

A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.

I'm off to enjoy the fireworks at Blackheath.