Charlton 1 Watford 0

In the most unlikely way, Charlton kept the first clean sheet of the season, and extended their unbeaten start in the league to six games. A heroic defensive performance through a second half of about 55 minutes kept all 3 points and put Charlton into fifth place in the table, only one point off the top. Amazing. I haven't got much to add to (for example) the excellent blogs from Hungry Ted, Chris Powell's Flat Cap, Charlton Casualty, Chicago Addick and the report on the club's website. I'm sure there are more, so apologies to any I've misssed.

One thing that I might just be imagining, though, is that Charlton's pace of play always seems to slow down as the game goes on. In the first half yesterday Vetokele was constantly drawing fouls from the ever-willing-to-oblige Watford defenders with the speed of his turns into space: less so in the second half. And Yoni Buyens - although obviously a huge asset to the team - always looks sharper and more creative in the first half.

Maybe it's true what people say about English football being different: faster and furiouser than the game on the continent, and maybe some of the new players haven't quite adapted to that yet. What that means of course is that the team still has room for improvement, and can and probably will play better.


Blimey.