Charlton Athletic Online

Charlton Athletic 1 Bolton Wanderers 0

Charlton won this hard fought 3rd round cup game with a fine headed goal from Marcus Bent. Big Marcus was one of a number of changes, some enforced, that Iain Dowie had to make from the team that played Watford at the weekend.

Thomas Myrhe played in goal, Jon Fortune was recalled at centre back, the dreaded double H formation was in midfield (Bryan Hughes joining Matt Holland..) and they also had Radostin Kishishev for company. Up front, Big Bent played alongside a recalled Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

Similarly, Sam Allardyce also made changes to his normal starting eleven.

It was Jimmy Floyd who made the goal, recieving a pass from Hughes and crossing for Bent to sneak in at the far post and beat Ian Walker with a fine downward header midway through the first half.

The whole game was pretty tight, with few clear cut chances on either side. Long range shots went wide or seemed to arrow straight into both goalies midrifts. The second half went by in a flash, and it was shock to me to see the injury time board go up, as I thought there were about 15 minutes still left to play. I guess this is the problem we can get when the electronic scoreboard isn't working (why not?).

The team played quite well with Bent putting plenty of effort in even before his goal. The defence stood up under pressure, and the midfield tried their best to close the opposition down quickly, though creativity wasn't a strong point.

One bad point was an injury to Jerome Thomas, who was having a decent game, and he was replaced by an ineffective Darren Ambrose.

Charlton hung on during the frantic finish, even surviving a last minute corner that Ian Walker came up from his own goal to try to win.

The draw for the next round pits Charlton against giant killers Chesterfield, who must fancy their chances of beating the bottom Premiership team now they have seen off the second bottom team (West Ham).

Should Charlton win that game, then this will be the most successful League Cup campaign in the clubs history, which is quite astonishing! Iain Dowie may be a manager (or Head Coach) under pressure, but he is on the verge of doing something that Curbs and the rest never attained.