Lee Bowyer says he predicted that Jonny Williams would break his Charlton duck in Fratton Park win

BY LOUIS MENDEZ

It’s been 53 games in the making but Jonny Williams has finally got his first Charlton goal – and boss Lee Bowyer said he had predicted the midfielder would break his duck at Portsmouth during training yesterday.

The Welsh international broke the deadlock during the Addicks’ fine 2-0 win over fellow promotion hopefuls Pompey after 26 minutes at Fratton Park.

Chuks Aneke doubled the lead eight minutes from time as the South Londoners extended their winning run to five league games.

They’re now six unbeaten in League One and haven’t conceded a goal in over nine hours of football after keeping their sixth successive clean sheet.

Williams, who recently bagged his first international goal for Wales during a 1-0 win in Bulgaria, is finally up and running for the Addicks – and Bowyer reckons he saw it coming.

Bowyer explained: “I said yesterday, we walked through some shape and I said :’Jonny Williams will score his first goal for us tomorrow’. Everyone started clapping and cheering and he did. I just had a feeling he would score today.

“We played the diamond and had him in the 10. I knew he’d cause problems once we got it into our front men and could get in behind them. Then I knew he’d be arriving in the box unmarked. I’m really pleased for Jonny. It’s been a while. Hopefully it isn’t that long again.

“A good, gritty, professional away performance again. A clean sheet with people that are out at the moment as well. I’m really pleased with that. I’d say that’s probably our best three points that we’ve got this season because not many teams are going to come here and win 2-0.

“We had to defend our box. They put a lot of balls into the box – that’s what they do. They get the ball wide and they test you. I’ve got to say that Chris Gunter was absolutely outstanding at centre-half today. Just to slide in there – it was like he played there all his life. I’m really pleased with the players. You have to put in a real shift when you come here. You have to compete for second balls and we did that well.

“The disappointing thing was, I didn’t think we kept the ball well ourselves. It’s not like us to give it away so cheaply. We were getting into some great areas and you think – go on then, just take care of that pass. But we didn’t. We invited pressure on ourselves at times. But the most important thing is that we got the three points and we move on.

“Adam Matthews is really rusty and he just had to slide in today. We had a makeshift back four but it’s that fight and that will to win that gets you over the line and we have that.”

PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS