Ben Amos pulled off stunning saves in Charlton’s win at Bradford City – but reveals why he will stay grounded

Goalkeeper Ben Amos was Charlton’s hero during the 1-0 win at Bradford City – but won’t let the plaudits go to his head.

The Bolton loanee made a succession of vital saves to preserve the Addicks’ victory at Valley Parade, writes Louis Mendez.

Charlton boss Karl Robinson described Amos’ late stop from a Matt Kilgallon header as “the best I’ve ever seen live”.

“I try to stay very balanced,” explained Amos, 27.

“You know what life in football is like, it’s so many peaks and troughs. I wont get too carried away with Saturday. It’s nice, I’ll savour the moment but I’ll try and stay pretty level.

“It’s nice to contribute towards the win, as other players have done in the last few games. Ricky [Holmes] and Tariqe [Fosu] have been in immense form. It’s my job. Thankfully it gave us the win.

“It’s nice to contribute and it’s a big win to come here and take all three points. I don’t think many teams will do it.

“It’s always a good feeling to grind a win out when maybe you didn’t deserve it. In previous games, we’ve only tended to get a result when we’ve played well. If you’re going to do anything special in the league, you can’t afford to do that.”

 

The win was Charlton’s third in four games, and safeguarded their spot in the League One play-off places.

Amos reckons complacency was to blame for a recent four-game winless spell that threatened to derail the Addicks’ strong start to the campaign.

“We had a little bit of a lull,” he said. “We got a little bit complacent after our winning streak that we went on. We’ve learned our lesson – we can’t afford to do that. We’ve got to give the upmost respect to every opponent we play.”

The north of England was battered by Storm Brian on Saturday afternoon and Valley Parade did not escape it.

Amos said: “You don’t mind the rain so much – it’s the wind that affects everything. Your kicks, the shots, all the balls start moving and it does make it difficult. But that’s life as a goalkeeper.

“You saw with Naby Sarr coming in at left-back, that’s obviously something the manager has thought about – that they were going to look to exploit a couple of our smaller players.

“We knew how they were going to approach the game but we weren’t too worried about anyone really. It’s about how we approach it. We know that if we approach the game correctly, and do what we can do, then we can come to places like this and get good results.

“They had some changes to their team but the players that played for them played really well and handled the conditions a little bit better that us. Second-half, the wind was blowing towards my goal which made it very hard for us to get out and get in behind them. It was a little bit relentless second-half.”