Nathan Jones after Charlton blow Huddersfield away: You won’t find a better League One performance than that
Charlton Athletic manager Nathan Jones reckons you’ll have to go a long way to see a better League One performance than the one his side served up at The Valley on Saturday.
The South Londoners secured an impressive eighth home win in a row as they blew fellow promotion hopefuls Huddersfield Town away 4-0 with their most comprehensive display of the campaign.
They led inside the first minute as Matty Godden headed home from Thierry Small’s pinpoint cross – with Tyreece Campbell doubling the lead before 20 minutes were on the clock.
He then added his second and Charlton’s third shortly after the interval with a sublime measured, low strike.
Goalkeeper Lee Nicholls was the only Huddersfield man keeping his side in it at times, but he inadvertently scored the Addicks fourth as Greg Docherty’s volley crept in off the stopper’s back after striking the underside of the crossbar.
Charlton kept their 18th clean sheet of the league campaign with the only downside being that they didn’t score more in a thoroughly dominant display that left last weekend’s blip at Peterborough United a distant memory.
Jones said: “I don’t think from start to finish you’ll see a better League One performance than that. I don’t want to over-egg it or be disrespectful to anyone but that was pretty complete. From start to finish we were outstanding in both sides of the game.
“Our press, our energy, our aggression, how we moved the ball, how we created in the final third. To be fair their keeper had an excellent day as well. Four-nil didn’t flatter us.”
The Addicks set the tone early on as Small won the ball high up the pitch to cross for Godden to score after about 30 seconds.
“We’re an aggressive team, we press high, we go after teams,” added Jones.
“Last week we had a game where we got caught a little bit but we had exactly the same aggressive high press, won the ball back, just weren’t as clinical as we were this week.
“We debriefed early, earlier than we normally do. I wanted to get it out of the system and say to them, look, that’s how we play, that’s how we play and at times teams can risk and risk and reward and leave key players out and not track you and they got lucky.
“Last week we came up against a very good front four that caught us on a day where we were a little bit cold but realistically we were exactly the same last week and this week to bounce back in that manner against the level of team that we played today was very, very good.
“[Huddersfield are] a very, very good side. Come down from the Championship, very big budget, spent heavy in the January window, recruited well in the summer so realistically this is a wonderful performance and you have to consider the level of performance.
“I watched [Crawley Town] fold against them the other day, got the manager sacked. I demanded from ours because I didn’t want that to happen to us but I’ve got a group here that don’t fold.
“This week we were clinical, we were aggressive, we had everything I wanted us to be and I’m proud of that performance. It takes a lot to bounce back. This a side, just changing manager, just spanked Crawley and can they come in and do that to us? So, it was a tricky fixture but very professional.”
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