Nathan Jones hails Charlton Athletic’s ‘outstanding’ points return this week after Stockport stalemate
Nathan Jones has hailed Charlton’s “outstanding” points return this week after they battled to a goalless draw at fellow play-off chasers Stockport County.
The stalemate at Edgeley Park means the South Londoners have now claimed seven of a possible nine points after three games against promotion hopefuls.
The Addicks had already won at Leyton Orient last weekend before beating Barnsley at The Valley on Tuesday.
They remain one place and two points behind Stockport sitting in fifth – but still have a game in hand on today’s hosts with Tuesday’s trip to Crawley to come.
Charlton saw a couple of chances come and go early on with Miles Leaburn and Luke Berry unable to test Corey Addai in the Stockport Goal.
But it was the Hatters who were on top after the interval – with Kyle Wootton forcing Will Mannion into a smart save and also rattling the crossbar from close range.
Macaulay Gillesphey missed a chance to add to his impressive recent goal return and nick a win for the Addicks late on, but Jones was pleased with the points return over a challenging week.
“It’s outstanding,” said the Charlton boss, whose side have now kept 16 clean sheets in League One this season.
“I would have taken that all day long. Against three promotion rivals, two away games, having to do that, a bit of travelling. That’s a wonderful return.
“I’m proud of my team, proud of my club, fans magnificent again, travelling up here. If someone said to you, against Leyton Orient away, who’ve got excellent an home record, Stockport, excellent home record, we can take four points for that, then win our home game against a very good, tricky Barnsley side. Absolutely, wonderful week.
“It is a good point. We want to win every game, we try to win every game, we prepare to win every game. But today was very difficult.
“Regardless of the sun, the conditions were really difficult. It was windy, the pitch is a little bit hard and bobbly, so it wasn’t conducive for a real fluent game. They bypassed our press, went into front and made it difficult to get any kind of fluency in the game.
“It was two sides that really wanted to achieve something, going at it, and it was a full-blooded affair. A League One game, lacked a bit of quality, but had bags of endeavour.
“We were decent in the first half. We dealt with so much, and then we had the best opportunities in the first half. In the second half, they probably edged, so it’s a fair point.
“We’re the away team, so the onus is on them to win that game. But it was important that we didn’t get beat too, that we stood up to that. We showed different elements of our qualities. We’ve been very fluent in recent weeks, we’ve been electric, we’ve been aggressive in terms of how we play.
“Today, we had to show a real battling quality, and we did that against a very tough side.”
PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS