Sunday 5 November 2017

Victory required effort

Charlton beat Truro City 3-1 at The Valley this afternoon to progress to the 2nd round of the FA Cup. The White Tigers gave a good account of themselves and Charlton had to both graft and display skill.

There was plenty of well-drilled precision passing by the Addicks, although I felt that sometimes we needed to show more urgency and press forward more. However, after the game, Karl Robinson said that he thought we opened up too much at the back as we went in pursuit of more goals.

A lot of our shots were straight at the keeper (others blazed over) but he showed that he could guard a net as well as make fishing nets. Amos had to make some good saves and Solly cleared off the line in the first half.

The Addicks hit the crossbar early on through Jake Forster-Caskey's header and Ben Reeves put the hosts ahead with a smart half-volley on 10 minutes. Mark Marshall's deflected shot (some might have counted it as an own goal) doubled Charlton's lead but Tyler Harvey headed in to pull one back in front of 996 travelling fans. At this point I started to think about the timing of the night sleeper from Truro and whether one could go to a replay, even if there was extra time, and get it back to London.

Reeves made it 3-1 with a drilled shot across goal 20 minutes from time. Truro had a shot deflected off the crossbar in time added on.

Charlton fans applauded the Truro players off the pitch at the end of the game.

Karl Robinson said that having Mark Marshall and Ben Reeves available was like having two new signings: Robinson upbeat

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