Charlton Athletic 2 Portsmouth 1

Last updated : 18 April 2006 By Editor

Portsmouth who would arguably have been disappointed to take just a point back to Fratton Park made a brisk start and scarcely looked like conceding the lead their first half industry deserved.

A moment of magic from Andres D'Alessandro gave the South Coast side advantage but Thomas Myhre's fine stop from Svetoslav Todorov proved pivotal as the Addicks turned things round after the break.

Charlton were back in the game 13 minutes from time as Bryan Hughes proved to be the right man at the right time. Suddenly it was all Charlton and it came as little surprise as the shellshocked visitors were breached again. Darren Bent turned on the style to salvage the most unlikely Charlton win.

Chris Powell started so there was a rest given to Chris Perry. Darren Ambrose and Jason Euell were both relegated to the bench in order to make room for the returning Bryan Hughes and to give Jerome Thomas a start.

Charlton climbed above Everton who lost again. Wigan in tenth are just a point away, with teams closely packed all the way up to eighth place. Beneath, Middlesbrough's win moved them to within four points of Charlton and two points of 12th placed Everton.

Alan Curbishley: "I'm delighted we've continued our terrific home run since the new year. We'd had a bad week and we had to come here and try our hardest to win today and we did that. But the first half was dreadful. I told the players at half time they were in a mess and that they had to get out there and do something about it. We got back into it and once we'd gone 2-1 up it was opening up at both ends and both teams had chances to score. Benty did well to lay it off for the first goal, and I knew he would score the second. I think he responded to Ambrose coming on. Darren could have scored a couple of goals himself. We encouraged him to roam about when we went three at the back - that was the turning point. It was a heroic effort by the players with all the injuries we had. Osei (Sankofa) has waited his time and he was upset that Spector went in at right-back when Young got injured. He's not long recovered from a bad injury himself and has spent a few months on loan at Bristol City."

Curbs on the injuries: "Spector popped his shoulder out - he went straight to hospital; Marcus has done his hamstring and Hermann's injured his ankle. Gonzalo Sorondo wanted to come off at half time, complaining of a groin problem, but we couldn't let him. And Jerome Thomas has a sore knee."

Bryan Hughes: "I thought Portsmouth played really well for 70 minutes and deserved to go in ahead at half time. We had three injuries in the first half, which obviously had to lead to a positional reshuffle, and we ended up with three at the back and Hermann Hreidarsson playing centre-forward. The boss had to tinker around quite a bit and I think Curbs showed his managerial abilities to change it around to such good effect because we found some spark in the final 15 minutes and managed to score the two goals we needed. I was obviously very pleased to score. It was a great comeback and showed the amount of spirit we have at this club."

Harry Redknapp (PFC): "They were doing nothing for most of the game, but we needed to kill them off."

Source: Official sites