Another last-minute defeat — then the manager was gone. KEVIN NOLAN was at Michael Appleton’s last match as Charlton Athletic slid towards the League One relegation zone.
Inoffensive and blameless, Northampton Town walked into a cauldron of simmering discontent at The Valley on Tuesday evening and delivered the coup de grace which ended Michael Appleton’s ill-fated, four-month tenure as Charlton’s head coach.
The Addicks were seconds away from securing a 2-2 draw which might – just might – have prolonged Appleton’s misery for a few more days. Or at least until next Saturday’s trip to Blackpool, where the boom looked far more likely to be lowered. But their uncanny ability to implode during added time proved yet again to be their downfall.
They were actually having the better of seven extra minutes until substitute Louis Appere finished off an incisive bout of passing from close range. The sense of disbelieving déjà vu was palpable.
Fans chanted “sack him now or we’re going down” among their more polite volleys of abuse. Their pleas apparently reached receptive ears as, less than 30 minutes after referee Paul Howard’s final whistle, came the news that the Appleton era – if that’s not too misleading a term — was at an end.
It’s rumoured that the warm favourite to succeed him is Ron Manager from off the telly.
Dour as always, Appleton had stood impassively in his coaching area while the unrest, which was actually mild, spread through the sparse crowd.
There was, after all, only so much influence he could exert and the players he sent out to face the Cobblers also have a case to answer. Their penchant for conceding last-gasp goals is by now legendary, the latest of them yielded in the minute or two tacked on to time already added on.
That’s inelegant syntax, admittedly, but no scruffier than Charlton’s dishevelled resistance. Entirely appropriate, as a matter of fact.
Still harbouring faint hopes of making the League One play-offs, Town were handed the early boost of an opening goal after just seven minutes.
The Clapham omnibus could comfortably have been driven through the shambles that passed for the home side’s central defence as Tyreece Simpson ran on to Mitch Pinnock’s well-judged through pass. Free from interference, Simpson slotted past the optimistically advancing Ashley Maynard -Brewer.
Simpson’s clinically-executed breakthrough brought with it the first rumblings of discontent which quickly spread through the sparsely occupied stands.
The Valley had never taken to Appleton, perceived to be one of that band of professional football managers who rarely stay long enough to engender affection but never stay unemployed for long.
A football club with the history, pedigree and tradition of Charlton Athletic deserves better and, indeed, in Chris Powell, had immeasurably better. And we all know how that ended.
The immediate pressure on Powell’s latest successor eased briefly as the Addicks unexpectedly equalised less than a quarter hour later. Good work by skipper George Dobson sent Alfie May scampering to the right byline, from which the indefatigable hustler whipped over a hard, low cross. Hapless full-back Aaron McGowan almost absentmindedly turned the ball past a startled Lee Burge and Appleton’s prospects looked rosier for all of two minutes.
That was all the time it took for the Cobblers to restore their lead. Top scorer Sam Hoskins arrived in the right place and precisely the right time to convert a right-wing centre and expose Charlton’s notoriously porous rearguard, which hadn’t managed a clean sheet in fifteen previous league games since Reading were shut out at The Valley on October 21st.
“Appleton out!” rhubarbed the disenchanted locals, who were again appeased by a second equaliser before the break, ironically in first-half added time.
Three catch-up minutes had all but expired when Freddie Ladapo’s persistence during a goalmouth scramble set up Tennai Watson to score his first Charlton goal with a crisp, low drive into the bottom right corner.
There was no immediate call for Appleton’s reprieve but he was still in with a chance of survival.
A tit-for-tat second half saw a heart-in-mouth escape for Maynard-Brewer when he appeared to have chopped down Kieron Bowie, who was controversially booked for diving. That followed the unjust dismissal of Tayo Edun, who seemed to have been more sinned against than sinner in an innocuous centre circle clash.
Elsewhere, the outstanding goalkeeping of Maynard-Brewer and Burge kept the scores level until the fourth official produced his fateful board. At which juncture, the creditable draw which they saw dangling before them was cruelly snatched from the Addicks’ grasp.
You couldn’t make it up – unless you’re Charlton. Then it’s easy!
Charlton: Maynard-Brewer, Edmonds-Green, Jones (Thomas 46), Gillesphey, Edun, Dobson, Bakinson, Coventry (Fiorini 76), Tennai Watson (Campbell 76), Ladapo, May. Not used: Isted, Ness, Louie Watson, Kanu.
Northampton: Burge, McGowan, Guthrie, Hoskins, Willis (Monthe 51), Simpson (Appere 61), McWilliams (Hondermarck 76), Bowie, Leonard, Brough. Not used: Moulden, Lintott, Springett, Dyche.
Referee: Paul Howard.
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