Charlton 0 Sunderland 0: Story of the day as Cats are held at The Valley and Nathan Broadhead returns
and live on Freeview channel 276
Alex Neil’s side dominated possession in the first half, with the best chances falling to top scorer Ross Stewart who headed a few efforts just wide.
The visitors kept up their pressure at the start of the second half but couldn’t find a way past goalkeeper Craig MacGillivray.
Here’s how the game played out:
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RECAP: Charlton 0 Sunderland 0
Key Events
- Sunderland XI: Patterson, Winchester, Wright, Xhemajli, Cirkin, Evans, Matete, Gooch (Roberts, 81), Pritchard (Embleton, 75), Broadhead (Clarke, 70), Stewart
- Subs: Hoffmann, Doyle, Hume, Neil, Embleton, Clarke, Roberts
- Charlton XI: MacGillivray, Lavelle, Pearce, Gunter, Jaiyesimi, Fraser (Gilbey, 66), Dobson, Lee, Purrington, Burstow (Leko, 73), Stockley
- Subs: Harness, Famewo, John, Matthews, Morgan, Gilbey, Leko
How Charlton are shaping up
Charlton beat Sunderland 1-0 back in October during Johnnie Jackson’s first game as caretaker boss, before he was appointed permanently.
But despite Jackson’s impressive start, Charlton have dropped to 16th in the table following five straight defeats.
To find out more, we caught up with BBC London reporter Louis Mendez to get the inside track.
Here’s what he said about Charlton’s style of play under Jackson: “He plays a 3-5-2 which we saw immediately when we came up to Sunderland and it worked really well for those first nine games or so. We also won three in a row towards the end of January.
“That’s the system he likes and that relies heavily on the wing-backs, but a lot of people feel we perhaps don’t have the right players to play wing-back at the moment which is probably fair.
“It also relies on the midfield pushing forward and over the last few weeks I feel they have been pretty disappointing in that.
“With the lack of strikers it means we haven’t really been able to keep the ball up that end of the field and take the pressure off the defence.”
Neil on Charlton
Here’s what the Black Cats boss had to say about today’s opponents.
“They’ve got good players, a good squadI think they’ve had some key injuries at key times but some of those look to be coming back now.
“I’ve seen a fair few of their games and they’ve been very competitive, key moments have maybe gone against them at certain times, particularly recently.
“We need to make sure we’re really focused. We’ve got to try and build momentum, we don’t want to ruin our result at Wigan by not performing in this one.
“We understand the importance of this game. “
Team news
Let’s start with the Sunderland team news.
Callum Doyle is available again after missing last week’s trip to WIgan with a minor hip injury.
Fellow centre-back Danny Batth may also be available again following an ankle issue, though Neil did say there are ‘a couple of niggles’ in the squad.
Long-term absentees Nathan Broadhead, Luke O’Nien and Aiden McGeady have all been back playing some part in training over the last week but Neil has said he will not rush any players back before they are fully fit.
It’s Matchday!
Hello and welcome to our SAFC live blog!
Following last weekend’s 3-0 win at Wigan, Alex Neil’s side need to build on the result at the DW Stadium with just 11 league games remaining.
Today the Black Cats face what looks like another tricky away trip, yet opponents Charlton have lost their last five matches.
We’ll have all the build-up ahead of the game, as well as in-game analysis and post-match reaction.
Stick around and refresh the page for live updates.