Playing their third Sky Bet Championship floodlit match in thirteen days, Charlton Athletic host Portsmouth in a Tuesday evening match.

Starting the trilogy with a Friday night nil-nil draw with Queens Park Rangers, they then hosted Stoke City in a Wednesday game brought forward from from Saturday. The Addicks won one-nil with Tyreece Campbell coming off the bench to score the only goal. Having won at Leicester before those two games, they have now picked up seven points from three games, all with clean sheets, giving them a seven point buffer over the drop zone.

Having played one game fewer than Charlton, and sitting six points behind them, Portsmouth are only outside the relegation places as a result of Leicester having been docked six points. Pompey were beaten one-nil at home to Sheffield United on Saturday, suffering a stoppage time decider, That was their second consecutive one-nil defeat.

When the two teams met at Fratton Park in December, there was late drama. Conor Shaughnessy put the hosts ahead midway through the second half but it appeared that Charlton had rescued a point when Harvey Knibbs scored in the seventh minute of stoppage time. However, Portsmouth had other ideas and Yang Min-Hyeok scored one minute later.

After the Stoke match Charlton manager Nathan Jones said “I had a feeling about TC (Campbell) tonight after the Friday night where I didn’t feel that he was at it so we’ve given him a little bit of a chat and I had a feeling about him tonight but I’m thoroughly delighted and proud of the team.”

All of their successes are built on a solid defensive unit. “I think that we’re top in the Championship for clean sheets.” Jones purred. “It means that defensively we do our job. We can’t get carried away because the Championship has a habit of biting you but I’m really pleased with the level of performance that we’re showing. In the last three games since Millwall, we’ve been excellent in all three games.”

Image courtesy of Keith Gillard