Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Addicks were unable to replicate their league victory over Wycombe in the play offs, but start with a clean slate at The Valley on Thursday.
The two sides played
out a largely uninspiring and cagey League One play-off semi-final first leg
which ended goalless.
Former Leamington ace Daniel Udoh forced a good save from Will
Mannion in the first few minutes but that was a rare bright moment in the first
half.
Things got marginally better after the break and Will Norris
in the Chairboys goal had to make key late saves from Matty Godden and Greg
Docherty.
The stalemate means that none of the first legs in this
season's EFL play-offs have been won by the home side - the first time this has
happened since 2014-15.
Charlton had ended the season in fantastic form, with 16
wins from their final 22 league matches.
However, in a game where both teams lacked quality in the final third,
it took them until almost the 70th minute for Godden to have their first shot
on target.
That was straight at Norris in the Wycombe goal but the
keeper was worked more by the striker's second attempt in the last few minutes
and he then showed good reflexes to keep out Docherty's instinctive effort from
the resultant corner.
Wycombe offered little in a match punctuated by fouls. They were perhaps a touch fortunate not to be
reduced to 10 men before the break when striker Richard Kone was only booked
for a poor challenge on Kayne Ramsay.
Mike Dodds' men have now failed to score in five of their
past nine matches but only runaway league winners Birmingham picked up more
points away from home than the Buckinghamshire side in the regular season and
nobody scored more goals.
Wycombe boss Mike
Dodds told BBC Three Counties Radio: "Two really good teams cancelled each
other out I think. When you play a
Nathan Jones team they are so aggressive in the first phase we didn't want to
give them the momentum in terms of making too many passes in front of them
which probably contributed to the fact it was quite messy at times.
You need a moment and it didn't land for them and it didn't
land for us. They've had one big chance
and we've had one and it was a really tight, even contest."
Charlton boss Nathan
Jones told BBC Radio London: "It was a tough game, a war of
attrition. We defended our box
excellently and I felt we finished really strongly.
It's evenly poised and it's not a bad place to be. We've got
to win a home game to get to Wembley and I think we'd have taken that. I'm really proud of the performance because
we showed a resilience. Would I have liked us to play a bit more and create a
bit more and show a bit more quality? Yes."
The SLP’s Richard Cawley said: ‘By no means a classic but it
was the Addicks who showed more urgency to win it in the closing stages. Norris
with a couple of key saves. Mannion only had one stop early on from Udoh.
Charlton defence were very good.’
