Talking points after Charlton Athletic enjoyed their opening weekend in the Championship

Addicks unbeaten in 17 home league matches at The Valley with summer signing Rob Apter producing eye-catching debut

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

Charlton Athletic’s last Championship match before Saturday had been a 4-0 loss to Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United at Elland Road in July 2020.

When you have waited five years for a return to England’s second tier, any kind of victory would have done the job just fine, even if it had been unjust or incredibly scrappy. But this was a match that the Addicks deserved to win when you consider that Watford goalkeeper Egil Selvik had to make a couple of very smart saves to deny Lloyd Jones in the opening 45 minutes.

Selvik was also in the right place to frustrate Sonny Carey and Charlie Kelman after the restart, the latter getting the slightest of touches on Tyreece Campbell’s strike.

Harvey Knibbs celebrates his goal in front of the Covered End

Picture: Paul Edwards

Watford’s best chance was their late penalty shout (we’ll get on to that a bit further down this article) but aside from that they really struggled to create much of any note. Thomas Kaminski did not have a notable save to make.