Impressive Charlton brush aside Blackburn to continue strong start

Charlton continued their impressive start to life back in the Championship with an emphatic 3-0 win at home to Blackburn.

Macaulay Gillesphey, Sonny Carey and James Bree were on target as the hosts made it back-to-back wins following last weekend’s victory at Sheffield United.

Nathan Jones’ side have had few issues in adapting to life back in the second tier and their defensive solidity has been a huge strength. They have kept four clean sheets in their opening seven league fixtures.

The match got off to a scrappy start before the Addicks finished the first half firmly in the ascendancy.

Gillesphey, who scored the winning goal in the League One play-off final against Leyton Orient in May, broke the deadlock in the 31st minute.

The defender had been brought on to replace Josh Edwards, who sustained what appeared to be an ankle injury in a challenge with Ryan Alebiosu, and met Bree’s cross with a fine header back across Rovers goalkeeper Balazs Toth and into the right-hand corner of the net.

From that moment onward, the outcome never looked in doubt.

Blackburn took 34 minutes to test Thomas Kaminski at the other end, but even then Yuki Ohashi’s ambitious shot from outside the area was an easy save.

Toth had to come sharply off his line to prevent Tyreece Campbell latching on to Charlie Kelman’s pass.

Blackburn’s unimpressive opening 45 minutes was summed up by a terrible free-kick from Harry Pickering which comfortably cleared the crossbar.

Charlton had another couple of chances just before the break, with Campbell heading Carey’s cross wide at the near post and Toth making a frantic one-handed save to keep out Lloyd Jones’ close-range header.

The Addicks threatened to extend their advantage early in the second half.

Toth was called into action again to deny Charlton captain Greg Docherty, while Campbell produced a curling right-footed attempt narrowly past a post.

Reece Burke was guilty of a glaring miss for the hosts in the 70th minute, lashing over after Toth could only parry Carey’s fierce strike out to the centre-back.

Charlton finally made their dominance count in the 78th minute as Carey scored his second goal of the campaign, thumping a powerful effort past Toth from substitute Isaac Olaofe’s pass.

Southampton loanee Bree capped a highly impressive performance with the third goal in added time as he produced a first-time finish to drive home Docherty’s cross from just inside the area.