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Charlton Athletic 2 Derby County 1 Cracking way to start the season. The Addicks came from behind, which we didn’t do at all last season, to beat Derby at The Valley today. Stuff to improve on, but equally a lot to like and I particularly liked the way we won today. The big team news was no Kaminski in the squad. Jones’ comments post match tell you the way this is going to end. Otherwise the opening day team was probably as expected. The bench did look a lot stronger and impactful than last season. It is brave of the manager to move us to a back four and change the formation to one that will enable us to be more imposing in attack, yet I think it is going to take a bit of getting used to, as we will be more open and philosophically a lot less defensive first. Derby‘s goal I feel was an example of that. You can’t blame Lloyd Jones for going for a 40/60 header high up the pitch, but last season he would have had someone behind him to sweep up, but as it was we were very open as Derby swarmed forward and Szmodics was never going to miss. The 1st half was about spells. We started better but for the middle 15 minutes either side of the stupid hydration break we were second best, but we finished the half the stronger especially once TC and Grant swapped wings. Yet Derby created and took their goal and we didn’t. 2nd half it was the reds that dominated though. Derby were neat and tidy and Clark is a very good midfielder, and I was happy to see Szmodics go off, but we were more explosive I felt. That happened once Leaburn and Alli replaced Godden and Carey. Godden struggled with the physicality of Sanderson, and Carey had really flattered to deceive. Grant moved to 10, Alli went to the right and TC was becoming more and more of a threat on the left. On 61 minutes TC was blatantly fouled and Grant’ free-kick was dangerous, but cleared, but his second cross was thumped home by Jones in front of the Covered End. What a great way to celebrate your new contract. It was the interesting to see Jones trust Rankin-Costello who came on for Grant. Within minutes JRC had cleverly fed a ball from his own box to Leaburn, who ran from his own half muscled off a couple of defenders and made his way into the penalty box, where TC took over, did a shimmy and fired into the corner with his left foot. It was a great finish and JRC and Leaburn both deserve a credit for assists. The Valley noise following that goal was deafening, and we had our tails up. On 85 minutes Nathan Jones moved us to a back five with the introduction of Sichenje and Mesik. McNamara was tiring, but I felt he was excellent. Chalobah joined him. I like that we can drop into the five. Jones has retained the players that are comfortable in that role, and I expect we will see this switch a lot this season. Equally despite being behind at the break we continued in a 4–2–3–1 and were able to take the game to Derby and the goals were a reward for that. 8 minutes were added, and there were a couple of edge of the seat moments, but the whistle sounded with the ball close to the Covered End and we had taken all 3 points. 🎙️ “Tonight, I will be exhausted, I will need a bottle of red! But you get the energy from the crowd, the crowd were excellent today. It was a great atmosphere, The Valley was superb and I think – that is my club. And I really love that feeling.” – Nathan Jones ⭐️ Tyreece Campbell 🏟️ 21,539 (3,057 Derby) 📸 ⏭️ Across the river to East London for our first league meeting in almost 20 years with West Ham.