By Paul Green at The Valley
NATHAN Jones said his side “thoroughly deserved it” after Harvey Knibbs grabbed a dramatic stoppage-time winner to ensure Charlton Athletic began life back in the Championship with a 1-0 Valley victory over Watford on Saturday afternoon.
The game appeared to be heading for a stalemate until a late Conor Coventry corner was nodded back across goal by Lloyd Jones to substitute Knibbs, who made no mistake with a clinical finish from close range to send the majority of the 21,778 attendance into raptures.
Watford had seen a big penalty shout ignored just a couple of minutes earlier, but it was summer capture Knibbs who settled an even contest in the fourth minute of added-time.
Jones accepted the Hornets should have been awarded a spot-kick after Thomas Kaminski appeared to upend Nestory Irankanda.
But the Charlton boss was quick to point out his side had also been denied twice for second-half fouls, most notably for what looked a blatant 55th-minute foul by Jeremy Ngakia on Josh Edwards and a later claim by substitute Isaac Olaofe.
Jones said: “The Kaminski one is a penalty for them, but we should have had two.
“Josh Edwards’ is stonewall – he touched it and gets taken out. And then Tanto is in the box and gets pulled back, which knocks him off balance.
“Three penalties should have been given today, but we should have had two and they should have had one.
“So if you want to have an argument then fine, get the footage up, have a look and that’s exactly the tale of it.”
Jones also felt his side merited their three points after Hornets goalkeeper Egil Selvik produced some top saves, notably from Jones twice and also Sonny Carey.
“Realistically, we limited a very good side to one shot on target, we had twelve with five on target,” Jones said.
“The [Watford] keeper I thought was excellent. That’s the level.
“The save from Lloyd Jones is outstanding and then he stood big for Sonny Carey.
“It’s a wonderful day and we deserved that.”
The win will certainly be a memorable one for Knibbs, who came on with ten minutes left to replace Edwards on his first appearance since sealing a £2.1million switch from Reading.
“That’s why he cost the money, that’s why we pushed all summer for that,” Jones said. “We took our recruitment very seriously in terms of everything we did and I thought we were excellent.
“The new boys today were outstanding. Harvey and Charlie [Kelman] have played zero football really because of the protracted transfers.
“But in terms of everyone I’m really happy with everyone’s performance today and we will get better.”
Jones added: “Any kind of win would have been perfect. It took us about ten minutes to settle. They played a bit of possession football and we didn’t get the press right.
“Then once we got to grips with the game I thought we were excellent.
“We created chances, their keeper has made some excellent saves.
“I thought we were excellent and thoroughly deserved it.”
