It was ever thus

Sonny Carey gave the Addicks the lead against Millwall with his first goal for the club as he smashed into the corner in the first half.  But Kayne Ramsay was sent off for a second yellow card with less than 20 minutes remaining and the visitors made Charlton pay as they so often have done.

Ra'ees Bangura-Williams came off the bench to Millwall's rescue, having a goal disallowed for handball before netting the equaliser with two minutes left of normal time.

What the first meeting between these two sides since July 2020 lacked in goalmouth action in the early stages, it made up for in passion and intensity with the pace unrelenting.   Both sides looked dangerous in wide areas without producing any real efforts of note until Charlton winger Rob Apter tried to bend one from distance, with the ball looping up off a defender and almost dropping over Steven Benda, just clipping the bar.

The hosts' goal came from the corner that followed. Benda made a strong connection to punch away Conor Coventry's in swinger but the ball went straight to Carey, whose first touch created space to fire the ball through a sea of players into the bottom corner.

The turning point came after 74 minutes when Ramsay lunged in late on Aidomo Emakhu, having already been booked, giving referee Bobby Madley no option but to pull out the red card.

Millwall made the extra player count and thought they'd equalised when Bangura-Williams, impressive after coming off the bench, took the ball down in the box and smashed it into the top corner with Thomas Kaminski well beaten.

But referee Madley was well placed to see the ball strike his hand first touch before the accomplished finish.

The 21-year-old was not to be denied again though as he finished off a Millwall move. Joe Bryan's expert pass found Luke Cundle in the middle and the midfielder's shot was parried back into the box by Kaminski, with Bangura-Williams quickest to react as he buried it into the bottom-right corner.

Neither side was able to find a winner in five added minutes.

Sanguine supremo Nathan Jones said: "I'm proud of the performance because it took a red card for us to draw the game. We were comfortable and I didn't see us conceding today.   Once we got the goal I just wanted to get the next one, which we couldn't do. It was going to take something – like a set-play or a moment of madness to concede and we got a moment of madness.

"When you are on a booking and you lunge in then you know you are risking something. You have to be cleverer than that. Top defenders stay on their feet and make people work for something – when they go to ground, it is a last resort or they know they can win it.   It is a learning curve for him. He's a young boy and he has so much ability, he has been outstanding for us. That was categorically the turning point.

"We should have had six points from our last two home games but we took one. We're comfortable at the level."