Addicks survive late scare to secure point

Charlton remained 17th after tonight;s 0-0 draw with Queens Park Rangers at The Valley, but edged four points above the relegation positions.

Both keepers made vital saves and 'last ditch' Dykes lived up to his name when he cleared a potential Super Hoops stoppage time winner off the line.

QPR did not manage a shot on target in the first half, but were stronger towards the end of the game.

The hosts went closest early on and Walsh did well to save Luke Chambers' free-kick at his near post before he made a fantastic point-blank stop with his trailing left leg to deny Coady on the former England man's second Addicks appearance.

Dykes and Sonny Carey each also had a couple of efforts and it was all Charlton.

But Walsh frustrated them almost single-handedly and he touched over a right-foot shot from ex-Ranger Charlie Kelman before foiling another Chambers effort.

Walsh denied Dykes again after the interval, parrying his right-foot volley and Dunne knocked the loose ball behind as the striker tried to pounce on the rebound.

Rangers badly missed their injured 10-goal top scorer Rumarn Burrell but still almost nicked the three points during a rousing finale in stoppage time.

Thomas Kaminski made a fine stop to keep out a Rayan Kolli effort, while Steve Cook and Richard Kone went close with headers before Dykes hacked a Dunne header, deflected off Carey, off the line.

Narhan Jones said: "In the last eight minutes I'm happy with a point, in the previous 90 minutes I'm really disappointed we haven't won the game.

"I thought we were really good first half, just without having that cutting edge quality to have scored one or two - that can happen.    In the second half we had some really good chances, their keeper made some good saves, and then we stopped doing the things we were good at and allowed them to come into the game.

"I thought their subs had a greater effect than ours, they had a couple of chances, cleared one off the line, that would have been a travesty."

The Covered End regaled the visiting fans with a chant of 'You're just a bus stop in Fulham.'

I had thought that Lord Toby Young might use his Spectator column today to have a pop at Charlton.  After all his fellow columnist and Millwall supporter Rod Liddle drags out his tired old tropes about anoraks and train spotters from time to time.

However, Rick Everitt's adversary had other matters to comment on having been named in the Epstein files   Others must judge whether his defence was as watertight as that of his team tonight: as various sources called for him to be investigated, he claimed that the person he knew was Maxwell and she got him into Epstein's contact book.