Nathan Jones hailed his Charlton side after they capped off a tough trio of fixtures against League One promotion rivals with a hard-fought away point in the goalless draw at Stockport.
County’s Kyle Wootton came closest to breaking the deadlock at Edgeley Park by striking the bar after half-time and also forced Charlton stopper Will Mannion into a low save.
But after claiming seven points from their last nine on offer following wins against Barnsley and Leyton Orient in the past week, Addicks boss Jones was pleased with his side’s efforts.
He said: “It’s outstanding. I’d have taken that all day long against three promotion rivals, two away games, having to do that bit of travelling, and absolutely that’s a wonderful return. I’m proud of my team.
“The game lacked a bit of quality, but it had bags of endeavour.
“I thought we were decent in the first half. We dealt with so much and then we had probably the best opportunities, and then second half, they probably edged, so it’s a fair point.
“We’re the away team so the onus is on them to win that game, but it was important we didn’t get beat, that we stood up to that and we showed different elements in our qualities.
“We’ve been very fluent in recent weeks, we’ve been electric, we’ve been aggressive in terms of how we play. Today we had to show a real battling quality and I thought we did that against a very tough side.”
Stockport boss Dave Challinor admitted the encounter was a poor watch and ultimately lacked quality, but took some positives.
He said: “I spoke to the players at half-time and the game panned out in the way that I said it would.
“I think it was a game of zero quality. It was a really poor game for two teams that are much, much better than that.
“It reminded me of a play-off type game where it’s difficult, but players on both teams weren’t really brave enough to be the one that maybe made the mistake that led to something and that wasn’t a good watch – it wasn’t an enjoyable watch at all because I think we’re better than that.
“I knew it would be a tight game and if you had told me that the game would be 0-0 but we’d have seen the best versions of us and we’d have seen the best versions of them, then maybe I wouldn’t be stood here saying it.
“I’m not by any way taking away from the point, it’s valuable, the clean sheet is good for us, but not a good watch.”
