Charlton head coach Michael Appleton praised the ice-cool finishing of Alfie May as his took his season’s goal tally to 17 with a double to down his former club Cheltenham at The Valley.
May was signed in the summer from the Robins to score goals. That is exactly what he is doing – and at a prolific rate.
The Charlton striker’s brace against his old employer means that he now has 29 league goals in 2023 – a figure only matched in England by Manchester City’s Erling Haaland.
May struck twice from the penalty spot to see off Cheltenham.
Appleton said: “It’s difficult for him because he knows them so well – whether it is the goalkeeper or the outfield players. There was certainly more pressure on him tonight than there probably would be against anyone else.
“For him to have the calmness and nerves of steel to slot the two penalties away just speaks volumes of him.
“I keep reading that I’m not playing him in the right position but he’s doing alright considering that because he has scored a lot of goals from there and he looked like he could have got two or three more in that first half.
“He’s in a good place and I’m glad he’s in a good place because when he is then he is hard to stop.
“It’s the most satisfying victory since I’ve been here. We didn’t get off to the start we would’ve liked and it was a poor goal from our point of view to concede – for lots of reasons.
“After that we should have been out of sight by half-time with the amount of opportunities we had. I know the keeper made some good saves but we have to be more clinical in front of goal than what we have been tonight and certainly that first half – but the players held their nerve and limited them to very little, especially second half.”
Town saw their three-game unbeaten run in the league ended despite taking a 10th-minute lead through Will Goodwin’s header.
Lewis Freestone tripped Miles Leaburn for the first penalty, with Will Ferry deemed to have handled Tyreece Campbell’s cross for the second. #
Manager Darrell Clarke said: “When you come to places like Charlton you need the rub of the green – one or two decisions to go your way – and it didn’t quite happen.
“We started the game really well and then gave a really sloppy penalty away, we shouldn’t be diving in there.
“It’s a frustrated changing room. We thought it was a foul in the lead-up to the second penalty and he’s never going to try and deliberately handball it there.
“If we’d have got the second goal it would’ve made it interesting. I said to the boys we can’t afford to be too downbeat. We have got to stay positive. The lads have given me everything and that’s all you can ask.
“We’ve got a big squad but lacking a little bit of quality, rather than quantity. That will be the way it is until the window opens.
“We are massive underdogs in every game we play.”
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
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