Charlton's Perfect Start Continues with Win Over West Ham
Charlton’s perfect start to the Championship season rolled on in east London, and this one will sting West Ham for a while.
Nathan Jones’ side walked into a hostile London Stadium, raced into a two-goal lead and then clung on through a frantic finale to beat the pre-season promotion favourites 2-1 – leaving Nuno Espirito Santo facing rising scrutiny and a furious home crowd.
Jones’ overhead lights the fuse
The tone was set early. Seven minutes in, from what looked a fairly routine long throw, Charlton struck with a goal that belonged in a highlight reel rather than a set-piece manual.
Sonny Carey launched the ball into the area, Lloyd Jones cushioned it on his chest and, with his back to goal, the Addicks captain improvised an overhead finish that flew past Mads Hermansen. One touch to control, one to stun 62,000 home fans.
West Ham tried to answer. Manor Solomon cut in from the flank and drove a shot towards the bottom corner, only for Billy Koumetio to hurl himself in the way and head it behind. It summed up Charlton’s first-half defending: aggressive, committed, just on the right side of desperate.
The visitors could easily have been out of sight before the break. Tyreece Campbell mugged Kyle Walker-Peters in midfield and launched a counter that ended with Miles Leaburn clipping the crossbar from the edge of the box. Carey then burst through on the right but, with Campbell free to his left, chose to shoot at Hermansen’s near post and wasted a golden opening.
West Ham, for all their possession, barely laid a glove on Arthur Okonkwo. The on-loan Wrexham goalkeeper, thrown straight into Charlton’s XI after signing on Thursday, had one routine save to make before the interval – a Taty Castellanos header from Ollie Scarles’ cross that went straight at him in stoppage time.
The pre-season favourites had the ball. Charlton had the threat.
Campbell punishes, Piroe responds
If Nuno wanted a reaction after the break, he got the opposite. Charlton smelled weakness and went for it.
On 56 minutes, Konstantinos Mavropanos hesitated under pressure from Leaburn and paid for it. The Charlton forward robbed him, the ball broke to Campbell, and the winger drilled a ruthless low finish across Hermansen into the bottom-right corner. Clinical. 2-0. The away end exploded.
Only then did West Ham finally start to test Okonkwo properly.
On the hour, Joel Piroe – one of two debutants alongside Arne Engels – spun on the edge of the box and unleashed a low drive. Okonkwo flung out a strong right hand to push it away. Moments later, Castellanos peeled off his marker and met another teasing Scarles cross, this time glancing his header just wide of the far post.
The pressure grew, and eventually it broke Charlton’s resistance.
In the 74th minute, Castellanos forced Okonkwo into another save with a powerful effort. The rebound fell to Piroe, who had just missed a close-range header, and the Dutchman made no mistake second time around, slamming the ball into the net to mark his first West Ham appearance with a goal. Suddenly, the stadium woke up. Charlton were rocking.
Okonkwo, though, refused to fold. When substitute Divine Mukasa – freshly arrived on loan from Manchester City – let fly late on, the Charlton keeper leapt to tip the ball over the bar with a brilliant one-handed stop.
At the other end, Joe Rankin-Costello almost killed the game on the break, only for Hermansen to block with his legs. It kept West Ham alive. Barely.
Late drama and a brutal miss
Deep into stoppage time, the drama peaked.
A West Ham attack ended with the ball striking Conor Coventry’s arm in the box. Referee Andrew Kitchen pointed to the spot. Up stepped Castellanos, with the chance to rescue a point and ease some of the heat on his manager.
He went low to the right. The ball smacked the base of the post and bounced away. Silence, then groans. Charlton’s players sank to their knees in relief. West Ham’s striker stared at the turf.
“We trust Taty to take the penalties,” Nuno said afterwards, refusing to hang his forward out to dry. “We started badly again. We got punished from a situation where we know Charlton create problems. We had a lot of possession and tried to break them, which is not easy. We should have finished better.”
He did not duck the bigger issue either. “Of course, I feel under pressure. West Ham is pressure every day – it is a big club. You see that with 62,000 fans in the stands and we let them down.”
Jones’ Charlton look the real deal
For Nathan Jones, this wasn’t a cup shock or a one-off surge of adrenaline. It was, in his words, “the norm now” – the standard he expects in the Championship.
“We had to be very organised and good tactically,” he said. “First half we were excellent, countered really well and probably could have created a little more with better decisions in the final third. But I'm so proud how they have gone about their work and defended the box.”
Lloyd Jones, already dominant in both penalty areas, added a spectacular goal to his defensive display. “Do we demand from Lloyd Jones to score more goals? Yeah,” his manager smiled. “In both boxes he is one of, if not the best, for first contacts in the Championship.”
Campbell delivered exactly what Jones has been drilling into him. “That is exactly what we want from Tyreece and what we work on,” he added. “We have been demanding those outcomes when he gets into those positions.”
And then there was Okonkwo, whose late heroics underlined why Charlton moved so quickly to bring him in. “Arthur Okonkwo was outstanding,” Jones said. “It's wonderful to work with him. He has shown real desire to join the football club.”
Charlton walk away with three points, a perfect record and a statement win in a stadium that expects Premier League football again soon.
West Ham leave with a missed penalty, a manager under pressure and an early, uncomfortable question: are they really built for the promotion fight everyone assumed they would lead?
