Charlton vs Wolves match report: Danny Batth's header keeps Wolves snapping at heels of front-runners

Charlton 1 Wolves 1

Danny Batth, left, celebrates his equaliser for Wolves at Charlton (Getty)

Although Wolverhampton Wanderers scored 89 goals last season in running away with the League One title, no individual managed more than 12 and supporters have been urging their manager, Kenny Jackett, to sign an extra striker. For a time last night it looked as if wastefulness in attack – notably by the former Charlton loanee Leon Clarke – would lead to a first defeat in five games but the captain and centre-half Danny Batth deservedly headed an equaliser 20 minutes into the second half.

Another defender, Andre Bikey-Amougou, had put Charlton in front, also from a corner but they were pushed back for most of the second half and could not complain about surrendering points at The Valley for the first time this season. Both teams remain among the front-runners without putting significant pressure on the leaders.

Both also attempted to play passing football in a lively game, the frequent loss of possession only adding to the entertainment and prompting quick counter-attacks.

Bikey-Amougou, once of Reading, Burnley and Middlesbrough, celebrated his first goal for the club with a double somersault even more impressive than the side-footed volley with which he turned Jordan Cousins’s corner high into the net.

It came at a time when the visitors had fought their way back into the game after a sluggish start, during which Charlton’s new strikers Igor Vetokele and George Tucudean looked threatening.

As the Wolves bared their teeth, however, Lee Evans twice drove narrowly wide from outside the penalty area and, 10 minutes after the goal, George Saville struck the inside of a post. Stephen Henderson in Charlton’s goal may have managed the merest touch to the shot and he was kept busy. Clarke, however, missed badly from Nouha Dicko’s cutback.

The home side were subdued until the last few minutes, when Franck Moussa and Vetokele both touched the ball too far forward when sent through. They suffered a blow right at the end when Vetokele was taken off with a suspected broken arm