Dowie: "Toon Were As Relieved As Us"

Last updated : 29 October 2006 By Footy Mad - Editor
 

Goal-less draw, and not a match for the purist. But Charlton boss Iain Dowie was delighted with a third successive clean sheet which earned a fifth league point of the season, although it was very much "backs to the wall" for his troops for the full 90 minutes.

Dowie: "We played very well last week and probably did not get what we deserved; today we played nowhere near as well and maybe could have nicked it at the end. Sometimes you have got to show resilience and I felt in the last 40 minutes, we were very, very resilient.

"You cannot have the keeper make five or six saves and them hit the bar and not be relieved. But they might be relieved late in the game when we had good opportunities.

"It is a massive club. I played here many a time and and did not go home with anything, so we have got a point and we will build on that. We have had three clean sheets and a victory and two draws in a week is not bad, as long as we build on it next week. We rode our luck in the first half but we have had many a game where the luck has gone against us.

"In the second half we were more resilient and had arguably the best chance of the second half. We crept into the game and started to restrict Newcastle to a lot of direct play but we did not play well enough to win. We were not good enough on the ball."