Charlton's woes continue with heavy Brentford loss
A well-taken goal and and two assists from Alan Judge earned Brentford a comfortable 3-0 away victory over Charlton and piled more pressure on Addicks manager Guy Luzon.
The defeat means Charlton are second from bottom in the Sky Bet Championship, losing seven and winning none of their last nine games.
Other than the first 15 minutes, visiting Brentford were far superior and caretaker-manager Lee Carsley fully-deserved his third win on the bounce.
Striker John Swift opened the scoring for the visitors with a 26th-minute header and Judge's delightful curling effort on 55 minutes made it 2-0.
Second-half substitute Lasse Vibe then added a third five minutes from time to lift Brentford up to 12th in the league standings.
At times Brentford displayed the stylish and incisive football that took them to the play-offs last season while the impressive Judge was so often the focal point of their attacks.
Charlton, in contrast, looked like a team in need of inspiration.
They created and spurned three decent chances in the opening 15 minutes but after that, and unfortunately for their sparse home support, that was them spent as an attacking force. For the remainder, they looked like a team waiting to be beaten and Brentford took full advantage.
Luzon's side have been notorious for their slow starts this season and are one of only three teams in the Championship not to score in the first 15 minutes.
Franck Moussa had a golden chance to break that run after just four minutes but the unmarked Belgian was woefully off target from 10 yards after a nice cross from Tony Watt.
Two minutes later Johann Gudmundsson fired straight at away goalkeeper David Button after further good work from Watt.
Watt himself, who proved quite the handful in the opening minutes, then shaved the outside of the post with a low angled effort across the face of goal.
Judge has comfortably been Brentford's best player lately and only Blackburn's Craig Conway has set up more in the league this season, but the Irishman also has six goals in 12 matches following last week's double against Rotherham.
And Brentford opened the scoring on 26 minutes. The lively Judge added another assist to his tally as he whipped in an inviting cross from the right and Swift all too easily planted his header beyond Stephen Henderson.
It could have been worse for the home side as shortly before half-time Alan McCormack's pile-driver from 25 yards smacked the crossbar after he was teed up by Marco Djuricin.
A response from Charlton failed to materialise after the break and Judge added a second when he advanced to the edge of the box and clipped a lovely effort into the top corner.
Charlton were all out of fight and Vibe landed the knockout blow when he latched on to Judge's inch-perfect pass and beat Henderson at the near post.
Source: PA
