Josh Cullen on Charlton’s upcoming ‘cup finals’ and the importance of Saturday’s win

Midfielder Josh Cullen believes that Charlton’s last-gasp victory over Accrington Stanley on Saturday could prove crucial come the end of the season. 

The Addicks were largely frustrated by their dogged visitors until, three minutes into stoppage time, Daniel Barlaser was penalised for handling a Ben Reeves shot inside the penalty area.

Karlan Grant converted the spot-kick to fire the Addicks to their tenth home league victory of the season and Cullen reckons the win rewarded his team for their persistence. 

“We’ve shown on quite a few occasions that we’ll keep going right until the death,” said Cullen, who made his return from a shoulder injury at the weekend.

“We did it again on Saturday. I think it will be days like that where you battle, fight and nick a one-nil win that you’ll probably look back on at the end of the season, wherever we end up, and think that was a day where it was a crucial three points.”

The Addicks now sit just four points behind league-leaders Portsmouth, albeit having played a game more. With 17 league matches remaining, Cullen insists that every game will be huge between now and the end of the season.

He said: “All we can do is keep looking at our games. I know Portsmouth and Luton have still got to come here [to The Valley]. 

“We’ve got to keep doing our business, hopefully they’ll slip up, and we’ll be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

“From now on, every game is a big game. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing Peterborough, Luton or, no disrespect, a team that’s in mid-table like Accrington. 

“Whoever we’re playing now, we’ve got to treat it as a cup final. We can’t afford to slip up. We’ve still got ground to make up and we’ve got to make sure that we take care and win as many of these games as we can.”

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