REACTION | Declan Rudd pleased to contribute to Good Friday draw

George Jones reports

Declan Rudd was pleased to play his part in Charlton’s 1-1 draw at Coventry City on Good Friday.

The goalkeeper made a string of fantastic saves at the Ricoh Arena, which prevented the Sky Blues from recording their fifth win in six matches.

Afterwards, Manager Karl Robinson singled out Rudd as his Man of the Match and the goalkeeper was delighted to have helped his side to rise a place in the League One table.

“I’d much rather do nothing and keep a clean sheet,” he said. “I’m just happy to make some saves and do what my job was today, which was to try and keep us in the game.

“The last month or so, a lot of stuff has gone against us, we haven’t got the rub of the green and today it was good to be involved and make a few saves.  

“Our league position is in the back of your mind because we have put ourselves into a very bad position that we should never be in.

“As a squad we know that, as a club we know that, and us as players have put ourselves into a position where we have basically been dragged into a relegation battle because of our results.

“The last two games were huge for us, in terms of results, and now we are six points above the relegation zone with three games to go.

“We’re still not mathematically safe yet, so need to make sure we go out there on Monday [against Gillingham], get a win and finish the season with a bit of momentum.

The Addicks named an unchanged side for the match - the first time they’ve been able to do so in over five months – and Rudd believes that gaining some continuity on the pitch will only help them to record some positive results in their final three matches of the season.

He said: “You need to build relationships with your centre-backs and your full-backs but we have been very unlucky with injuries.

“I think every time we’ve had a game, we’ve had to bring in a new player due to a different injury or through having to rest players because of the number of games we’ve had.

“Jason Pearce coming back into the back four brings leadership and that desire to not let the ball go into the goal. We’ve got four points from our last two games, which is better than our form previously.”

The stopper - on a season-long loan deal from Norwich City – was also asked about his future but he is only focusing on the Addicks’ remaining three matches of the season.

He said: “I wish I could tell you about my future. Norwich haven’t got a manager at the moment, so there isn’t much talk happening there.

“I’ve had my head fully focused on this run we’ve had to make sure that we don’t go down as a club.

“I’ll think about my future when the season has finished. There are still three important games to go because we need to start building for next season. If we can end the season with some good results then the momentum will be there.”