
Reece Burke scored his first goal for Charlton in a 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday
Charlton returned to winning ways at The Valley to send troubled Sheffield Wednesday bottom of the Championship.
Goals from Sonny Carey and defender Reece Burke had the Addicks in control by half-time and even though Wednesday rallied as Jamal Lowe's opportunist goal got them back in the game, they had goalkeeper Ethan Horvath sent-off in added time as they fell to another defeat.
The loss, coupled with neighbours Sheffield United's win over Watford, means the Owls go bottom of the table in a week when it was revealed that they face a winding-up petition over an unpaid £1m HMRC bill.
Victory sees Charlton bounce back from defeat at Preston before the international break and move to the fringes of the play-off places in ninth.
Charlton are on a fine run of form at The Valley, winning 15 of their last 19 home games, and in the first half the result rarely looked in doubt as they pressed Henrik Pedersen's side back, although Lowe's free header straight at Addicks keeper Thomas Kaminski was the best chance of the opening stages.
The hosts moved ahead as Carey began and ended a move which brought him his third goal in as many home games.
He fed Tyreece Campbell and went for the return, which he duly received before firing too close to Horvath. The Owls goalkeeper parried, but the ball unfortunately struck his foot and sat up nicely for Carey to lift his second attempt over him and into the net.
Wednesday's season has been one of problem upon turmoil upon problem, with wages going unpaid for the fifth time in seven months, five separate EFL embargoes and a player exodus forcing Pedersen to scrape teams together, and it got worse as defender Dominic Iorfa was forced off through injury after 35 minutes.
Things got worse in first-half added time as the cultured right foot of James Bree proved effective once more. The Southampton loanee came up with his third assist of the season, sending a free-kick perfectly into the path of Burke's run, the defender powering in a header for his first Charlton goal since joining from Luton Town in the summer.
Wednesday have shown no shortage of resilience and fight despite their difficulties, and backed by more than 3,100 travelling fans they staged another attempted comeback in the second half.
They were back in it when Sean Fusire's shot bounced back off a post, struck Kaminski and dropped nicely for Lowe to lift the ball over the goalkeeper for his third league goal of the season.
Ike Ugbo's diving header skewed wide as the Wednesday fans behind the goal grew in belief but the game was up deep in added time as Horvath raced out of his goal, missed the ball and heavily took out Charlton substitute Isaac Olaofe.
Referee Tom Reeves appeared to miss the offence but after consulting with an assistant, he waited for Horvath to receive treatment before producing a red card.
Defender Liam Palmer took over in goal for the final few moments of the game.
'Full respect to the boys' - reaction
Pedersen: 'A fantastic second half'
Sheffield Wednesday manager Henrik Pedersen told BBC Radio Sheffield:
"The boys delivered a fantastic second half. To be in this situation, 2-0 down, and deliver a second half like this, full respect to the boys.
"But we also have to learn that we need to be so brave from the beginning of the first half, because it was a very tight, equal first half, with a lot of second ball and basic Championship things.
"We could compete with them, more or less, but the first goal was a little present, and the second a set-piece. Besides this, we could compete very well but to win football games we need the bravery we had in the second half for 95 minutes.
"We made small changes [at half-time] but it was not the changes it was the character and the belief, and tactical discipline."
Jones 'delighted' to win
Charlton manager Nathan Jones told BBC Radio London:
"I'm delighted that we won because you come out of these international breaks and never know what you're going to get. People have had two weeks off, you've had internationals who have travelled around the world, you never know.
"First half we were good. We scored two goals and with a little bit more killer instinct we'd have scored more. Charlie [Kelman] has had two situations where he could score, [James] Bree has put in some wonderful balls that, again, we could score from - two was the least we should have had.
"We warned [our players] at half-time because we've watched them [Wednesday] a number of times and they've been 2-0 down twice and come back to 2-2, and they should have won the Wrexham 3-2 or 4-2 so we knew there was a sting in the tail if we didn't do what we did.
"We almost had that but we saw the game out really well and came strong late on."
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