ACADEMY graduate Yado Mambo hopes the coming season will finally be his breakthrough campaign at Charlton after two years of false starts.

The towering centre-back featured in the Addicks' impressive FA Youth Cup quarter-finalist side of 2007/08 alongside current first teamers Scott Wagstaff and Chris Solly, as well as Liverpool star Jonjo Shelvey.

But much like with Wagstaff's senior introduction in 2008, Mambo endured a baptism of fire which reached its lowest ebb in the 4-3 comeback defeat to Shrewsbury, during which the defender scored an own goal.

Saturday's goalless draw with Woking saw Mambo enter a credible 90 minute performance alongside Gary Doherty and the personnel changes at The Valley have left the 19-year-old confident his time to shine may be on the horizon.

He said: “That was my first 90 minutes of pre-season and I thought it was nice.

“Me and Doc made a good combination at the back and it was good to get my first full match of the season under my belt.

“We should have scored and we should have won the game, but these things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“Last season I had a good pre-season but I couldn’t get into the first team because compared to the other guys I had no experience at all.

“But I’m a year older and hopefully this season I can get a few games off the bench and see out the results.

“I work hard and all I want to do is play. I thought I did really well when we went to Spain.

“To be fair I wasn’t really that good on the ball last year and the year before but I’ve been working on that and on timing my headers.

“I try to get on the ball and help out my team as much as possible.

“Hopefully I can feature for the first team and then secure my place in the first team during the season.

“I’ll bide my time and work hard in training and I’ll hopefully get the nod from the gaffer and do well.”

Following the final whistle at Kingfield Stadium, Addicks boss Chris Powell sat his side down on the pitch for their team talk and visibly singled out Mambo for a large portion of his feedback.

And the Kilburn-born teenager revealed his gaffer had plenty of constructive words from one defender to another, explaining: “After the game he told me that I need to be talking to my team-mates all the time.

“I do talk to them but he told me to never get bored of talking.

“He always tells me that I’ll probably get sick of him telling me this, but never get bored of talking.

“It’s good advice so fair enough, in my position I can see everything, so I’ve got to talk, it’s my job.”

Mambo also told of how his rough start to first team duties at Charlton led to him encountering similar experiences to team-mates Simon Francis and the departed Alan McCormack from angered fans on social networking site Twitter.

He said: “Twitter is a fun website but you need to watch what you say sometimes.

“The gaffer hasn’t really set any rules about us using Twitter yet.

“None of us have done anything really stupid because as professionals we need to know what to say.

“I’ve had some abuse come my way on there.

“One guy once said to me that I should die. I thought that was a bit harsh.”

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