Michael Appleton was delighted with his side’s performance at Barnsley on Saturday afternoon, telling CharltonTV that only refereeing decisions stopped his side from claiming all three points.
“For pretty much the majority of the game today, performance-wise, we were excellent,” he said. “Created numerous opportunities, had them on the back foot for a lot of the game. So I’ve got to be delighted from that point of view.”
“You can always tell when players know they played well, and they know they played well today.”
“We’ve just been let down. There’s no other way of putting it,” he continued. “It’s very, very difficult to take because we should be walking away with a 1-0 victory at the absolute least.”
Barnsley’s opener came from a situation by the corner flag where the ball appeared to go out of play, but the referee waved play on and the Tykes went ahead. Appleton called the decision “inexcusable”.
“Everyone thought the ball went out of play,” he said. “It’s just a horrendous refereeing call.”
The Addicks did not feel sorry for themselves, and the boss was delighted with his side’s response.
“It was really positive at half time because we knew were on top, we knew we were the far better side,” he explained. “We came out the blocks right in the first minute in the second half. We were on the front foot, we had a ball across their box in the first 60 seconds and that set the tone again.”
Charlton have had an excellent record at home this season, but have at times struggled on the road. Appleton can now point to some excellent performances away from the Valley.
“There have been some big away games now,” he said. “We go and turn over Wigan and play ever so well. We come back in the game at Pompey. We do ever so well here today, play well and dominate the game.”
The Addicks are also on a six-game unbeaten run in the league, and the boss believes it will not be long until his side can turn one point into three on a consistent basis.
“We’d like a couple of those draws to be wins but I do believe that, over a period of time, if you continue in the vein that we are doing at this moment in time then draws will turn into wins.”
