Michael Appleton was frustrated that his side did not show enough killer instinct to take all three points on their visit to Carlisle United on Saturday afternoon.
“Once you go a goal ahead you think, ‘okay, go on and really punish them.’ And we weren’t capable of doing that today,” he told CharltonTV.
“Maybe that’s where we are as a group. Some of the teams at the top end of the table, when they go ahead they know how to kill a game and put a team to bed. Maybe we’re just on that sort of journey at the minute trying to figure out what that looks like.
“Their keeper had to make quite a few saves,” he continued. “Although some of them at times were quite routine, he still spilled them. Your first movement has to be towards goal when you see your teammates have a shot.
“Anything can happen - they can hit the post, the keeper could save it, it could be blocked - and we didn’t have that in enough areas today. Hopefully we can improve that on Tuesday.”
Other than his side’s difficulties in the Carlisle box, the boss was pleased with his players’ performances. “I thought we dominated the majority of the game in terms of chances, possession etc.,” he said. “I thought we were good first half. They tried to slow the momentum of the game down a little bit, but I thought the players looked like they were enjoying themselves.”
Having said that, Appleton felt his defence switched off for the Blues’ equaliser. “I’m disappointed a little bit with the lack of concentration for their goal because I didn’t really see them being too much of a threat other than that,” he said.
It is two consecutive draws on the road in League One for Charlton, but Appleton pointed out that they felt quite different: “We went to Pompey it felt like a win and there’s a little bit of this that feels slightly like a defeat.”
The Head Coach is already looking ahead to a return to The Valley, starting on Tuesday with the visit of the Robins.
“We’ve got two home games coming up in Cheltenham and Cambridge and hopefully we can get maximum points,” he concluded.
