Dean Holden was pleased with his side’s counter-attacking play as the Addicks ran out 3-1 winners at Gillingham on Tuesday evening.
“The pleasing thing was the goals we scored,” he said in his post-match interview with CharltonTV. “If you look at the first goal, we turned the ball over just outside our box and within three passes you’ve got Tyreece Campbell on the edge of their box.
“For the second goal we get Corey [Blackett-Taylor] isolated which is exactly where you want him,” he continued. “And the third one’s brilliant from a counter-attacking point of view. Ash catches it and, again, three or four passes later Nathan Asiimwe is here on the goal line crossing it.
“The ability to get through the pitch quickly is something we’re drilling into the team. Some of the players are used to a more possession-based style, from most of last season, so we keep banging the drum with that.”
Despite Campbell’s goal signalling a great start for Charlton, the gaffer wasn’t too pleased with the first-half performance: “From 10 minutes until half-time we were too passive. We sat too deep, we allowed them to get the ball up the pitch too quickly and we didn’t compete physically enough to win second balls. We gave ourselves some problems.”
He was, however, pleased with how side reacted. “The message at half-time was that we needed to get 10 yards higher up the pitch,” he said. “We needed our forward players higher to put pressure on their defenders. We did that second half.”
Holden provided some good news on the fitness of two of his centre-backs: “[Michael] Hector’s fine. He got a kick in the game against Orient so we’re just making sure he’s fine. There’s no point risking him, he’ll play at the weekend.”
“Lloyd [Jones] is getting close now,” the boss added. “He’s had three or four training sessions but he’s already showing what a good player he can be. He’s very committed in terms of the way that he trains every day, setting good standards for the rest of the new players.”
(Article by Jamie Barton)
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