Ahead of Saturday’s clash against Leyton Orient at The Valley, Nathan Jones gave CharltonTV the rundown on his side's start to the 2024/25 campaign.
“It’s too early to really give a full assessment,” he said. “We’ve had a decent pre-season, we’ve got off to a good start with a win. We haven’t reached sharpness or fluency yet and we know that, but the squad’s in a decent place fitness-wise and athletically. After 10 games you probably have a better gauge.”
The boss tasted home defeat for the first time as Charlton Manager on Tuesday night against Birmingham City, but Jones explained that he saw a lot that he liked in that game.
“We created enough situations and stuff we’ve worked on,” he said. “We’ll debrief and show them that we had four chances in the first 30 minutes against a very, very good side, and missed a penalty. You’re not going to absolutely roll over teams straight away, especially teams that are very, very good. They are the biggest in terms of spenders, in terms of coming down from the Championship.
“We’ll get better with time, with more work and with more confidence, of course. But I’m relatively pleased with the situation where we are, and if I had to win one of the two games, I know which one I would have chosen.”
Jones also provided an injury update: “Injury-wise, apart from Miles [Leaburn] we’re in a pretty good place,” he said.
“We’ve got to get everyone up to speed, we’ve got to get everyone to a place where they can play league games, because there’s 46 league games, there’s cup games in between and so on. We can’t just continue with one 11, we have to make sure that we have a squad that’s equipped to play.
“There’s real competition now in pretty much every area. Yes we want to add more quality but at the minute the squad’s at its maximum in terms of numbers so there’s some work to be done on that.”
The gaffer is preparing for a difficult game this weekend. “I’ll be expecting a tough test because it’s another game in League One,” he explained. “It will be a tough game, they’ll be well coached.”
But he is excited to have the backing of a large crowd at The Valley. “We love playing at home. The crowd have been excellent since I’ve come in. It’s the first league game there this season. Cup games are different - they create different atmospheres, different challenges and so on.
“This is a real important game for us. Second game, first game at home, so we’ll want to continue that momentum.”
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