Lyle Taylor scored his 15th goal of the season and Karlan Grant his 12th but it was Darren Pratley’s 55th minute wondergoal that stole the show in the Addicks 3-0 win at Shrewsbury.
The midfielder’s first time effort from just outside the penalty area arrowed into the top corner of the Salop goal and his manager was full of praise for Pratley after the game.
Lee Bowyer said: “It’s not really his game Pratley. I’m pleased for him because he’s got a couple now recently. He works so hard, he gives us something different in the middle of the park. He’s not going to go past three or four players but he competes and works so hard for the team, you need players like that. So I’m pleased for him to get a goal like that.”
The Charlton boss handed full debuts to new signings Ben Purrington and Jonny Williams and was pleased with what he saw.
He said: “I think Ben was solid, exactly what I got told. He’s going to be a seven (out of 10) every game. He gives us stability down the left which we’ve been missing so much.
“He competed, he was up and down. He was very good and he’s only trained a couple of days with the team, he’ll get used to them even more and the way we play.
“Jonny is very good isn’t he, he is so clever, I’m very pleased with the pair of them.”
The Addicks began the game in a 3-5-2 formation but soon switched back to Bowyer’s preferred diamond.
He explained: “I just thought there was a good chance they’d play the diamond or the 4-3-3 and by having wing backs we’d get them higher and then we could pin them in a bit but we didn’t use it.
“Their 10 was picking up a lot of balls, when it was going long it was dropping down to him and he took quite a few second balls so I changed it through the first half and went to the diamond and we were better.”
