Charlton claimed a vital three points against Bradford City on Saturday with Lyle Taylor notching the game’s only goal in the 19th minute to extend the Addicks’ unbeaten run to eight matches.
While it may not have been a vintage Charlton performance, collecting three points remains the number one priority as the League One season begins to reach its conclusion, a sentiment shared by midfielder Jonny Williams.
“At this stage of the season, the main thing is to get three points,” he said. “We all know as players that we can play better than that. It’s the first time since I’ve been here that we played a team that really sat in and that’s difficult at times, no matter who you’re playing against. They made it tough for us at times and there were chances for them on the counter-attack.
“They [Bradford] have got some good players. They’ve had a tough season, we knew where they were at the start of the game. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy but we believe in ourselves as players and we know we can perform at a better level than that and the manager knows that as well. He’ll keep driving us on to put in better performances. At the end of the day, it’s a clean sheet and another win.”
The victory helps to consolidate the Addicks’ position in the promotion play-off places, but Williams has insisted that the team can not lose focus and must sustain the positive form in order to keep the club on course for a grandstand finish to the season.
He said: “We’ve got to focus on ourselves. We’ve got some games coming up and we’re looking at winning as many as we can. The play-offs are creeping up on us and we want to go into the play-offs feeling positive, so we’re looking forward to the remaining games and want to get as many points as possible.
“At one point, the seventh spot was very close to us and we were looking behind us, but now we’ve had a few good results and we can start looking up again and go into the play-offs with a positive feel. The most important thing was to get the win and we’ve got two games on the road now where we have to pick up as many points as we can.
“I think they [the play-offs] are a bit of a lottery. When I was at Palace, we were pretty much underdogs and written off for the whole play-offs. It just shows you it’s a lottery, so as long as we make it, who knows.”
Charlton travel to Plymouth next weekend, before embarking on a trip to Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday, April 9th, as the culmination of the League One season sits on the horizon with just seven matches remaining.
Benjy Nurick