Lee Bowyer spoke to the press ahead of this Saturday's home fixture against Sheffield Wednesday to discuss Charlton's form, the injuries and suspensions facing the side and supporters playing their part.
On being winless in six...
“If you look at the no wins in six then you could say that we’re experiencing a turbulent patch. But if you look at the positives... we’re in every game still.
"Under all the circumstances with the budget and the amount of players that we have out... I can’t say I’m happy because we aren’t winning, but the way we’re performing is acceptable. Even through the results aren’t right, our performances are still good.
"Even the other day, against Luton, I don’t think they were any better than us and we’ve got a depleted squad, if we went there with even half the players back, I like to think that the result would have been different.
"So, we’re still in every game and we’re not doing ourselves any harm by competing and being a threat. Like I said the other night, nothing has changed for me, the decisions cost us the game. It wasn’t our performance and it wasn’t our attitude or our will to win. That shows in every performance from the start of the season until now. We’re in a bit of a rocky patch but if you take 12 players out of any one squad they would struggle as well!"
On injuries and players out…
"All the players that are fit, are defenders so at the minute I’m trying to juggle and adapt to who we’re playing and put out a team and still create chances. We’re doing that and we’re still scoring goals and yeah, we’re conceding but that is our strength at the moment. Our back line. We’ve got eight defenders and seven of them are fit.
"It’s in the middle of the park and up top that we’re short but we’re still managing to score goals. We just can’t hold on to leads at the moment. That’s the one thing that frustrates me for sure.
"Conor [Gallagher] is another one out. He’s a big miss. Another goal-scoring threat that’s been great for us this season. He’s picked up his fifth booking and I think he’s done well to get this far with the way that he runs around and his enthusiasm and the way he tries to win the ball back. I think he’s done well to last until the end of November really with only five bookings. So he’ll get a break now. I think he looked a bit tired. He’s been away every international break for the national side so he’s going to have a couple of days rest now and come back in on Monday and be raring to go for the Middlesbrough game."
"Oztumer is 50/50. It’s whether his foot recovers in time. If anyone comes back it will be him and only him.
"We’ve got a few that are getting back out on the training pitches now and are starting to do some runs and stuff so we’re hopeful for Middlesbrough but not for Saturday.
"Lyle [Taylor] was outside yesterday doing some running and stuff. Again, he’s one we’re looking to get back training with us on Thursday so between now and then we’re just trying to get some fitness into him. "
On the continued support from the fans going into Saturday’s game…
"They always play a massive part in my eyes. They have done from the minute that I took over. They played a massive part when I asked them to come and be part of this journey, and they’ve jumped on board. Again, the other night they didn’t stop singing. They were singing at the right times and they could tell when we were tiring a bit and when we needed a bit of help from them.
"Saturday’s going to be the same – we’re going to need them to get through this difficult period. We all have to stick together, and I know that on Saturday, they’re going to play a massive part like they did last weekend at home against Cardiff. They knew it was going to be tough for us against a good Cardiff side, but they played their part in us getting a valuable point.
"Every point is tough in this division. No one has got any given right to take three points. We’re going to keep trying to do that and we will get there, I have no doubt about that."
