Lee Bowyer was full of praise for Chuks Aneke and Dillon Phillips when asked about the pair in his post-Cardiff City press conference which will be available on Valley Pass this evening.
Aneke played much of the game up front on his own but caused the Bluebirds no end of problems, while Phillips denied Albert Adomah brilliantly on his way to a third consecutive clean sheet as the Addicks secured an impressive away point.
The Charlton Manager said: “Chuks was very good. He held the ball up and I thought caused them a lot of problems. On another day he probably scores, so I’m really, really pleased with Chuks. He came in and did a good job for us.
“Dillon has done very well this season and in lockdown, he has definitely looked after himself. He has come back lighter, more agile and he did well to get down to that shot. He’s done well Dillon, he’s had a good first season in the Championship, so I’m really pleased with him.”
Bowyer used an unchanged side in a lopsided 4-4-2 in Charlton’s first two post-lockdown outings but against Cardiff City he made seven changes and switched to a 5-4-1 formation.
He explained: “I had to make changes. A couple of them were struggling from the weekend. We only had a short space of time to get them match fit, so it would have been silly of me to take any gambles as we’ve still got six games after this. Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday is crazy, we’re going to have to rotate because otherwise we will pick up a lot of injuries.
“Adam Matthews and Tomer Hemed both have little knocks, so I have to look at the bigger picture. Did I want to leave those two at home? No, I had no choice. We’ve still got six games to go. It is important we have as many bodies as possible, so it was the right thing to do, to leave them two at home because they’ve both got knocks.
“Everyone that came in, the seven that started, they all did well. I understand that it is competition for places and they are all going to be used at some stage. On Friday, things might change again, so people that haven’t even started yet might start on Friday. Jake [Forster-Caskey] and George [Lapslie] weren’t even in the squad for Saturday’s game [and started against Cardiff]. At the end of the day I trust them all and I’m going to use them. It’s good when you have that many bodies to choose from and that was the problem before when we had all those injuries.”
