Charlton manager Nigel Adkins took the positives from his team's performance despite falling to a narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of promotion chasing Peterborough United.
Posh took the lead early on through Jonson Clarke-Harris and the Addicks had a chance to equalise before half time through Jayden Stockley, however his penalty was kept out by the Josef Bursik.
An improved second half saw Charlton dominate possession, however the hosts were unable to find a decisive goal.
When asked about the start to the game, Adkins said: “We speak about trying to get the balls in the right areas of the pitch. I wasn’t happy with our kick-off today and we conceded within eight minutes. From my point of view it was a disappointing goal for us to concede.
“After that we dominated possession of the ball against a team who will get promoted, who are great in possession and have a massive goal threat. We limited them so when we look at it from that point of view we’ve done well but we were beaten 1-0 so I won’t hide away from that.
“The goalkeeper made a great save from Jayden [Stockley]. If we score that penalty we probably go on and win the game. The second half we totally dominated. Liam Millar played well in the attacking third, Ben Watson played well moving the ball about but we didn’t make their goalkeeper work enough."
After the first 15 minutes, Charlton registered nine shots compared to the visitor’s five. Reflecting on the performance, Adkins said: “They had a goal to defend so they sat back and defended well. We have to put the ball in the back of the net, however we put ourselves in a position to dominate the game. We did a lot of good things so we take the positives, it’s still in our hands.
“Everyone talks about Peterborough’s forward players so we dropped Cask [Jake Forster-Caskey] deeper alongside Ben Watson to get more passes involved and build from there. It could have been end to end and all over but we nullified that but unfortunately we didn’t capitalise on the possession.”
Charlton lost Diallang Jaiyesimi in the first half through a hamstring injury before Ryan Innis limped off late on. The manager provided an update on the pair.
“Ryan Innis was limping towards the end, I could’ve kept him on and asked him to keep going but we were in the ascendency anyway so I put Akin [Famewo] there so we didn’t take the risk. We will assess DJ and see where we are with him. It’s a soft tissue injury for DJ and it’ll probably rule him out for some games, we will have to see. It’s a real shame because he’s been playing really well for us.
“We have to utilise our squad. Chuks [Aneke] and Conor [Washington] got some game time today which is good, they are building up fitness so that’s a positive.”
Albie Morgan was preferred to replace Jaiyesimi out wide, and Adkins was keen to praise the youngster, who was later substituted, after an hour on the pitch, as the Addicks chased a goal.
“I must say Albie Morgan came on and had a really good game," he explained, "he’s done well. I took him off at the end and that’s nothing against Albie, we just wanted to get Conor Washington on to try and get a goal.”
Article by Nick Emms