Johnnie Jackson wants to see his men build on the positives after back-to-back away defeats to Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic as he prepares for Saturday's visit of Oxford United to The Valley.
He said: “It’s always disappointing to lose games. Obviously, it’s important that we look at the reasons why and address them, not losing sight of the positives that have come out of it.
“There’s lots to work with, lots to build on, and lots to learn from,” he explained.
Jackson also wants his players to realise their roles and execute them accordingly in set-piece situations: “Set-pieces are part of the game and they’re things we do work on, both for and against. The players have to take on that responsibility, their individual roles in these moments.
“You can’t go on the pitch and babysit them through those situations. You need the lads to step up there. Again, we’ve done a lot of work on that and how to address it.”
Charlton are dealing with a plethora of personnel losses due to injury and COVID and the boss reflected on that.
“We are depleted in certain areas of the pitch and big important players for us in those areas as well. It makes it more difficult but these are opportunities for other people.
“The way that we are going to go about trying to win the game is slightly different than, perhaps, if those guys were available.”
Meanwhile, Jackson praised Elliot Lee for his goal at Wigan but at the same time the gaffer wants to see more on the attacking end from his midfielders.
“I’m really pleased for Elliot. Obviously, he came out of the side for a few games there, came back in and impacted the game.
“I’ve been encouraging him and all my midfield players, especially the attacking ones to start contributing with goals. I think it’s really important, someone as good as Elliot, he needs to be scoring more than three on the season.
“We can’t obviously just rely on the forwards.”
After two tough trips to Greater Manchester, the Addicks will be back at home and the boss made sure to emphasise the importance of that.
“We always look forward to playing at home in front of our own crowd and we’ve got a strong home record. We go into every game there confident that we can get a positive result. That’s exactly what we’ll be trying to do, realising that we are up against it a little bit in terms of the guys missing.”
He added about the opposition: “They’ve got good players, a good squad and a good manager. So, they’re in and around it and obviously victories for them will propel them into the top six. They’re going to be up for it.”
This game will also mark the return of Karl Robinson to The Valley as manager of the U’s.
“Karl’s obviously coming back to his former club, he’s going to want to win that game but so are we. We’ll be competitive, we’ll be matching them stride for stride and hopefully we’ll come out on the right end of it.”
Article by Yannick Stay