Nathan Jones admitted his Charlton side were toothless in attack as their long winless run continued with a 1-0 reverse to Bolton at The Valley.
The Addicks were top of the Championship in August after winning their first three games but since then an 11-game run without a victory – the longest of Jones’ managerial career – has seen them slump to 21st in the table.
A mistake by Nathaniel Chalobah, one of the most experienced players on the home team, proved highly costly. The midfielder’s misplaced pass was punished by Sam Dalby, who raced away to claim his sixth goal of the campaign.
It condemned the Addicks, booed off by their fans at full-time, to a fourth straight reverse and they are only four points above the bottom three.
“In terms of endeavour, work-rate and passing the football I have zero problem,” said Jones. “We have had so many opportunities around the edge of the box.
“We had no problem all night and then we gifted them a goal. They haven’t had to work for it in any way. We then did not demonstrate enough attacking quality in the final third.
“We’ve probably made more positive substitutions tonight than is humanly possible – I got as many attacking players on the pitch. We aren’t doing the out-of-possession stuff well enough either and that is a tough recipe.
“All we can do is more work, big them up, give them a cuddle – we do it. We ask them to hit areas and be confident. We work on the final third and know how we can get in behind them and we just don’t do it when we cross the white line.
“We have won games here with a lot less possession and a lot less opportunities in the final third.”
Bolton are up to 16th in the standings after extending their unbeaten run away from home to four matches, three of them victories.
“It’s a huge result for us,” said Wanderers head coach Steven Schumacher. “It is never easy to get three points away from home on a Tuesday night fixture, especially after a setback for us on Saturday.
“We deserved to win that game and let it slip. It was important we tried to respond and we did that tonight.
“We knew it would be a difficult game with everything going on here. They are not in a great run of form, so we expected them to throw everything at us and we dealt with that really well, especially in the first half when we were nice and calm.”
On Dalby’s winning goal, he added: “We’ve had about seven one-v-ones this season and that’s the first one we’ve been able to take. So there was a bit of doubt – until he hit the net. He took it well. It was a mistake and we managed to pounce on it.
“It gave the players some belief and confidence that we could go and get a result here.”
Share