Nathan Jones’ side recorded a second successive 1–1 away draw with a point at West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday evening.
While Jones was pleased to secure “a good point”, he admitted the Addicks’ overall performance needed to improve.
Speaking to CharltonTV after the game he said: “I thought the performance on Saturday [against Southampton] was better than the performance today. I felt we were flat first half. We had a big [travel] issue before the game which we don’t know if it affected us but it coincided with a really poor first half. We didn’t really lay a glove on them first half, we had no quality, no energy, we lost battles. In the second half we were better but we had to change shape, we had to change personnel and then we were better second half.”
George Campbell put the home side up in first half stoppage time before Lyndon Dykes’ 70th-minute leveller.
“I would have liked us to really have gone after them and really tested them really early but we didn’t do that,” Jones added. “When you look back on it, when I’m stood here, I’m happy with the point because the performance level wasn’t good enough for a win. Two points, at two difficult places for two different reasons is a good haul, when we look at what Southampton have done tonight to QPR [who they beat 5-0], it shows that was a really good point.”
Campbell’s opening goal came from a header at the back-post from a deep Alex Mowatt corner.
Jones said: “We didn’t do our jobs, it’s a simple ball to our back stick and no-one was marking and the zone didn’t go and head it, so there were two things there. We don’t normally concede from set pieces, we normally defend them well, but it was sloppy today. I’m really disappointed with that but we showed character to come back and get a point.”
Dykes beat the Baggies’ offside trap to get on the end of Kayne Ramsay’s clever pass out of defence before cooly finishing with 20 minutes to go.
“The run was good, the touch was even better and the finish was outstanding” praised Jones. “We’re pleased with the goal, it was the one time that we demonstrated a little bit of quality. We didn’t display enough quality in the final third, we didn’t have enough energy and intensity about us. We lost duels. That happened against Portsmouth. Luckily we got a result tonight. That’s two games which we’d have really liked to have won and we’ll have to look at that because that is two midweek games because maybe I need to freshen it up, maybe I need to change the personnel. We need to be better.”
Charlton’s 2024/25 Player of the Year, Lloyd Jones has to be substituted in the 35th minute with what looked like an ankle injury. Nathan Jones explained post-match that the central defender would need to be assessed before he could provide any update on how serious the injury is.
