Olly Groome reports from Bramall Lane
Karl Robinson was pleased with his side’s performance at Bramall Lane, despite being edged out 2-1 by league-leaders Sheffield United on Saturday.
The Addicks took a deserved lead through Ricky Holmes’ stunning free-kick, but were pegged back by Jack O’Connell’s goal, before Daniel Lafferty netted the winner early in the second half.
Charlton had their fair share of opportunities to take something from the game, but it was Chris Wilder’s men who would take the points, leaving Robinson disappointed in the result, yet proud of his players.
“I think we deserved more from the game,” he explained.
“We had the best chances, but lacked a bit of concentration for their goals. When you come to Bramall Lane you know you’re going to be up against it with the fans and the intensity which they play at. But we didn’t crumble and became the better team.
“I’ve been here quite a lot and this is as good a team as I’ve faced here, but my team coped very well.”
The defeat was the Addicks’ first in four games and Robinson wants his side to keep up the momentum of the performance levels that have been on show more recently.
He said: “We’ve not won enough games and it’s unacceptable, but you can’t say we didn’t deserve more out of today’s game.
“We’ve got to find a way of keeping this momentum of how we’re playing and the key is being clinical in the boxes – we have to find those concentration levels to see games out.
“We had three or four glaring opportunities and we got punished for that, but I can’t fault the players’ mentality and effort. We’ve come here off the back of a very tough run of fixtures and we acquitted ourselves very well. We should probably be three or four points better off for our performances levels.”
Meanwhile, due to next week’s international action, Charlton can enjoy a breather after an intense month of fixtures which have come thick and fast.
Indeed, Robinson is looking forward to the opportunity for his players to get some respite, as well as getting some injured players off the physio’s table and back in the side.
“We’ve got a little break now and have played more games than most over the last few weeks,” he said.
“We’ve had five solid weeks of Saturday/Tuesday games with an injury-hit squad, so we need to make sure we make the most of that break and then come back to look forward to Peterborough.”