Charlton Athletic manager Lee Bowyer still unhappy at Chuks Aneke’s red card – and claims his side would have beaten Gills without striker’s dismissal

Lee Bowyer still believes Charlton striker Chuks Aneke was harshly sent off on Saturday.

The Addicks will be missing their top-scorer for Saturday’s trip to Fleetwood Town as he serves a one-match ban.

Aneke has netted 12 goals in 26 appearances this season. He was dismissed 20 minutes from the end of the 3-2 loss to Gillingham.

He was booked for an aerial challenge on Gillingham defender Jack Tucker. And referee Kevin Johnson issued a second yellow card soon after for a foul on Connor Ogilvie.

Bowyer blamed Gillingham manager Steve Evans after the match – claiming that his bench intimidate officials into making decisions.

The Charlton manager had not reviewed the two incidents which led to Aneke’s premature exit when he did media duties at the weekend. But he had by the time he spoke to the South London Press this morning.

“I don’t think they are yellow cards,” he said. “For the first one, I don’t know how many times they did the same to us. It’s a 50-50 ball and it’s bouncing between the pair of them. They both jump for the ball. Their striker did the same in the game as well.

“That is football. Every challenge people make isn’t a yellow card.

“The second one is harsh, especially when he has been booked for the first one – which isn’t a yellow. He is just unlucky – he tried to flick at the ball. There is no sliding in and he doesn’t have both feet off the ground.

“Whenever we play them there is always a decision that goes against us. And it cost us.

“My job is to set the team up to win the game and I believe we would have done that. The decision made it hard. Even when we went to 10 [men] we still caused them problems and were still the better side. We just got tired at the end of [for Kyle Dempsey’s winner].

“I don’t think we deserved to come away with nothing. We played alright. It was always going to be that type of game, a bit scrappy at times. Once we won the ball we had to try and move and create, I thought we did that.

“The first goal we concede is avoidable. The second one, I don’t think there is anything we could do about that. How many times have we seen that already? Teams are having shots and it’s flying in. That was unsaveable. The last one we should do better with – it was too easy for him to get his shot off.

“But we hit the post and hit the bar. Teams are having shots and they are flying in. I don’t know how many times we’ve hit the woodwork in the last few matches – it just seems to be our luck that things aren’t going our way. The sending off is a massive talking point because we were the team that was going to go on and win the game.

“We were on top and in control. We had limited them and were camped in their half really. It was just a matter of time before we got the winner and a big decision goes against us.”

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