‘Totally different animal’ – Charlton boss reckons defender produced best display yet in win at Crawley

Macaulay Gillesphey produced his most complete performance for Charlton Athletic in their 1-0 win over Crawley Town on Tuesday.

That is the verdict of Addicks manager Nathan Jones, who is delighted at the former Plymouth centre-back’s displays for the League One outfit.

Gillesphey has scored four goals and collected two assists this season – as well as playing his part in Charlton keeping 17 clean sheets.

Jones was quick to talk about his display against the West Sussex side after being asked about Lloyd Jones’ towering display in the same match.

“Everyone is in a good place,” said the Welsh boss. “Lloyd is someone who epitomises how we play. He is bold, brave and doing really well.

“He is a different player to what I had at Luton – because he is mature, bought into everything and is learning. He is in a good place confidence wise.”

“It is wrong to single out people, but I thought it was Macauley Gillesphey’s best game. He was outstanding. He is a totally different animal from my first game in charge when we went to Reading.

“Now he is everything that I wanted in that wide centre-half role.

“Collectively we had to be good because when the ball broke down they were already set up to go and attack you. We had to be very, very good. I can’t remember our goalkeeper making a save. They created some chances but we defended superbly well.

“There was some stuff on our video, our debrief, Karoy Anderson made a block near-post – tracked his runner and made a header – they are goalscoring opportunities if we don’t do our jobs.”

PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD