Lee Bowyer hails his “unreal” Charlton side after a winning return to Championship at Blackburn Rovers

BY LOUIS MENDEZ

Lee Bowyer hailed his side’s battling qualities after they earned a hard-fought win at Blackburn Rovers on opening day.

The Addicks are the bookies favourites for an immediate drop back into League One but upset the odds as goals from Ben Purrington and Lyle Taylor either side of a Dillon Phillips own-goal gave the South Londoners the opening day spoils at Ewood Park.

“The boys were unreal, from start to finish,” said the Addicks boss.

“I said to them ‘go out there today and give me everything. Prove to everyone that this is where you should be’ because a lot of people were doubting us. We’re favourites to go down but with the group we have we’ll keep fighting and battling. We have quality as well. We didn’t even play as well as we can. In possession we gave it away more than we would normally. But defensively I thought we were solid. Tactically we got it right. They had possession but we’re away from home and they’re a good side who finished mid-table last season. They’ve got players who can hurt you and we had to respect that.

“Darren Pratley was unreal today. His experience shone. I gave him a job to mark (Bradley) Dack because he can hurt you. He did that so well.

“I said to them ‘you should all be proud of yourselves because you’ve done that today and proven that you should be in this division.’

“The goal they scored, it came of the back of Dillon’s head. They’ve not scored a normal goal. I don’t think we even rode our luck, it was a good, solid away performance and we deserved the win.

“I said their togetherness and their fight will give us ten points this season and it gave us three this afternoon. They just don’t give in and they believe we’re going to win because we’ve drummed it into them. There will be times where we lose home or away but it won’t be through lack of effort.”