Frustrated Charlton boss Lee Bowyer calls on his strikers to start taking chances after “harsh” defeat against Millwall
BY LOUIS MENDEZ
Lee Bowyer called for an improvement from his frontmen after Charlton were beaten 1-0 by Millwall in the South London derby at The Valley.
The Addicks have scored just twice since the return from lockdown and boss Bowyer says his wasteful strikers need to start converting their chances or risk being punished as they were by Jake Cooper’s winning goal nine minutes from the end of an even affair on Friday evening.
Forwards Macauley Bonne and Tomer Hemed were both guilty of fluffing decent openings for the hosts before Cooper’s late intervention.
“I’ve just said to them there, the chances we created against Hull, we should have won the game comfortably,” said a frustrated Bowyer at full-time.
“The chances against QPR, should have won the game comfortably. Cardiff, we created good chances there. Today, again, you can’t keep missing chances. I said to them, we haven’t scored in open-play in these four games we’ve played. How? Because we’ve probably created 15 good chances in those four games. We can’t take one?
“It’s not like we don’t work hard every day. Everyday we’re in, we work hard on things. Macauley, one-on-one with the goalie, you can’t be missing them chances. You can’t. Because if you do, this is what can happen in this division. You can get punished from nothing. It hurts.
“[Bonne is] just not being clinical – that’s what is up with him. I don’t know why he’s missing chances. We work hard and pass on the right information to him, every time. So, I don’t know why. Maybe he just needs something to hit him and go in. That might get him going.”
The Lions extended their unbeaten run in this fixture to 12 games and completed their first double over their South London neighbours since the 1992-93 season after following up on their 2-1 triumph at The Den earlier in the campaign.
“I thought it was harsh that we didn’t get anything from the game,” Bowyer added.
“It was quite an even game, but we edged it second-half. It’s disappointing not to have come away with three points, in my eyes, let alone without one. Disappointment.
“I thought we got into some very good areas. We had a spell where if anyone was going to score, it was going to be us. That’s the way I felt. I didn’t feel like they were really hurting us or troubling our goalkeeper at all. It seemed to be us who were the ones that were getting the chances and missing them. It’s definitely a tough one to take – a bit like when we played them at their place.”
PHOTOS: KEITH GILLARD AND KYLE ANDREWS
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Even with a great start to the ‘mini league’ -7pts from a possible 9, – it was clear that whilst the defence has been excellent, the strikers have not been performing and I felt it would only be a matter of time before we got punished for that failure to score, unfortunately, it had to be Millwall who did it. To get anything from Brentford on Tuesday is an enormous task, but knowing the Charlton ethic, we probably will, I hope, otherwise it will mean we have to beat both Reading and Birmingham to make the last 2 games not having to be must wins. We could, of course, hope teams around us, start losing as well. They all have to play each other at some time before close of play. Perhaps we could also blame the selfish and disloyal Lyle Taylor as well. I hope he is pleased with himself.