Charlton Athletic boss has attacking vision for his team – and talks about ‘lack of profile’ to defend deep

Charlton Athletic head coach Michael Appleton has talked about the way he set his side up in attacking terms for today’s 3-1 win over Wycombe Wanderers.

Alfie May, back from concussion, started through the middle for the Addicks with Miles Leaburn and Corey Blackett-Taylor on the right and left flank respectively with Tyreece Campbell playing in the number 10 role.

Leaburn opened the scoring for the Addicks with his first league goal of the season. Blackett-Taylor drilled the third goal in second-half stoppage time with Slobodan Tedic also getting on the scoresheet for the first time since joining on loan from Manchester City.

Asked if it was tricky to get all his offensive options into his starting 11, Appleton said: “It was. One of the reasons we put him (Leaburn) out there was we thought he could be an outlet on the diag (diagonal). They were quite aggressive in trying to stop us playing out – so he would give us that option, if we needed it.

“There will be a time – it might be one, two or three months down the line – when there is a fluidity of the front three. They might start in central positions but end the game on the right hand side, the left hand side – but that takes a hell of a lot of work on the training pitch. It won’t be for the want of trying and will hopefully happen over a period of time.”

Appleton made changes in the second period, bringing on Chuks Aneke and Tedic for Leaburn and Campbell.

It was two subs combining for Charlton’s second goal of the afternoon, Tennai Watson crossing for Tedic, whose miscued shot still ended up finding the back of the net.

“Second half it was uncomfortable at times,” said Appleton. “I looked at the players, 10-15 minutes into the second half, and they needed a bit of help. The only way you can do that if you can’t move your personnel on the pitch is bring your substitutions on.

“I don’t think we’ve got the profile of players to maybe sit in and defend deep at times – take a few hits. The profile is very different, so we have to find a different way.

“Miles is getting fitter and fitter. I keep getting reminded he got injured in his first game of pre-season. Chuks came on – it was good to see him rag-dolling people around. We’ve not seen that for a while but he made a huge difference last week and TC in that early part.

“What can I say about Corey? To do that in whatever minute it was just shows where he is at.

“A lot of it, and people won’t notice it, is he did the defensive side today. He defended from in to out, rather than being out there too soon and almost causing our own problems. I give him a lot of credit and praise for his goal but he did his own little part to help us out, out of possession.”

MAIN PICTURE: PAUL EDWARDS