Charlton Athletic boss provides transfer update on goalkeeper situation and areas he still wants to strengthen

BY GREG STUBLEY

Charlton boss Lee Bowyer has confirmed that he wants to bring in some competition for goalkeeper Dillon Phillips this season.

The current Addicks number one made three superb efforts during Charlton’s 1-0 pre-season victory over Norwich, but Bowyer was keen to stress that he is still hopeful of adding another keeper to boost his squad.

He said: “We have to bring a keeper in to have competition for Dillon, you have to have that healthy competition for every position, whether it is up-front, at the back or in the midfield and goalkeeping is no different.

“Dill knows that, we spoke to him this week about the situation.

“He’s young and doesn’t have much experience but today he made some great saves and maybe brought pressure on himself at times but he would have learnt from that.

“The most important thing for me were the saves and not how he was with his feet.”

Bowyer also expressed his interest in other areas that he is looking to strengthen between now and when the end of the transfer window.

“We need another right-sided centre-half as we only have Patrick Bauer, maybe another centre-midfielder and a striker,” said the former Leeds and Newcastle midfielder.

“We are being picky. Because of the types of players we want, at the moment there aren’t many out there.

“I won’t bring them in for the sake of it. I might as well wait and use the kids like Reeco [Hackett-Fairchild] as a sub instead of a striker who is not as good as the strikers we’ve got – what’s the point in wasting the money?

“I will make a decision this week on the trialists, for me the most important thing today was getting the lads who will be playing next week used to more minutes.”

IMAGE BY KEITH GILLARD