Charlton Athletic manager Lee Bowyer outlines key area he wants to strengthen in January transfer window

BY RICHARD CAWLEY
richard@slpmedia.co.uk

Lee Bowyer is looking to boost the firepower in his Charlton Athletic squad when the transfer window opens next Friday.

The Addicks are intending to push through a deal for FC Midtjylland striker Ronnie Schwartz but are likely to need an outgoing to balance books and comply with the League One salary cap.

The Danish striker was at The Valley to see their recent 5-2 victory over AFC Wimbledon – sitting a few seats away from Charlton owner Thomas Sandgaard.

“Of course I would like to freshen things up a bit and there are certain areas we need to improve on,” said Addicks manager Bowyer.

“But I hope people understand the cap situation. All I would say is that it is tight. The owner wants to do business but that [the cap] makes it difficult.

“In an ideal world we need to freshen up in the attacking third. If you look at the weekend [a 2-2 draw at Swindon] we should’ve been out of sight.

“They didn’t have a shot on target until they scored from the set-piece in the second half.

“We had got into very good situations to score another five, like we did the weekend before
[5-2 against AFC Wimbledon]. The difference in that match was that we made the right decisions nine times out of 10. On Saturday we didn’t. If you want to get promotion that can’t happen, or at least not that many times.

“That’s where we need to improve, that final third.

“I think if we do any business it is going to be tricky and hard, like it always has been for us. It’s never been straightforward since I’ve been here. That used to be because of the amount of money we had – and nothing has changed now because of the cap.

“The cap has just made everything a whole different level of difficult. But we are working behind the scenes, myself and Steve [Gallen, director of football] to try and pick out players that can make us stronger as a squad.

“We’re going to need that because in January we have got seven or eight games, so the squad is going to really come into play.”

Charlton are at home to Plymouth Argyle on Boxing Day with attacker Paul Smyth back. The QPR loanee has missed the last four games with a badly gashed knee that required stitches.

Midfielder Albie Morgan is also available after self-isolating following his positive Covid-19 test.