Charlton boss Nigel Adkins looks to take positives from narrow home defeat against Posh
BY LOUIS MENDEZ
Nigel Adkins says there were plenty of positives to take from Charlton’s narrow defeat to promotion-chasing Peterborough United.
Jonson Clarke-Harris scored the only goal of the game inside a strong opening ten minutes for Darren Ferguson’s side but the Addicks grew back into the contest as the half wore on. Jayden Stockley missed the hosts’ best opportunity as he saw a first-half penalty saved by Josef Bursik.
The South Londoners enjoyed plenty of the ball after the restart but were unable to convert their dominance into chances as the Posh held on to all but secure their promotion to the Championship.
The result saw Adkins’ side drop out of League One’s top six but they are still in a strong position to secure a play-off place at the end of the season as they hold a game-in-hand on those sides above them. Mid-table Crewe Alexandra visit SE7 on Tuesday evening – the first of the Addick’s final four fixtures of the regular season.
Afterwards, Adkins said: “From my point of view, it’s a disappointing goal to concede, they’ll be happy with it, but after that I thought we’ve dominated possession of the ball against a team who will get promoted, are very good in possession and who’ve got massive goal threats. We’ve limited all that. When we look at it from that point of view we’ve done well. We’ve got beaten 1-0, I can’t hide away from that. That’s the result.
“Jayden, the goalkeeper made a good save there. We get that goal, maybe we get the momentum of the game going right and probably go on and win it. Second-half we’ve totally dominated the game. We’ve got Liam Millar in the attacking third of the pitch on numerous occasions. Ben Watson has done well in the middle of the pitch to just anchor it about.
“But ultimately, we’ve not made the goalkeeper work enough. They’ve obviously got a goal to defend, they’ve sat back in numbers and defended their goal well. They’re a team that are going to get promoted and are very good in possession and we’ve dominated the ball.
“However, it’s about putting the ball in the back of the net and for me, we’ll look on it in the cold light of day, maybe we’ve not made the goalkeeper work enough. However, we put ourselves in a position to dominate the game. They’re a good side. We did a lot of good things. However, we’ve been beaten 1-0 and that’s what we’ve got to take. We’ll take the positives through to the next game. It’s in our hands. The players have worked extremely hard.
“All the games are pressurised games now. We will be expected to win on Tuesday because we’re at home and Crewe are below us in the division. That’s a given, but we need to go and win the game. We’ll respect them as we’ll always do but there were many good things that we’ve done today to try and win the game. That’s what we’ll be looking to do on Tuesday.”
PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS/ PAUL EDWARDS