Charlton boss on Terell Thomas signing – and why his arrival offers easier formation change

Ben Garner reckons that the signing of Terell Thomas will make it easier for Charlton to switch to a three-man central defence.

The 26-year-old, who had been training with his former club for a number of weeks, signed a one-year contract last week.

“Mandela Egbo being back and being fit gives us the option of him and Sean [Clare] on the same side of the pitch,” said Addicks boss Garner. “At the moment one of our biggest strengths is probably our wide forwards, so if you go to a three then maybe you lose that a little bit – unless we do it in a slightly different way.

“He [Thomas] had been with two other League One clubs over pre-season, one where he was due to sign and due to a change of ownership it didn’t happen. He then came in with us and trained probably the last three weeks before we signed him, which was good. It gave us the opportunity for him to bed in with the group and it wasn’t a time constraint on it, with him being a free agent.

“It gave us an opportunity to have a long look and also it would give us the opportunity to loan out another of our young centre-backs, to give him the regular game time he needs to push on to the next level.

“He came through the academy here. He has got a good blend of experience now and gives us versatility – more of an option to go to a back three now when we need to. There is more competition in the squad, which is what we wanted.

“It’s nice to have the option of changing formation and setting up in different ways to face different opponents with different strengths and different areas we can hurt them.

“I’d like to think by late November or early December we will be at a point where the players will know the different systems and the different ways we’re going to set up to play, it becomes a lot more natural to them. It is a process, there’s no short-cuts to that – it’s time on the training ground, it’s working in meetings and understanding how we play against different formations.

“In my experience last season with the group I had at Swindon, there was a period where we got to that stage in November and December – we had a big turnaround in January. In March and April we really hit the ground running with that then. I’m really hopeful we can keep improving and learning as a group so that the understanding gets better and better.