Charlton boss reveals crux of his half-time team talk against Bolton Wanderers

Dean Holden was refusing to get too downbeat after his Charlton side lost 2-1 to Bolton Wanderers this afternoon.

The Addicks had won their last three League One matches as they fuelled hope that they could still give themselves a shot of the top six.

But a ninth loss of the campaign leaves them nine points behind sixth-placed Barnsley, who have two matches in hand.

“The overall 90 minutes has probably been what I’ve seen in the four weeks since I’ve been in the job,” said Holden, after a first home loss since he succeeded Ben Garner last month. “There’s a lot of good stuff, some stuff we need to eradicate – keep working hard to do that – and then lots of stuff where we’re nearly there, but not quite. We need to keep working.

“We don’t get too down, as disappointed as we are – trust me this one is sitting really deep – but we have to keep improving. We’ve got a free week and have to to go Exeter and make sure we get a positive result there.”

Charlton’s players were out before their opponents after the half-time break.

Albie Morgan almost instantly cancelled out Aaron Morley’s free-kick goal but Dion Charles punished a defensive mix-up between Ryan Inniss and Ashley Maynard-Brewer.

Holden said: “The tactics board didn’t get snapped in half this time, it wasn’t as angry as that (against Oxford United). We just needed to get after them a little bit more. We were a little bit standoffish and getting caught in between. Bolton flood the midfield with players. They have the striker, Shoretire, who is a good player, on loan from Manchester United. He drops into little areas.

“If you’re not careful the pitch can become really big and stretched. The message was to get up against them, get in their faces and stop shadow-boxing – play forward and run forward. It wasn’t anything too grand, just taking care of the basics a bit more.

“To score so early in the second half obviously gives you confidence. But we built on that and stepped on the gas. If Jes had scored then we could be sat here having won the game.

“But I’m not naive enough to not know that the three games we have won going into this that we couldn’t have lost or drew, either. There have been fine margins in all those games.”

PICTURE: PAUL EDWARDS