Charlton captain Greg Docherty: I’ve been seeing a mindset coach to help free myself on the field
Charlton captain Greg Docherty has revealed he has been working with a mindset coach to try and help with his goal scoring.
The midfielder took his season tally up to three with a brace in the Addicks’ 5-0 triumph at Northampton Town.
Docherty got the scoring underway with the opener inside 10 minutes as he fired across Nik Tzanev. He bagged his second and Charlton’s fourth from Luke Berry’s cutback midway through the second period.
Manager Nathan Jones had said he wanted to convert Docherty into a player who could operate higher up the pitch after his goal against Bolton Wanderers in August – but these were his first strikes since then.
Docherty explained: “It’s about being free. I work away from the pitch with a mindset coach about being free. The manager touched on it all week, he just wanted us to be free, he wanted us to free us up. I feel like you saw that today from a Charlton team that really just love playing with each other, love scoring in front of the away end.
“We need them and they need us to perform on the pitch and today we gave them the day they deserved, 5-0 away from home, it’s brilliant seeing them celebrating, it’s great. But we need to build on it now. We’ve been talking about a performance like this for a long time and it’s just great to go and do it before Christmas and again, I’m just so happy that it was put in front of a good away end.”
Docherty and Berry are two of the senior players who were brought into the club into the summer. They linked up well for the fourth goal but supporters may have expected to see more moments from the duo throughout the campaign.
“That’s what we’re brought to the club to do,” added Docherty.
“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we’re not where we want to be and we believe we should be but today was a good marker to improve. There’s still so much time on our side but again we’ve talked about it and it’s about backing up.
“Today we backed it up. For myself as well, I’ve probably put a bit too much pressure on myself. I feel like I’ve been one step forward and a couple of steps back and today it just clicked and I was so happy. Two goals, first time I’ve had a brace in my career as well.
“It’s easy to say I want to be a goal scoring midfielder, but I do believe I am that and today I showed my qualities that I can be that goal scorer for the club.
“Christmas is coming, it’s games thick and fast so it’s just not getting too high. Fantastic result today, we build on it and we just want to keep on going forward. I want to drive the team forward as captain. There’s so many leaders in that dressing room, so many really good players, our squad’s really, really strong.
“We’re all fighting for places, as the manager’s shown, with the selection for a few weeks. But building now, and the building blocks are there. We’ve got to be happy with a 5-0 win away from home. It’s brilliant, it doesn’t come around very often, and we can send the fans home happy just before Christmas. It’s a nice present for them.”
PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS