Charlton midfielder Ben Reeves hopes to rediscover his goalscoring touch
Charlton midfielder Ben Reeves reckons that he needs to rediscover his confidence in-front of goal.
The former Milton Keynes man has found the back of the net just twice this campaign, having twice hit double figures for a season during his time at Stadium MK.
“I need to relax a bit more,” admitted the 27-year-old.
“I need to get forward a bit more. I’ve been playing a bit deeper to what I’m used to. I’m maybe a bit more cautious than what I used to be. I used to get chances and get a few more goals than I have done. I’d like to do better with the goal scoring side of things and hopefully I can do that.
“I think maybe I need to look for goal a bit more rather than looking for a pass. Hopefully I’ll get the chances again and can kick on. I always hope to get double figures in a season. Hopefully they will come in the second-half.”
Reeves has made 14 league starts for the Addicks this campaign, the latest at London Road on Saturday as the South Londoners were left to rue a missed penalty from the outgoing Karlan Grant, with the game ending goalless.
“He’s a top player, Karlan,” said Reeves.
“He’s [scored from the spot] literally a week ago. It’s a shame he couldn’t do it again for himself, for the boys and for the fans. It would have been good for us and I’m sure we would have stuck in and got the result. But you can’t score every penalty. He had scored every one he’s taken so far this season but it wasn’t meant to be.
“It’s a shame today as I and Jonny (Williams) had a couple of chances to slip [Grant] in. He’s so quick, you know if he can get his shot off it’s likely to be on target as well. He’s easy to play with. For someone like me and the way we played today, picking up the ball in the pockets and trying to slide him in, I thought it worked.
“We could have got more. On another day, three points. It’s a shame really, especially with the following today. As soon as we came out for the warm-up, it was unreal. It just shows this year how together us and the fans are. It’s been brilliant. The boys notice it. We’re all gutted really and the main reason we’re gutted is that we couldn’t do it for the fans today.
“There were spells where we played well. Chances weren’t quite falling like they might do. Just little things like that really.
“They started well, which we expected. First five or ten minutes, that’s what you get at a place like this. I thought we grew into it. We got a lot better at finding the gaps. There were a few half-chances where we could have done a bit better. They could have landed a bit better for us and we’d have taken them.
“I feel like we put them under a bit more pressure in the second half and that’s because we knew were starting to create chances like that. It’s just a shame that we couldn’t take one at the end.”