Dean Holden blames defensive capitulation at Ipswich on Charlton’s ‘individual decision making’

Dean Holden says “individual decision making” is to blame for his side’s defensive capitulation at Portman Road.

The Addicks were ripped apart at will during their 6-0 humiliation against Ipswich Town  -with Conor Chaplin’s hat-trick, Freddie Ladapo’s brace and Leif Davis’ late tap-in all aided by woeful defending.

Central defender Ryan Inniss was also shown his fourth red card of the campaign in the 87^th minute to sum up a thoroughly miserable afternoon for the Addicks back-line.

“Individual decision making in the heat of the moment,” said Holden, when asked what led to the rear-guard surrender.

“[George] Hirst gave us problems in that first-half with his movement. He comes short, he spins and get hold of the ball. Chaplin was playing off him in those little pockets. Individual decision making. We gave the ball away too many times in our own half. We’ve not been doing that recently.

“We were on the end of a thumping. There’s no way of dressing it up. It’s not pretty stood in the technical area watching it and it’s not pretty being involved as a player. For our supporters, it’s a really poor day. We have to show up at MK Dons in three days time and show that we’ve learned from it. As much as you can in three days. More than that, show some pride and what it means to play for this shirt. There’s four games left in this season. Four big games for every single player.”

Inniss’ sending off was the fourth of his season, albeit with one later rescinded. It was also the sixth during his time at Charlton and the seventh of his career as a whole.

Holden added: “We’ll look back at every single moment as we always do and analyse it. It’s not just on Ryan Inniss today, as a team we’ve not performed well enough individually and certainly not collectively. Certainly, no blame from me to any players publicly. We have honest conversations behind closed doors but I’m not going to publicly go after any players.

“From what I’ve seen, it’s one of them where Ryan is running back and he’s running off him. I don’t know if Ryan has clipped his heels or whatever happened. We just have to accept it and move forward quickly.”

The Charlton side were given short shrift by the travelling support at full-time and Holden said he understood their anger.

“Absolutely no problem with that at all,” he admitted.

“They turned up and supported the team as they always do. Clearly, they’re angry because they’ve seen the team get beaten 6-0. The message to them is: ‘Thanks for your support as always. We’ll make sure we turn up at MK Dons and put in a performance and show that we’ve got some pride.’”

PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS