‘It was an edgy night’ – Nathan Jones on Charlton Athletic fans dishing out the boos after loss to Crawley Town

Charlton Athletic manager Nathan Jones and his players were booed off the pitch after tonight’s 2-1 home loss to Crawley Town.

The Addicks fell behind to a superb strike from Crawley striker Tola Showumni in the first half but levelled through substitute Daniel Kanu, who lobbed Jojo Wollacott from Gassan Ahadme’s header.

But Charlton, now 12th in the League One standings and eight points adrift of the League One play-off zone, suffered another setback – this one decisive – when Max Anderson reacted quickest to net after Ashley Maynard-Brewer failed to hold on to Jeremy Kelly’s long-distance shot.

The hosts were also booed when they left the pitch at half-time. And there was a loud and negative reaction again after six minutes of stoppage time failed to find a second leveller on the night.

Jones – asked about the treatment dished out to both him and his players – said: “Fans pay their money and they are entitled to their opinion – when things go well they cheer and when things don’t go well you get the reaction. It was an edgy night but that’s probably because we didn’t give them a performance they could get behind.

“Our decision-making contributed to the fans’ edginess. They are not hoodwinked. They see something they don’t like and they are entitled to show their frustration.

“The performance was poor – especially first half. We had a go second half and made some really positive changes to try and get back into it. We have conceded from distance again, twice, and that is a frustration.

“Some of our decision-making and some of our quality was not up to standard and that’s why we’ve lost the game. I don’t know (why it happened). We’ll debrief and have a look at it.

“It was a really edgy night all over and players didn’t make great decisions when they had opportunities. We’ve had more shots than them but they’ve had more on target. They showed more quality when chances came. We snatched at stuff in the final third.

“We had as many positive players as we could at the end but we just couldn’t get any real bit of quality apart from the moment we scored from. It wasn’t a good performance tonight.

“We started with three strikers but it didn’t prove that way. On the weekend we were pretty dominant and we had a considerable amount of quality chances. Tonight whenever we had any kind of things we didn’t capitalise.

“Alex Mitchell had a great chance early on and didn’t take it. They scored from 25 or 30 yards, whatever it was, but we didn’t show that level of quality.

“Second half we have had 11 shots today but three on target. They’ve had seven and six (on target).

“Sometimes you take your chance and sometimes you don’t. We are inconsistent at the minute. We’re not putting levels of performances together. We’ve had a lot of injuries and had to play players in makeshift positions and so on – that is affecting certain things with our fluency and balance but we have to be better than we were tonight.”

Maynard-Brewer did make an important double save early in the second half to deny Crawley going further ahead but the Australian’s kicking – a number going out of play – underlined the lack of confidence and composure on display from the whole side.

“We haven’t conceded many goals if you take the goals from outside the box then we have hardly conceded a goal,” said Jones. “Birmingham in the cup, Huddersfield the other day and two tonight – teams don’t carve us open but everything from distance is going in or a parry back into danger and we don’t react quick enough.

“We have to be better. We work on that and are organised – we don’t get done and no-one gets in behind us. We don’t concede from a header or from six yards, something is flashed across the box and somebody gets a tap in….we don’t concede any of those type of goals. It is just from distance and that is something that has to change because it is costing us points.”

Jones changed shape at the start of the second half, withdrawing Miles Leaburn for Thierry Small. The former Everton and Southampton youngster played at left wing-back as Charlton shifted to a back five with Josh Edwards moving inside to play on the left of a three central defenders.

Small had one early surge which drew appreciation and noise from the home support but then was unable to build on that.

“I didn’t think we passed it well enough and got people in positions well enough or carved enough clear-cut chances,” said Jones. “We weren’t dominant in any area. Allan Campbell was excellent around the pitch, how he got us on the ball. But we needed to demonstrate more quality all over – we didn’t do that or kick on after we scored.

“The worrying thing for me is everyone demonstrates quality from 25 yards, which is unbelievable, and we’ve got to do a hell of a lot more to score goals at the minute then just shoot from 25 yards – because that is what teams are doing to us.

“We are working hard to be defensively sound and we are, because we don’t concede big chances to anyone. But anything from distance is going in and that’s the only worry we have.”

PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD