Nathan Jones admits Charlton’s set-piece delivery has to get better

Nathan Jones insists that Charlton Athletic’s set-piece delivery must improve.

The Addicks fell to a 1-0 defeat at Stevenage – with the only goal all stemming from a Conor Coventry corner that was too near to home stopper Murphy Cooper.

Alex Revell’s side were able to break up the pitch immediately, with Jordan Roberts slotting home from close-range.

The South Londoners had been amongst the lowest chance creators from set-pieces at the start of the season but did score from a corner at Shrewsbury a fortnight ago.

They did work an opening for Matty Godden in the first-half with the striker firing off-target and Macauley Gillesphey saw a header cleared off the line late on – both from set-plays. But they were unable to make more of the six that they forced throughout.

Jones said: “Our set-plays have got to be better. Deliveries have got to be better. We brought in good size over the summer. We have to score more from set-plays. A lot of that is on delivery.

“The delivery was into the goalkeeper’s hands. Keeper rolls is out. We have numbers back there, they hit a diagonal and it’s banged across the goal. We have two around their goal scorer and he runs off the back of them and scores. That’s not good enough. Those are the things we switched off on.

“We know it’s going to be a tight game. It’s a difficult place to come to, to gain rhythm. Fair play to them, they took the chance they had and we didn’t take ours.

“We could be better all over [at set-pieces]. At times we’ve been good. We worked a really glorious one first-half and should hit the target and we don’t. Then we hit it at the back or the near-post, hit the goalkeeper too many times. We don’t give ourselves enough opportunities to score goals. We’ve brought in size and power now so that needs to change. Delivery needs to change.”

PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS