Nathan Jones after 1-0 defeat at Stevenage: Charlton Athletic must improve in the final third

Charlton manager Nathan Jones says a lack of quality in the final third cost his side as they lost 1-0 at Stevenage.

The defeat made it back-to-back league defeats for the first time since Jones joined the club in February – the Addicks were condemned by Jordan Roberts’ close-range finish on 67 minutes.

Chuks Aneke spurned Charlton’s best moment as he fired over when slipped in one-on-one by Tyreece Campbell. Macauley Gillesphey also saw a late header cleared off the line with the South Londoners unable to find a way past Stevenage’s rearguard.

Jones, who made six changes coming into the game, said: “It’s a tough game. We started really well. For about 25 minutes we were excellent without, again, creating the outcomes we needed. Then we’ve had the best chance. Chuks had a glorious chance, he needs to just slot that in. It’s a massive goal he needs to hit. And then we concede from our own corner. Those are the margins.

“Our keeper had one save to make, tipping the ball over. Apart from that, not really much. We’ve defended our box well again but just haven’t shown enough quality in the final third. We’ve had enough situations, especially first-half. Second-half we’ve piled on the pressure and got in areas. Gillesphey has a chance with the header.

“But we don’t show enough quality in the final third and that’s why we’ve ultimately lost the game.

“We work religiously on [creating chances]. We’ll do that work and then we want people to be confident to make the right decisions. We get in really good areas but the delivery or something is not there. It summed it up right at the end where Macca – who is the best technician at the football club – gets an opportunity to just lever it into an area. We work on that every single week but he puts it well out the back and it deflates everyone.

“We put Lloyd [Jones] up there to have targets. We’ve got targets, we’ve got goalscorers but if the ball doesn’t come in and we haven’t got that quality then we lose the game.”

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