Nigel Adkins on Charlton’s low points return at start of League One season + why performances are key

Nigel Adkins believes there are still plenty of positives to take out of Charlton’s season – despite the fact they are hunting their first League One win against Wigan Athletic on Saturday.

The Addicks have taken one point from a possible nine and head back to The Valley this week following back-to-back 2-1 reverses on the road against Oxford United and Milton Keynes.

Asked if he can still progress, Adkins replied: “Yes absolutely – the negative is that we’ve lost a few games and conceded four goals that we should have stopped.

“Take all the emotion away and when you actually break it down and watch it all back – there are some very, very good things that we’ve been doing. I know ultimately I will always get judged on results. That’s unfortunately what happens in football. But if you break the performances down there have been a lot of things that have been good and there have been some things that we’ve got to really improve on – and we know that.

“We’re not naive to that, but it is trying to put that all together over a period of time so that everything is singing off the same sheet and we’ve got that harmony together. Tell me a team that is going to play perfectly for the full 90 minutes in a 46-game season, I’ll tell you probably not many.

“Don’t just think we have been rubbish – we haven’t. We’ve had good parts of performance that you’re building on as much as possible. It’s a learning environment.

“Now I know everyone is going to go ‘it’s about the results’. I know that. But if we get the performance right, we get the result right – more often than not.

“We’ve got one point but beat Wigan at the weekend and we go above them. I watched a bit of football last night and they were on about Norwich [who were low in the table] and they went and walked the league.

“Sheffield United, years ago, were in this division and down the bottom – they did brilliant under Chrissy Wilder and got to the Premier League.

“The object for me is can you get off to a great start? Yes. Can you make sure you’re still in the race come January? And then the race is definitely on for the second half of the season.”