Portsmouth loan signing emerges as midfield option as Charlton chief talks about ‘lean and mean’ squad

Charlton Athletic manager Nathan Jones is confident that he has the options to cover defensive midfield if the League One side were to be without Conor Coventry or Greg Docherty.

The pair have become a strong partnership in the middle of the park for the Addicks, whose surge in form has taken them up to fifth in the table.

But Jones says that centre-back Tom McIntyre, signed on loan from Portsmouth at the end of the last transfer window, is able to also play the position.

“They (Docherty and Coventry) have been key players but we have just brought in Tom McIntyre, who has played in that position,” Jones told the South London Press. “Karoy Anderson can do that – he’s an eight who can do both roles.

“The way we play, we don’t play with an out-and-out sitting midfield player anymore. It is more of a fluid midfield and we’ll continue to want to involve so it won’t be one definitive position.

“There will be an evolution process and fluidity to our play.

“Every decision we made in the window was very, very structured. We let REG (Rarmani Edmonds-Green) go and got cover in that area. We had to do the deal for Tom and then we allowed REG to go, because he wanted to go and play football. He didn’t want to leave Charlton, but he wanted to play football, so we couldn’t guarantee him that.

“We’re not exposed in any position. We’ve actually got better balance. We’ve taken out I think seven players and brought two in – but we’ve actually got better balance in the squad now.

“Are we lighter, in terms of bodies? Yes. But for this period now we feel we have a real lean, mean squad and that’s what we want to do.”

Charlton had been keen to add a winger before the deadline expired for deals.

Jones said: “We wanted and tried. We were very bold in our attempts to sign certain players – we just weren’t able to do that in this window. But what we didn’t want to do was token take of anyone because we have got a very, very good academy that we can test.

“So when it became apparent we couldn’t do anyone of significant quality we decided to shut the shop down and move forward with what we had.”

MAIN PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD