Nathan Jones has criticised Charlton for not doing “the basics” in their 3-1 defeat against Norwich at The Valley.
Charlie Kelman fired the Addicks into a 10th-minute lead before goals from Paris Maghoma and Mathias Kvistgaarden plus Ivan Mesik’s own-goal handed victory to Norwich, which left Jones’ team sat 19th in the Championship table.
Jones post match told cafc.co.uk that he was happy with the way Charlton began the match but was angry at how they threw away their lead through a failure to do basic play.
“I was really pleased for 20 minutes, and then there was just a lot of really poor play from from 20 minutes onwards. It was stuff that we do not naturally, stuff that we defend well, and we do the basics we’re not doing.
“We’ve got people that that aren’t doing that. We don’t show any real bravery when we have tough decisions to make on the pitch when it’s tight, when we have to be clever, when we have to be composed. We don’t do that,” rued Jones as he also hit out at the sloppy possession.
“We give the ball away, and then we’re giving it away against good sides, they are in a false position. They got some, some wonderful players. And if I’m honest, we we’ve come up short today again.
“As I said, it’s disappointing because for the first 20 minutes we started, we we’ve had two or three chances. We had a glorious chance to go one up at the start. Then we have scored from a real good goal. We were pressing.
“We were winning the ball back high. Then we stopped doing those things, and we were, very tentative. It doesn’t look like a side that I coach. If I’m honest, because we, we are we do the basics well. We preach the basics. We do, and we’re not doing that. And something has to change.”
Jones bluntly admitted that his team are throwing away vital wins through poor decision making and felt that little will change if they continue to be careless and end up chasing matches.
“We’re not giving ourselves the chance to win a game because we score first, score first and then we the opposition don’t have to do much to score the goal. We make the wrong decisions. Today we made wrong decisions. We put the ball in the middle of the park, and we flick it high and we are tentative, and then they break on us and score.
“And when we chase games, then then we leave ourselves susceptible, and that’s how we end up, you know, conceding the third and conceding the second at Watford, and and that’s a frustrating thing. We’re trying to win again, but if you if you’re giving yourself uphill battles all the time by making poor decisions, then nothing will change.”
Charlton have failed to keep clean sheets in seven of their last nine matches but Jones believes that the repercussions of their inability to keep a clean sheet went back to early September.
“After the West Ham and Preston game, we defended superbly well, but we haven’t since then. I think we have kept one clean sheet, which is the QPR game. So that isn’t good enough, and you must lay a foundation.
“We’re trying to be more fluent, but at the cost of us not doing the basics. So, we’ve got a week ahead of us where we are. We will be doing the basics because that’s what we got to get back to in a tough moment at this now. I understand that.”
Charlton’s slump after a positive start to the season has naturally led to anger amongst supporters and Jones publicly made himself accountable for the need to improve the club’s form.
“I understand, the fans frustration. But we’ve been here before. I’ve, you know, I’ve been booed off against Crawley, and we end up turning it round, getting promoted and giving people some of the best days of their life.
“So, I understand the frustrations. Do I like it? No. But the only way to appease that or to stop that or to curtail it is to win football matches, and ironically, that’s what I get paid to do.
“So, I I need to turn it round, and if I don’t, then I totally understand the frustrations that the fans have got. I think to be fair, they’ve been patient with me,” reflected Jones on the patience of supporters.
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