Charlton Athletic boss Lee Bowyer: Bonne is injured – and we’ll have no injured players back for Swansea

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Lee Bowyer has confirmed that Macauley Bonne has suffered a hamstring injury – with the striker set to miss the January 2 match at Swansea City.

Bonne, who struck a brace in the Boxing Day win over Bristol City, was replaced at the start of the second half by Lyle Taylor.

And the Charlton chief is not expecting any of his other injured players back for the trip to Wales.

“I don’t know how long [Bonne will be out] but it will be a few weeks,” he said. “It’s good for the football club because the young lads get unbelievable experience. But it makes it more difficult for us to win games – that’s a fact.

“There’s nobody coming back in three days time. That’s the way it is.”

Bowyer admitted the Addicks were below-par against Derby, who played a huge swathe of the match down to 10 men after Krystian Bielik was shown a straight red card for his late lunge on Conor Gallagher.

“Did I think it was a red card? Probably. But we saw Krystian make that tackle loads last season [when he was on loan with Charlton]. He’s full-hearted. He wasn’t trying to hurt Conor, he tried to honestly win the ball. He slightly missed it.

“I don’t think we had a shot until Lyle’s penalty. I can’t remember another shot that hit the target until the penalty. We got into so many good areas but our final ball was very, very bad.

“We were poor from start to finish. We got outbattled, outfought. We were second to all the second balls. We got what we deserved – nothing.

“We weren’t good enough. It’s as simple as that. It was only the last five minutes. The last five minutes of a game is not going to win you a game. Too many people were hiding and weren’t getting on the ball until it was 2-0 and then it’s too late. The game is gone.”

PICTURES BY SEAN GOSLING