Lee Bowyer felt his Charlton side looked nervous as they are beaten by Blackburn in front of a bumper crowd
BY LOUIS MENDEZ
A special offer for £5 tickets meant that 25,363 fans packed in to The Valley to see Charlton take on Blackburn – but the majority went home feeling short-changed.
First-half goals from John Buckley and Tosin Adarabioyo were enough to earn the visitors all three points in South London, with the Addicks falling to a first defeat in six league games at home.
An average of just under 17,500 had seen Charlton’s home league games so far this season and Bowyer thought his side looked nervous in front of the larger than usual gate in SE7.
“We saw an improvement (after the break) but at times they looked nervy,” Bowyer admitted after his side were unable to build on Tuesday’s 1-0 win at promotion-chasing Nottingham Forest.
“Maybe it was because of the crowd, some of them are not used to playing in front of so many people. Maybe that effected young Alfie (Doughty) at times. He seemed a bit overawed. That’s how I felt. If I sit here and say how well he does, I have to say maybe it was a bit too much for him.
“A lot of them looked a bit nervy. Playing out from the back, normally we can play our way through. They looked too nervous today which is disappointing after the result they had on Tuesday.
“Maybe the weather played a part, maybe they were a little bit lethargic from Tuesday, but there’s no excuse for when you get into the right areas and you don’t find the quality.”
“I thought we started brightly,” added the Addicks boss.
“We got ourselves into some really good areas in the first 10-15 minutes but our quality, our final ball was poor. Blackburn got their goal and then they pinned us in a little bit. They were the better side in the last 30 minutes of the first-half. They got the second goal from a set-piece. I didn’t it was a foul but they put it in the box and they scored. Not good enough defending from us.
“I changed it at half-time. We huffed and puffed, at times we looked good, but overall, I’m disappointed because we’ve lost at home. I think Blackburn deserved to win and they did a good, professional performance. They deserved the three points.
“Our quality was poor. Whoever ended up being in that wide position either made the wrong decision or the quality was bad. First 10-15 minutes I was thinking ‘here we go, we’re in a good place here.’ But then they got the goal and things changed.”
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