Lee Bowyer was delighted to get through the first pre-season game at Birmingham without picking up any injuries.

It is the shortest ever break between seasons, so there should not be too many fitness issues. Bowyer tried some new moves out and said this after the game:

“The most important thing is getting through the game with no injuries and 45 minutes, a bit of fitness for the team, it was a good run out.

“We tried something different today and taking into account we’ve only been back a few days, there was a lot of positives to come from today. 

“New movements, receiving the ball in different areas, so there were a lot of positives. Obviously the odd thing we need to work on which is natural.

“The players looked in good shape, so I’m really pleased for the first game.”

Bowyer was particularly impressed with his team’s movement. Steve Gallen has said that his priority is to recruit wide players – both full-backs and wingers – that have pace.

The class of 2020/21 will probably be the quickest team Bowyer has ever fielded. The patient build up will still be there, but the ability to inject pace ‎into a move will add an edge to the team’s attacking play.

Bowyer continued and gave his thoughts on the goal:

‎”We were patient at the back, and then moved the ball through midfield, worked it out wide and there was a good run from George (Lapslie), a good cross, these are all things we’ve been working on the last few days.

“To see it come off is good, taking into account it is three days and we’ve not played like that before, that formation.

“You are asking them to do different things and when they do score from it, it is nice to see from the side and it will give them confidence in thinking ‘this is good’.

“It isn’t always going to work and we have to keep adapting and that’s what we have to do. It was a good goal. We nearly scored another one, quite similar to it after.

“Alfie (Doughty) was unlucky not to score. It was a nice goal, obviously the one we conceded wasn’t very nice. The most important thing is that we got a good 45 (minutes) into them.”

Bowyer is always reluctant to pick out a man of the match but did give special praise to all action new recruit, Alex Gilbey:

‎”If you really pushed me I would say Gilbey, some of the positions he was receiving the ball were good, he caused them a lot of problems at times. He did well today.

“Birmingham were a challenging side, they’ve been back a week longer than us. We have to keep working hard on all the things we want to do positively. We’ll do that when we are back on Monday, this is all practice for that first game.”

Charlton have another warm up game on Tuesday.