Substitute Myles Leaburn scored the only goal as Charlton Athletic defeated Bromley in the Bristol Street Motors Football League Trophy, Southern Group C.
That meant that the Addicks finished top of the group with a one hundred percent record. The one negative for them was the red card shown to manager Nathan Jones for touching the ball with his foot just before it went out of play.
As a result, Charlton’s Assistant Manager, Curtis Fleming, undertook post match press duties and said “We knew it was going to be a tough game. For us, it was very important to get back to winning ways after the result at the weekend, and it was a local derby. We went quite strong tonight but we gave an opportunity to a few young players. It was important to us, mentally as a squad, to get a win, a clean sheet, we’ll take that and we’ll keep building to what we’re trying to achieve.”
Although pleased with the win, Fleming accepted there was room for improvement saying “It’s a game that we wanted to win, but are we happy with everything? No. We had a lot of possession, maybe we didn’t create as much as we wanted to. It’s something that we’ve been working on, but you can’t question the endeavour of the lads.
“I just think that at times we could be a bit better, a bit more confident on the ball, pass forward a little bit more and play at a tempo. You probably saw us jumping up and down on the touchline, trying to get the tempo going. That’s a big part of what we are and what we should be.”
On the subject of Jones’ red card, Fleming said “I thought it was a very harsh decision. I was standing about a foot away. It happened to (Arsenal manager) Arteta last week and he got a yellow card. The referee, to be fair, coming out for the second half said ‘it’s something I have to give him a red. It doesn’t feel like a red, but I have to give him a red.’ I thought that was very harsh. He’s (Jones) very disappointed. There’s no doubt we’ll be looking at it and sending in an appeal.”
There is no doubt that the new tournament matters to Charlton. Fleming confirmed “We’ve won three games. We’re unbeaten and that probably shows you how important it is because we’re not in a position to take any game lightly. We’ve got a decent squad. It was important for some guys to get some good minutes, it was important for us to let some young players play. I thought that Kai Enslin was very, very good tonight.
“Under 21 games are totally different than a competitive game in the Valley in front of a few thousand people. It’s totally, totally different and I thought he stepped up to it very well. It was all about getting the win. There were some posititives, some stuff we want to work on and the most disappointing part of the night is that the manager’s got a red card.”
Unusually, Fleming had to substitute a substitute. He explained “He was holding his groin. He said it wasn’t that sore but we just can’t take chances with the kids because sometimes they haven’t got the experience to say ‘yes, I’m struggling’ because they’ve just come on and don’t want to come off. I think he missed three minutes but if he pulls his groin he misses three months so there’s no point in taking a chance. We gave another opportunity to a young player.”
Development of young players is very important to Fleming. “I think there’s a huge pathway here and I think there’s a lot of other players knocking the door down to try and get an opportunity to play.” he said “I think that when you come to Charlton as a young player or you’re coming up through the ranks, every time you go into the restaurant or onto the training pitch we’ve got so many who are really important players for our squad so they can see something that they can try and achieve.”
Picture supplied by Dave Budden.