Lee Bowyer: That is the worst Charlton have played for a while

Posted Sunday, December 23, 2018 by PA

Lee Bowyer was not in a festive mood despite seeing his Charlton side climb up to fourth in Sky Bet League One following a 2-0 home win over Gillingham.

Ben Reeves set the hosts on their way to a third consecutive league success by firing Bowyer’s men in front after just six minutes.

And the points were wrapped up six minutes before the interval by Tariqe Fosu’s spectacular long-range strike.

But even though Charlton were rarely troubled by the visitors, the manager was not exactly impressed by his own team afterwards.

Bowyer said: “I would probably say that is the worst we’ve played for a while. I thought we were scrappy at times. We gave the ball away sloppily and that isn’t like us.

“We deserved to win. I think we controlled the game OK. We gave a lot of silly fouls away and they got a little bit of pressure from that, but other than that I think we were the better side and deserved to win.

“In the second half we got into some good areas as well. I don’t know why but we don’t like killing off teams for some reason.”

He added: “I said to the players ‘It’s a good win, you deserve to win, but that is not you at your best. Just get yourselves home and get ready for the next one’.

“We’ve got three points and moved up another place so it is a good day, but it’s just I know what they are capable of and it disappoints me at times.

“I’m not disappointed but it just gives me the hump when they don’t do it properly at times.”

Gillingham manager Steve Lovell agreed with Bowyer’s assessment and put that down to his own side’s display.

He said: “I think the reasons they didn’t reach their levels is because of the way we played.

“Everybody out there can see the possession we had, the amount of crosses we got in the box was a lot more than they did.

“So perhaps I see it differently, but I think that is the way it was.”

Lovell added: “We started off very brightly in the first half and they got their goal against the run of play.

“Then the second goal was a tremendous goal, a great strike. But apart from that I don’t think (goalkeeper) Thomas Holy has a great deal to do.

“I think they hit the bar but that is the difference. The difference today is that we have all of the possession, all the balls in the box, we create a number of opportunities but we just lack that little bit of quality in the final third.”

Lovell also refused to use the absence through injury of top scorer Tom Eaves for the defeat.

He explained: “No, you don’t know because Tom might have played and we would have had the same problems.

“I’m not going to say if he had played we would have scored because the two boys who played up top did a great job. It’s just that they didn’t score.”