Charlton caretaker boss Lee Bowyer laid into his team after the 1-1 draw at Accrington on Saturday and warned that: "They’ll have to be better than they were today otherwise they’ll get thumped. Peterborough are a good side. But we’ll be ready on Tuesday. I guarantee they won’t be as bad as they were today.”
“Not good enough from start to finish" commented Bowyer on the Accrington performance. "Sloppy in possession. Decision-making at times was horrendous. That’s what it all boils down to. It isn’t good enough. For the players that we have out there and coming off the bench, that result is not acceptable for me. No disrespect to Accrington, I thought they did well especially in the second-half. But one point, coming here. That’s not good enough.
“Passing at times was OK but what I witness at the training ground every day isn’t what we just saw today. I just told them it’s not acceptable. We work hard all week for reasons, to get players into certain areas. When we tell them things and get them into those areas, we can’t make them make the right decision in the final third. That’s something that I can’t control. That’s what let us down today. In the final third our decision making was just wrong."
“We’ve got to start killing games off,” said Bowyer, who has seen his side pegged back after taking the lead in all three league games so far this season – only going on to win once against Shrewsbury at The Valley last weekend. “One goal. We should be scoring two, three or four goals here. We should be but we haven’t. It’s good for Karlan to get another goal but we should have had more. Him and Lyle should have had at least another one each I think.”
Peterborough will offer a severe test for Charlton's young team on Tuesday. They have begun the season with three wins against Bristol Rovers (2-1), Rochdale (1-4) and Luton (3-1) and sit at the top of the table. Jason Cummings and Mark O'Hara have already scored three goals each and Matt Godden has two.
It is only three years ago that Charlton went to Peterborough and brushed them aside in a 4-1 League Cup win that featured a goal from the half way line from Ahmed Kashi. Since then, however, The Posh have had the upper hand - only being denied four straight wins by two Charlton goals in injury time at The Valley last season. Their 4-1 thumping of us in March of this year was our worst League defeat of the season.
It will be interesting to see how Bowyer's criticism of his players affects their performance. He has only had a couple of days to work with them and he doesn't have the resources to make changes. We have to hope that he will somehow be able to improve their decision making, possession and finishing enough to counter the rampant and confident visitors.