DEAN Holden admits Charlton’s inability to kill off games they are in control of is proving costly after the Addicks went down 3-2 at home to Port Vale.
The hosts were looking to quickly bounce back today from the disappointment of Tuesday’s last-gasp 2-1 defeat against Bristol Rovers at The Valley.
Everything seemed to be going to plan when Holden’s side were awarded a tenth minute penalty following a foul on Daniel Kanu by Vale stopper Connor Ripley, enabling Alfie May to score his first Charlton goal from the resultant penalty.
Corey Blackett-Taylor then saw an effort hacked off the line as Charlton went in search of a second moments later.
The game was turned on its head early in the second half when the visitors scored twice in the space of a minute courtesy of James Wilson and Ethan Chislett.
And even though Kanu’s 71st minute header restored parity, there was to be more late heartbreak in SE7 this week when Funso Ojo grabbed an 87th minute winner for the Staffordshire side.
Valley boss Holden told Charlton TV: “I’m watching a team for 25 minutes in complete control. We obviously scored through the penalty, Corey has one cleared off the line.
“I think after that in fairness the last 20 minutes of the first half we came off our levels. I don’t think we passed the ball as much or as well as we had done up until that point.
“There were a couple of careless mistakes and then all of a sudden they’re throwing long balls into your box from free-kicks.
“Obviously they’ve got that huge weapon from that long throw and I don’t think we dealt with it as well as we could have done at 1-0. We could have gone and got that second goal.
“Having said that, in the second half again we’ve controlled the game.
“We are finding different ways to lose games at the moment, which is something we’ve got to rectify.”
Holden refused to criticise his injury-hit squad afterwards, hoping to make the most of an uninterrupted seven days coming up before next weekend’s trip to Oxford.
He said: “I think you can’t really legislate for the two mistakes.
“Having said that, you will never see me standing here in front of the camera and start laying blame at any player.
“I’m seeing players that are giving everything, that are running, that are doing everything they can for the shirt and we are just falling a bit short at the moment.
“We’ve not got as many points as we maybe deserved but we will make sense of it over the weekend.”
Holden added: “We’ve got a free week now – I think that is a positive. We are so light at the moment in terms of numbers we’ve got.
“We’ve obviously got a few injuries to key players and we are asking players to really go again in a three-game week. We’ve seen Corey Blackett-Taylor again go right through the game which again is a big positive.
“Lloyd Jones and Terry Taylor are still getting up to speed. Tayo Edun and the guys that we’ve signed, obviously we are missing Panutche (Camara) as well today, so we are a little bit light, a little bit skeleton in that scenario.
“What do you do? Do you roll on the floor and start blaming your mate or do you mope around?
“Or do you roll up your sleeves and get on with it, work hard and turn it around in the next game? That’s what we will do.”
