MICHAEL Appleton is looking for his Charlton squad to learn lessons from last night’s 3-1 reverse at Lincoln City.
The Addicks appeared to have picked up where they left off from Saturday’s 4-0 win over Reading as Alfie May fired them ahead inside 10 minutes.
However, the hosts drew level before the break when Hakeeb Adelakun produced an excellent finish inside the box before he grabbed his and Lincoln’s second with a close range finish in the 57th minute.
Sean Roughen was ideally placed to fire in a third with 12 minutes remaining after Ashley Maynard-Brewer had parried Lasse Sorensen’s initial attempt into his path.
That brought to an end Appleton’s six-game unbeaten start since taking over from Dean Holden in mid-September.
The new manager questioned why some members of his young side had let their heads drop during Lincoln’s dominant spells, but pointed out the challenge for those individuals now is to avoid any repeat of last night’s display in the future.
Appleton told Charlton TV: “There are lots of lessons learned. Sometimes these nights can be good for everybody because it certainly stops people getting carried away.
“I think you’ve got to play from a platform of being able to compete with the opposition and we didn’t.
“You give Lincoln credit because what they are is they are honest.
“They will keep running, they’ll pass the ball forward and jump on second balls – all those type of things – so you give them credit for that.
“But again, they should be the sort of basics that we deal with and should do on a regular basis because if you do that, even if you are second best 40 percent of the time or even 50 percent of the time, you can still give yourself a chance to get a foothold in the game. We didn’t do that.
“Yes, we got the lead but once the second goal went in, there was one or two players who looked like they didn’t really think they could get back in the game.
“I’ve not seen that yet so that is something that I’m certainly aware of tonight and I don’t want it to happen again.”
Charlton are back in SE7 this Saturday when they take on Bolton Wanderers, a side currently in the play-off zone and just two points from an automatic promotion spot.
And Appleton is optimistic his team can quickly put last night’s disappointment behind them against one of League One’s bigger outfits.
“We’ve seen with the group that they are capable of winning those type of games,” he said.
“We’ve played some decent sides so.
“If anything the so-called bigger a club, the better the team we’ve put in a performance.
“It is at The Valley – it has been good to us (there) in recent weeks .
“We’ve scored lots of goals and haven’t particularly conceded many.
“Hopefully that will be the same again on Saturday.”
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