NATHAN Jones said he took “full responsibility” and admitted “I got it wrong” after Charlton Athletic’s 3-2 defeat to Bristol Rovers on Tuesday night – their third successive loss.
Charlton were 3-0 down after 67 minutes following goals from 35-year-old Gas skipper and former Addicks loanee Scott Sinclair in the first half and midfielder Jamie Lindsay and centre-back James Wilson after the break.
Alex Mitchell headed in Matt Godden’s goal-bound attempt in the 79th minute and Godden made it 3-2 four minutes into added-time, but it was too little, too late for the visitors.
After being second in League One three games ago, the Addicks are now thirteenth after their fourth defeat in nine games.
“I’ll take full responsibility for this result. I got the team wrong, tactically I didn’t get it right today,” Jones said. “I picked a team that didn’t perform but I picked that team, so I’ll take full responsibility for that today.
“That’s what I went and said to the fans [after the game] – we let them down tonight, I let them down tonight. I haven’t done this before. I take full responsibility for that. It was a poor performance, we didn’t win battles, they were more front-footed than us but I’ll take full responsibility.
“For big parts of games we’re fine but there are times where teams are getting near our box they are scoring. Everyone scores from outside the box against us, we’re not learning. That’s the thing I can only do so much with but I got the team selection wrong today.”
Jones added: “There were positives late on. We created lots of chances to actually get something from the game. You shouldn’t get something from the game at 3-0 down but we’ve had chances. We had a glorious chance first half and chances second half. We scored two goals, we’ve had plenty of situations and ironically you should get something from the game but you shouldn’t if you are 3-0 down.
Charlton hadn’t lost successive games under Jones until their 1-0 defeat at Stevenage last Saturday.
Jones said: “When I came in [last February] we were nineteen without a win, so we built that solidity and always could win a game or be in a game because we didn’t concede many or kept clean sheets. Now we have conceded six in the last three games that we hadn’t done through pretty much all pre-season and the first five games – we’ve gone away from that. At the minute we’re in a tough moment and today I’ll take full responsibility as I got team selection wrong.”
Miles Leaburn came on in the 61st minute, his first competitive action since he tore his hamstring last November.
Jones said: “We’ve got Miles back, Chuks [Aneke] looked a handful today. Miles looked a handful, Godden was sharp, we’ve got the players there. We’re nine games in, we’ll be fine, we’ve just gone away from that [defensive solidity] a little bit and that’s the frustrating thing.”
Charlton host leaders Birmingham City on Saturday at 3pm.
