NATHAN Jones said he was “shocked and embarrassed” by Charlton Athletic’s performance in their 3-1 defeat to Cardiff City in south Wales.
Jack Moylan and Yousef Salech had the hosts 2-0 up after 24 minutes before Tyreece Campbell pulled a goal back five minutes later.
After seeing his side under the cosh for most of the first half, Jones brought on Amari’i Bell and Timothy Ouma for Milenic Ali and Tyler Bindon at the break.
But Cardiff continued their onslaught on the visitors’ goal in the second half and Moylan scored his second in the 61st minute to help earn the Bluebirds their first league win of the season.
“I’m a bit shocked and I’m very embarrassed. I’ll take full responsibility because I’m the manager,” Jones said.
“We’ve worked religiously at passing the football, on being better in possession and trying to evolve, playing attacking players but today Cardiff outworked us, they out-battled us and they were stronger and more aggressive, which I think is unacceptable for our team. Then they passed the ball better, they had more shots, more possession, more everything. It’s a tough one to take.
“I can accept that sometimes people have more possession than us and occasionally they might have more shots than us but being outworked and out-battled and then even when we had opportunities to pass the football, there was no control in anything we did.
“Good players, good footballers that I watch every day wilted and then how we defended our box was very, very poor.
“I take full responsibility because I pick the team and if I’m honest I could have made nine substitutions because Arthur Okonkwo and Miles Leaburn were probably the two that came out with any credit. The rest of them, they were unacceptable performances.”
Jones insisted the half-time substitutions were not to make examples of the players.
He said: “Not to throw anyone under the bus, the two we brought off weren’t having great games. We felt we needed more strength to deal with them a little bit more. Ironically, when we started [the second half] we probably had two of the most clear-cut chances. We had three clear-cut chances because TC’s [goal] was a one-on-one, Charlie Kelman has a one-on-one and Karlan [Grant] has a one-on-one. We had three one-on-ones but all that would have done would have papered over the cracks. In another world we could have scored two or three goals because we should, they are clear-cut chances, but we didn’t.
“In between and in both boxes today we were a mile off it.”
Charlton didn’t win any of their five games in September after being top of the table following three successive wins to start the season.
“We’ve looked weak in our last two away games,” Jones said. “In our last two home games, we’ve kept two clean sheets but we’ve not done what we’ve needed to do in our last two away games. We’ve been very, very poor at doing the basics of football and normally we do those really well. We want to evolve, we want to be better but if we can’t do that then we have to go back to basics which is something that we’re going to have to do.”
Addicks defender Danny McNamara admitted the side would be eft stewing over the result until they can aim to put it right when they return to action against Bristol City at The Valley on October 10.
“It’s not like us and the performances we’ve been putting in at home don’t reflect those away from home,” McNamara said. “We’ve conceded seven goals in the last two away games, it’s nowhere near good enough and we need to take a good, long, hard look at ourselves.
“We had a chance at 3-1 when Chaz was one-on-one with the keeper and we said it in there that if he scores that, it just papers over the cracks of a real bad performance.
“We weren’t good enough, we know that, we own it and we’re going to put it right after the break.
“If we win today, the break comes at a good time.
“But we’ve now got a three-week gap. It’s going to take a while for us to get over that defeat and, for me, and I think the lads would say the same, we’d rather be able to get out there next week to try and put it right again.
“We now have to wait three weeks, but we’re going to try and put that one behind us now and our focus is on the next game.”
The one positive for Charlton was the return of Josh Edwards after a year out with an ankle injury.
Jones said: “I’m pleased to see him back on the pitch because we’ve missed him and for him personally,.
“What we need to do, we need to get everyone back up to speed. We need to get Billy [Koumetio] back, we need to get Kayne [Ramsay] back and then we’re stronger as a unit so we can at least know what we get. All over the pitch we were nowhere near, our intensity, how we ran, how we closed down, we were nowhere near.”
