MICHAEL Appleton said he was “delighted” with the contribution made by Charlton’s new signings in today’s 2-1 home defeat to Peterborough.
Tryreek Barkinson started and played the first 76 minutes of the Posh clash before being replaced by fellow fresh face Conor Coventry, with Manchester City loanee Lewis Fiorini also making a late cameo from the bench.
Although the trio couldn’t prevent another loss, the early signs were positive according to The Valley manager.
“Delighted,” responded Appleton to Charlton TV when asked to rate their contribution.
“Hopefully it is going to be a sign of things to come, the quality.
“I thought Tyreeq was much effective for us as an eight rather than a four, so that is something for me to be aware of and think about going forward.
“It was great to see Conor coming on.
“He showed the quality and level he is at all of a sudden.
“The weight of pass, the type of pass, when to pass – he made all of those decisions correctly and hopefully that will be one thing we can certainly do going forward much better.
“With Lewis, the more you see of him, the more minutes he gets on the pitch he will score goals from that midfield area.”
It doesn’t sound as if Charlton’s recruitment drive is finished yet, as Appleton pointed out more signings are likely before the window shuts.
“I’m hoping so,” the boss said.
“You never say never, and there are certain aspects that can go wrong, or not quite happen for you.
“It definitely won’t be from a want of trying, I can assure you of that.
“There is a hell of a lot of work going on behind the scenes with everybody to try and get the right personnel.
“I touched on it, the reality is we want to bring in players that are considered better than the level that we’ve got and better than the players we’ve got in the building.
“That is not a disrespect to them, it is just where we want to go with the club.”
Appleton accepted Charlton were second best in the opening period against Posh, who led at the break courtesy of Ephron Mason-Clark’s 28th minute strike.
Charlton were booed off at the interval with the under-fire boss admitting he would have done likewise had he been a paying punter.
There was a noticeable improvement after the restart, with the hosts quickly back on terms through top scorer Alfie May’s header.
But it didn’t stop Mason-Clark grabbing his and Peterborough’s winning goal with quarter of an hour remaining, leaving Appleton to claim a share of the spoils was the least his side deserved for their second half endeavours.
He said: “I get the frustrations at half-time.
“I’m just as frustrated I can assure you, so I would have booed the players. I would have booed me! I would have.
“But the reality is there is a lot of work that goes into preparing a game, especially against the quality you are up against, especially when they are well oiled machine and they’ve been playing as well as they have done lately.
“I think we addressed that at half-time and we dealt with it.
“With a little bit of better finishing, with a little bit more calmness possibly we could have come away with the minimum of a point.”
