Johnnie Jackson was thrilled with his side’s showing as Charlton brushed aside Doncaster Rovers 4-0 at The Valley to register successive league victories for the first time this campaign.
Goals from Elliot Lee and Conor Washington put the Addicks in the ascendancy after 34 minutes, before Jayden Stockley and Ben Purrington further settled the outcome in the second period.
“I’m really pleased, a good solid performance and four goals,” the Caretaker Manager told CharltonTV. “I’m really, really pleased with the clean sheet because I felt we could have maybe come off it a little bit; being that dominant in the game sometimes your foot comes off it and I was stressing to them that we wanted that clean sheet. We probably should have scored more, really. That would probably be my only gripe of the day. Can we be even more ruthless? Four good goals, four different scorers but there probably should have been a couple more as well.
“We did a lot of work on what we look like out of possession, especially when we’re attacking, what do we look like underneath the ball? I thought we had a real good shape about us, even when we were attacking we limited them to very few chances and to go and get the clean sheet tops it off. That’s a really pleasing aspect, too.”
Jackson made two enforced changes as club captain Jason Pearce and Chris Gunter replaced Sam Lavelle and Adam Matthews respectively, while Diallang Jaiyesimi was introduced after just 15 minutes as Jonathan Leko was forced off.
“It’s always a blow when you lose someone so early,” explained the 39-year-old. “Credit to DJ [Diallang Jaiyesimi], he was ready to come in and fill that role. We did some work with him in the week for that eventuality as well and it’s important that the lads that aren’t in the team at the minute know their roles and what’s expected of them when they do come on and be ready - DJ certainly was.
“Chris Gunter came into the side for Adam Matthews - I thought he was excellent as well. He knew exactly what we expected of him, the role and he’s an experienced player, so I had no doubts that he could go in and perform to the level that we needed and he did. Obviously the skip [Jason Pearce] came in for Sam [Lavelle] and you know what you’re going to get from Pearcey - I thought he was an absolute rock.”
The Caretaker Manager then lauded the quality present in the Charlton dressing room as he reflected on a special day in SE7 in front of a bouncing Valley crowd.
“I’ve said it already loads of times, there’s so much quality in that room,” he said. “We obviously haven’t been showing it but what I do know is once you run and once you work yourself into a game, the rest of it will take care of itself. We knew the crowd would be behind us from the minute go and you have to feed off of that. Then once you’re in a game, just by pure endeavour and pure intent, your quality is going to start shining through. We haven’t done loads of in possession stuff yet just because of the time restraints; we’ve had to work on a lot of shape, what we look like out of possession. But because we’ve got so much quality, a lot of it takes care of itself.
“It’s an incredibly proud day,” Jackson added. “To see The Valley rocking and full like it was with kids for a quid… to see a bumper crowd and to be able to deliver a performance that they could be proud of, you know. To hear them singing your name and the boys’ names is all you ever want as a player and as a coach, manager. You just want to deliver a team that they can be proud of and then they can get behind you. I’ve said that to the lads time and time again in the short time that I’ve been in charge and you see what happens when they get behind you.”
The Addicks are back in action at The Valley on Tuesday against Rotherham United. Click here to get your ticket.