Johnnie Jackson admitted his Charlton Athletic side should have been out of sight before having to endure a nervy ending to their 1-0 win at Doncaster Rovers today.
Jayden Stockley’s second-half strike was enough to earn the Addicks their first away win since the end of January – but it should have been much more comfortable.
Conor Washington saw an early penalty saved by home stopper Jonathan Mitchell and was also, along with strike partner Stockley, guilty of missing a succession of chances throughout the game.
It meant the Addicks had to hold on at the end, with Charlton keeper Craig MacGillivray forced into a decent late save to keep hold of his first away clean sheet in 11 league games.
“We should have been out of sight in the game,” said Jackson after his side made it three wins on the spin following two recent home victories.
“From box to box it was a really good performance. There were some outstanding individual performances, but we missed a host of chances. At one, you give the opponent an opportunity to put one in your box and for something to fall to them which it nearly did right at the death there, which would have been cruel. Then you need your goalkeeper to come up with something and he did. He claimed a cross at the end there and made a great save. That is equally as important as goals.
“You’ve got to be putting them away and on another day they do. It just seemed like one of those days where it wasn’t going to go for us. A penalty, that can happen, you can miss penalties. But there were other ones there that you have to score. On a different day they tuck them away comfortably.
“We’ve spoken a lot about clean sheets and how that gives us a platform to go and win games. Having the boys up top, having someone like Corey [Blackett-Taylor] back in the team on the wing gives you that threat that we haven’t had. We weren’t keeping clean sheets either. To get the clean sheets back and to have those guys available, we always fancy we’re going to score. It’s been too long but it was nice to get one today.”
PHOTOS: KYLE ANDREWS