MICHAEL Morrison insists Charlton won’t be disheartened by the opening day defeat to AFC Bournemouth.

The 10-man Addicks fell to a 2-1 defeat to the newly-promoted Cherries on the south coast on Saturday.

But although disappointed, the defender says there are positives to be taken from the loss.

Morrision explained: “We won’t be too down in the dumps for losing this one.

“Obviously we want to get points on the board as soon as possible, but unfortunately it didn’t happen today.

“It’s only the first game of the season. “There are positives to take from it like Yann Kermorgant’s goal.

“He and Marvin Sordell played well and so did Simon Church when he came on. Both new faces played well.

“We’ve got a home game against Middlesbrough on Saturday and we’ll try and make sure our home record is better than last season.”

Kermorgant equalised shortly early in the second half with a spectacular left-footed scissor-kick after Lewis Grabban’s header had given the hosts an interval advantage.

But former Millwall player Grabban would double his and Bournemouth’s tally with a fine strike from long range to sink the Addicks in the 66th minute.

The introduction of new signing Church just before Grabban’s wonder goal could not inspire the visitors to rescue a point.

But Morrison, who captained his side in the absence of the injured Johnnie Jackson, believes there’s much more to come from Charlton’s new-look strike force.

He explained: “They’ve got to understand that Yann is going to win a lot of his flick ons and they’ve got to try and read that.

“They’ll get used to the style of play we want.

“It might take a little bit of time to get used to the squad, but hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.”

Bradley Pritchard was shown a straight red card for am 83rd minute lunge on Bournemouth’s Ryan Fraser to all but kill off the Addicks’ hopes of an equalizer, but Morrison refused to blame the officials for defeat.

He said: “We can’t really blame it on the referee, but there were a few decisions we contested we would like to have gone our way.

“In the lead up to the first goal we felt there was a foul in there.

“We were still trying to organise and they took the corner early.”

Morrison added: “It’s probably a bit of lack of discipline from us but at the same time we felt a bit aggrieved that the decision didn’t go our way.

“It just didn’t go for us today but I’m sure during the season it will even itself out.”

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