CHARLTON fan and freelance journalist MATT FRICKER is News Shopper online’s Addicks columnist and this week argues the club’s first loss of the season could be the injection their campaign needs.

THE last three Charlton games have been disappointing.

We lost to Brentford in the JPT by not really turning up and our league performances against both Tranmere and Stevenage were lacklustre at best.

I’m not going to claim it is all doom and gloom because, quite frankly, it’s not.

We’ve just lost our first league game of the season, we’re still top of the league, even if it’s only by one point.

To make our start even more impressive, we’ve only conceded 11 league goals, the last four being two penalties and two hideous deflected efforts no keeper in the world could stop.

This said, Charlton’s next phase in their season really needs to start on Saturday with a reaction against Carlisle.

For me, this would mean bringing Paul Hayes, Scott Wagstaff and Chris Solly back into the starting line up, as while Danny Green and Yann Kermorgant forced their way into the side on merit, they’ve not done the business on the pitch.

Yes, you can argue it’s only been three games and we might not have seen the best of them yet, but why not revert to the side which was winning matches?

Hayes has come in for a lot of unfair criticism and while he’s made a few mistakes here and there, he’s scored three times, and more importantly, served as a fantastic partner for Bradley Wright- Phillips.

I feel it’s these partnerships we’ve been lacking, specifically Hayes and Wright-Phillips and Solly and Wagstaff.

By taking these duos away, we’ve seemed to be less assured in our play.

As Kermorgant’s a great aerial threat, we play the ball to his head but Bradley seems to prefer the ball to his feet.

Therefore our strikers aren’t linking up so well.

Similarly, Green isn’t as box to box as Wagstaff, so Solly doesn’t have as much support defensively to allow him to surge forward, although Green’s delivery is much stronger.

Of course I may be completely wrong in my judgement of the performances so far and only one man can pick the team. so we should keep our faith in Chris Powell and turn The Valley into a fortress on Saturday.

Come on you Addicks!

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