Last week we finally acquired the signature of Erhun Oztumer who the smallest player in the Championship at the height of 5 foot 3 but Bowyer does not see it as an issue in the Championship as he looks to shake things up in his squad.
Charlton’s team has got its small players and its big players, Lee wants a healthy mixture of the two as he explains below to Richard Cawley of The South London Press as he expands his tactical fluidity.
“We have to be able to play, that’s the way we do things – we play football. There is no point me having a lot of meatheads who can’t play football, that wouldn’t suit the way we want to do things.
“We have got to have a balance – people who can compete and fight, who then give it to people who can play.
“We weren’t any different last season. I know the Championship is a more physical league, but I watched Cardiff and Reading on Sunday – Cardiff were big, strong and physical but it doesn’t mean they are going to win every match.
We all know Lee has his head screwed on tightly and this is also another example of it. With players like Erhun and Jonny Williams, we are going to need those players who are skilful on the ball and that cause defences to split up to open up attacks and slot the ball into either a striker or a player that can get his head on the ball.
We know for a fact we can deliver on the physical side of the game, we are a very fit team and the engines stay on until the final whistle blows as numerous late goals show that the second half is always our strongest.
Bowyer continued.
“Any team has to compete on the physical side.
“Erhun can play on the right, left or as a number 10. He can also play left or right in a diamond. He brings us variation – he is clever.
“Erhun creates and scores goals, he’s quite similar to Jonny. It’s being able to rotate so that if I leave one out I have a good replacement that is not going to let us down. A lot of the lads we have brought in are like-for-like because we are going to need to rotate.
“It’s going to be tough this season, so once we do rotate two or three I want those coming in to be just as good.”
Now that we have a couple of players who can get forward quickly in Williams and The Turkish-Messi we should be witnessing a lot more goals for us in future games.
We are currently the highest scorers in the league with seven goals and that is also including the games that were played last night.
It’s good that Oztumer can play near enough all around the diamond, he can give us depth in a lot of areas which will also pave way for him to feature in a lot more games once he starts playing for us.
Charlton play Nottingham Forest tonight at The Valley, let’s hope for all three points!