Manager Karl Robinson has held his hands up to his own errors following Charlton Athletic’s defeat to Blackpool on Tuesday evening.
Having headed to Bloomfield Road for the midweek clash, it was a poor performance from Charlton with the hosts dominating the game but for a long time it looked like we might have stolen a point from the affair until they scored in stoppage time at the end of the game.
Speaking to the Official Site as he met with the media following the game, the gaffer held his hands up and was prepared to take the flak for the lot, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to make his point about things that happened during the 90 – even if he approached them subtly.
‘We were poor. People may say we were unlucky to concede in the last minute but I think Blackpool deserved it. I have to take responsibility – I am the manager. We wanted to make some tactical substitutions with 20 minutes to go but we lost Pagey and Sols through injury, and Pearcey was struggling too, so we couldn’t make the changes we wanted to.’
He went on to say that everyone was disappointed in the dressing room given the performances they put in individually and as a team, but his office door says ‘Manager’ so that’s where the blame goes.
‘The players are all very disappointed – I saw all of their faces in the dressing room – but, as the manager, I have the take responsibility for the defeat. There’s no point in me blaming the referee or whatever. The defeat is my fault because I am the Manager. We took the plaudits at the start of the season and now I have to take this criticism. Would any manager be able to deal with the number of injuries we have? I don’t know but fundamentally I have to take responsibility.’
With 264 fans making the trip, he also had an direct apology for them as their efforts in making the game weren’t met by the efforts of the players in playing the match.
‘I have to apologise to our supporters. You can imagine how disappointed I was and I did something that I haven’t done for a long time; I didn’t clap them after the game. That’s poor from me. I sat in the dressing room and the penny dropped. That isn’t me. We thank them for their support and we have to take the criticism when it comes. We’ve let them down and I apologise for not clapping them this evening.’
With Lewis Page going off injured in the first half following a clash of heads with Nathan Delfouneso – who was equally substituted – Robinson ended by saying.
‘He was concussed. He was ‘out’ for a few seconds on the pitch. We also send our wishes to Nathan Delfouneso because no-one wants to see any player be injured. Lewis is so keen to prove a point that he went for a ball that he probably shouldn’t have. A lot of his injuries have come through that. The most important thing tonight was that we were not good enough.’
