Sheffield Wednesday vs Charlton Athletic: Addicks boss offers honest assessment on Owls win and ‘difficult’ pitch

The Owls secured a 2-0 victory on home soil as they clambered back into the League One Play-Off spots thanks to goals from George Byers and Callum Paterson, moving up to sixth place as they made it six wins from their last seven games since the end of January.

Charlton’s manager has not had an easy time of it in recent weeks, and was very honest in his assessment of the game at S6, saying that Darren Moore’s side were good value for their victory, adding that they didn’t utilise the ‘difficult’ pitch enough and didn’t ask enough questions of their opponents on the day.

Speaking to CharltonTV, Jackson said, “I’m disappointed… It was too comfortable a day for Sheffield Wednesday, obviously they got ahead early and that’s exactly what we wanted to avoid. We wanted to start well and stay hard to beat. They had a number of corners and set-pieces in the opening moments and, ultimately, we didn’t defend those and we then found ourselves behind. It was completely against what the plan was.

“I don’t think we’ve done nearly enough to get back into the game… I don’t think we’ve played the conditions smartly at all. It’s a difficult pitch and you have to try and make the other team defend a lot more - whether that’s just balls down the side, being a bit cuter with trying to gain a bit of territory and forcing them to defend. That’s what they did to us. We didn’t do it well enough, we didn’t do it smartly enough and we got what we deserved.”

The defeat - which was their fifth in a row in the league - leaves the Addicks in 16th place in the third tier after 34 games, and Jackson will be desperate for them to try end that run when they play host to Sunderland early next month.

For Wednesday, they host Burton Albion on Tuesday night.

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