The inside track on Charlton Athletic and their Jermain Defoe interest plus surprising verdict on ex-Sunderland man George Dobson

The Addicks beat Sunderland 1-0 in October in Johnnie Jackson’s first game as caretaker boss, before he was appointed permanently.

But despite Jackson’s impressive start, Charlton have dropped to 16th in the table following five straight defeats.

To find out more, we caught up with BBC London reporter Louis Mendez to get the inside track.

Where has it been going wrong for Charlton recently?

LM: “Obviously the tough run of games doesn’t help but it has also coincided with an injury crisis up front.

“Since the turn of the year we have been struggling without Conor Washington and Jayden Stockley, then Chuks Aneke came in in January as well and then got injured.

“We have been relying on a young striker in Mason Burstow and there has been a lot of weight on his shoulders.

"Scott Fraser is another one who we have been missing recently, he had Covid and came on for about 20 minutes against Sheffield Wednesday

“Also defensively we seem to have lost our way a little bit and we have conceded a lot of goals from set-pieces.”

What system is Jackson likely to play?

LM: “He plays a 3-5-2 which we saw immediately when we came up to Sunderland and it worked really well for those first nine games or so. We also won three in a row towards the end of January.

“That’s the system he likes and that relies heavily on the wing-backs, but a lot of people feel we perhaps don’t have the right players to play wing-back at the moment which is probably fair.

“It also relies on the midfield pushing forward and over the last few weeks I feel they have been pretty disappointing in that.

“With the lack of strikers it means we haven’t really been able to keep the ball up that end of the field and take the pressure off the defence.

Charlton were one of the clubs interested in Jermain Defoe – what was the situation there?

LM: “I don’t get the impression it was ever very close.

“I think it was just like we’d be interested in having a conversation.

“Jacko will have played with Jermain Defoe when he was at Spurs but I’m not sure there was ever a great deal in that, other than Jackson said of course if someone of that calibre becomes available then maybe we’d be interested.”

Who are Charlton’s key players?

LM: “One Sunderland will be familiar with is George Dobson. He’s nailed on to be our player of the season.

“He wasn’t playing a great deal under Nigel Adkins, seemed to be a bit frozen out, and then Jacko came in and brought him straight back in for that game against Sunderland.

“I don’t think he has missed a league game since then and he has been really impressive.

“If Stockley plays, he’s a player we’d expect to make an impact and the same for Fraser.

“They will be the three to look out for but obviously it depends if they are fit enough.”

What’s your predicted line-up?

LM: “MacGillivray; Lavelle, Famewo, Gunter; Jaiyesimi, Gilbey, Dobson, Morgan, Purrington; Burstow, Stockley.”

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