Michael Appleton keeping faith Charlton can improve going forward

Charlton manager Michael Appleton remains positive about his side’s fortunes going forward despite them conceding another late goal in a 3-3 draw at Port Vale.

The Addicks led on three occasions, through Corey Blackett-Taylor, Daniel Kanu and Tyreece Campbell, but goals from Ethan Chislett and Uche Ikpeazu were added to by Gavin Massey’s fantastic curling effort in the second minute of second-half stoppage time to earn Vale a point.

It comes on the back of conceding late goals in recent losses to Oxford, Bristol Rovers and Leyton Orient, as well as draws with Burton and Cambridge, amid a seven-match winless run in Sky Bet League One.

“There’s times when I just want to get myself on the pitch and deal with it,” Appleton said.

“But I think I mentioned it last week, and certainly I’ve mentioned it this week, we’ve got to keep putting ourselves in that position – that’s the most important thing.

“So when you’re on a run and got a spell like this, it’s dead easy to lose two, three-nil.

“When you don’t go ahead in a game or you concede the first goal, or allow the opposition to sort of get away from you, you think next week it’s not going happen.

“But the one thing the players are really good at is getting themselves in that position time and time again.

“Now ultimately, at some point, we’ve got to get over the line and we’ve got to see it out.

“But I’m a firm believer that if you do keep putting yourselves into that position, (and add) one or two maybe new faces et cetera to give everyone else a lift, that’ll happen.”

Port Vale boss Andy Crosby believes his team should have taken all three points, even though they had to come from behind three times to secure a share of the spoils.

“We should have won in my opinion,” he said.

“If we continue to do what we’re doing without the ball, we’re going to become a mid-table team that doesn’t achieve what it should do.

“When you give presents like we did away to a team like that, you’re not going to win games of football.

“We dominated the game, we’ve given chances away to the opposition and it’s just a present.

“We’ve had so many opportunities ourselves.”

Crosby’s side have moved up to 14th in the table, one place behind Charlton who they continue to trail only by goal difference.

He also reserved praise for Charlton goalkeeper Ashley Maynard-Brewer, who produced a number of excellent saves.

“Their keeper is the man of the match by an absolute mile,” Crosby added.

“We’ve scored three goals, we should have scored more.

“We’ve collected one point, we should have collected three.”