Nathan Jones believes Charlton drawing 1-1 with 10-man Stockport shows how his side continues to evolve.
The south London outfit came from behind with a second-half performance that maybe deserved more than a point.
After Louis Barry put the visitors ahead from the spot in the first half, Rarmani Edmonds-Green proved to be the match saviour after the interval.
Charlton remain 12th in League One, but manager Jones was pleased with his side.
He said “The positives are the level of performance, I thought we were excellent all afternoon – we moved the ball really well and created enough chances.
“It’s probably the most fluent we’ve been, if I’m honest we could have blamed that one decision with the penalty, but we had enough to win the game.
“Stockport are a good side – they fancy themselves and people fancy them to get promoted.
“We’ve always talked about evolving, last year it was very difficult to come into a side that hadn’t won for so long, so we had to get to a certain level.”
Stockport went ahead after 11 minutes, when Barry slotted home a spot kick after Will Mannion was adjudged to have fouled Nick Powell after a collision.
Corey Addai had to get down well to save a Tyreece Campbell shot after 17 minutes, before blocking a Karoy Anderson flicked header off the line from the resulting corner.
Mannion was called into action to deny Barry a second after a run from deep inside his own half.
Charlton looked increasingly menacing, and equalised on 66 minutes when sub Edmonds-Green tucked home a loose ball after Addai parried from Campbell.
The home side were on the front foot in the closing stages, and their cause was helped by Fraser Horsfall receiving a second yellow with three minutes remaining,
Addai denied Alex Mitchell in injury time, but the visitors held on, leaving manager Dave Challinor to admit his side underperformed.
He said “I’m happy with the point, because it was our worst performance of the season. But credit to Charlton for that, because we couldn’t get going.
“We almost won the game but we almost lost it as well. It’s a tough place to come and we’ll take the point.
“There’s loads more to come from us, frustrated I suppose that we didn’t make the right decision on when to play.
“We were a little bit fearful today around our game and what we want to do, we didn’t impose that at all.
“We were giving the ball back too easily and they had a big part of the possession in the game.”
