Charlton boss Nathan Jones was full of praise for Conor Coventry, whose first goal for the club secured all three points in a scrappy 1-0 win at 10-man Burton.
Coventry steered the ball home after a scramble in the box in the 82nd minute to deny Albion a point after Charlie Webster saw red for his reaction to Terry Taylor’s cynical challenge.
“It’s been a good week-and-a-bit for him,” Jones said. “He’s had his Irish call-up, and we are delighted for him because he is an excellent footballer. We played him a little bit higher and that proved to be a good decision.
“We love him here and hopefully that can be the first of many for him.”
The win was the Addicks’ first in six league games, with Jones relieved to see the run end.
“We’ve drawn a few in the league and not won so that has been tough, and it would have been easy for us to feel sorry for ourselves after the weekend, but we didn’t.
“The most important thing was to win the game. It’s a positive performance against a side who are fighting for their lives and had an upturn in recent weeks.
“If we had showed a little bit more quality and scored early then I think it could have been a different result again, but we will take the win because that was the most important thing.
“We did create plenty of chances, and the only negative is probably that we snatched at too many of our chances.”
Interim Burton head coach Tom Hounsell was left frustrated with midfielder Webster, with the red card denying his side the chance to take a point.
“I am disappointed in Charlie,” Hounsell said.
“He knows that and he is disappointed in himself and there is no hiding from that. He is still learning his trade and these things will come with experience.
“It’s a tactical foul from them but it has ended up putting us on the back foot. Charlie is a top pro and will bounce back.”
Albion had looked set to battle to a hard-earned point until the red card, but Hounsell was not happy with his side’s performance before that.
“I thought we didn’t play very well first half, to be honest. We weren’t anywhere near as good with the ball as we needed to be, particularly against a team as direct as Charlton,” Hounsell added.
“We ended up going quite long and finding ourselves pinned in.
“Second half we get the red card and no arguments with that. Then you are asking your team-mates to hold on for you and by and large we did that.
“The goal was scrappy and I think he mishit it into the bottom corner. We probably played better with 10 men, 1-0 down than we did in the rest of the game. That is the frustration for me.”
