Charlton Athletic boss Lee Bowyer surprised by Preston North End approach

Bowyer was speaking to Sky Sports after the televised clash in which Jayden Stockley started up front for PNE, winning a penalty for what proved to be the only goal of the game.

Stockley was a thorn in the side of the Addicks and although he was surprised by the game plan, Bowyer was not surprised by the effect that North End's powerful striker had on the game.

He said: "We’ve lost against a good experienced side, they’ve gone top.

"It surprised me the way they played, they went direct.

"But I thought we struggled with that in the first half, we didn’t compete enough, he caused the same problems to Blackburn last week.

"He’s a handful, the fella’ up top.

"We didn’t cope with it first half, second half, a bit better.

"It’s difficult. You can’t really rotate and play all the ones you want to play all the time.

"People coming off the bench, you want them to make an impact but that’s not really happening for us at the moment."

The Charlton boss bemoaned his side's performance, he believes his team can't afford to carry any of their players and that everyone has to be on their game if they're to get anything from Championship fixtures.

"From the start to finish we were sloppy," he said.

"We gave the ball away too much, we complicated the game a lot of the time and all of those things are not what we’re about.

"I’m disappointed.

"To lose to a penalty, our captain’s made a bad decision there.

"There are a few reasons why we ended up losing today.

"We had some good chances, didn’t take them, a combination of things.

"If you’re not at it, like us, you have to be at it every game, when we’re not at it we don’t do so well.

"That’s the difference with us coming up into this division, we need to be at it every game and unfortunately we weren’t today."