"Tough" - Charlton Athletic: Nathan Jones limitations raised | OneFootball

FLW has been speaking with our Charlton Athletic fan pundit to discuss what the single biggest issue is for the Addick's currently.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Charlton Athletic have won just one of their last eight League One games, as Nathan Jones' side appear to be stuck in a mid-table rut.

The Addicks fell to a 1-0 away defeat to Exeter City in their latest outing, with their last win coming against Birmingham City on 5 October.

Charlton have struggled at both ends of the pitch so far this term, and Jones needs to find the answers sooner rather than later as frustrations begin to rise among the Valley faithful.

It's the style of play under the former Southampton manager that our Charlton fan pundit, Ben Fleming, believes is the single biggest issue at the club at this moment in time, before going into detail on how it can be fixed.

"It's a tough watch"

Fleming said: "I think the biggest issue is results really. I think by signing up to Nathan Jones as our manager, you're not expecting beautiful football, it's not going to be necessarily pleasing on the eye.

"It's going to be attritional, dogged, that sort of football. I think fans are fine with that if you get results to go with it. We did do that at the start of the season, but now the results aren't coming with that.

"It's a pretty tough watch. We look pretty limited going forward, and clearly, that defensive rigidity at the start of the season isn't exactly the same. We're not conceding loads of goals in games, but if you're not scoring any, then it makes it pretty difficult to go and get any sort of points.

"I don't know what Jones needs to do really. He's sort of moved to a back four, then we got that win against Birmingham and didn't kick on in terms of getting wins. We got three draws in a row against some good opposition like Wrexham and Stockport, but I don't know whether he'll now use this international break to maybe think about going back to the back five."

As Fleming makes reference to here, Jones has been chopping and changing from a 3-5-2 and a 4-2-3-1 for the majority of the season so far. Perhaps then, this lack of a clear philosophy and playing style is significantly contributing to Charlton's inconsistent form so far this term.

Charlton underwhelm in an attacking sense

As Fleming made reference to, scoring goals has been one of the main contributing factors in Charlton's mixed start, with the Addicks yet to score more than two goals in any league fixture so far this season.

If Charlton want to secure a play-off finish this season, then addressing their lack of cutting edge needs to be a top priority for Jones and his coaching staff, but Fleming believes there may be a solution.

Speaking on how to resolve Charlton's attacking woes, Fleming said: "We've got problems at right-back with both of our two first choice players out. But, I think we need to look at ways to make ourselves more potent going forward. I've said a number of times that I don't think we're playing in a system whereby we don't have natural width higher up the pitch.

"Tyreece Campbell sometimes drifts into the channels, but we haven't got that natural width starting higher up the pitch. I think, too often when I watch us play, our full-backs start too deep in the attacking build-up.

"We should be building up through the middle using our numerical advantage, and then spreading it wide with our full-backs high up the pitch, so they can get balls into the box.

"Whereas, a lot of the time they're starting the build-up and they're sitting deep alongside the centre-backs, so when we do progress the ball forward, they're not high enough up the pitch to receive the ball in attacking areas and get crosses in.

"That's just one thing, but, we've got a couple of weeks off now with our game v Peterborough called off, so they need to try and work out a system and try and get us moving back in the right direction."