Flemming Pedersen feels his side are getting towards where he wants them to be despite conceding an 88th minute penalty to lose 2-1 to Charlton Athletic at VCD Athletic this afternoon. Ademola Lookman opened the scoring just after the quarter hour but that was cancelled out ten minutes before the break as Jan Holldack netted his 11th of the season. Despite being second best for much of the second period it looked like The Bees would leave with a hard-earned point until Josh Umerah netted from the spot in the dying seconds.
Speaking to Bees Player after the match Flemming was not downhearted after the defeat as he saw signs during the match that his team is taking on board his ideas: “The team is getting towards where I want them to be in terms of being in the right position when we win the ball. This is both in our offensive transitions and in our build-up phases. Our build-up play in the central areas is getting better and better. Today with the pitch as it was it was difficult to see from the outside that our positioning was really good but we were not good enough to handle the ball. A lot of our passes were not hard enough and our touches weren’t good enough but first comes positioning and then comes quality.”
Against a physical Charlton Athletic side, who named six players with first-team experience in their starting XI, Flemming felt his side struggled to match The Addicks power and strength. However despite that the Danish coach felt his side were worth a points over the course of the 90 minutes.
“I think we deserved to get a draw,” said Flemming. “We struggled at the end but if you look at the start of the second-half then we had some good chances and counter-attacks. In the first 10 minutes we got into some good positions and we could have got some goals. I mentioned at half-time that Charlton has won two of the three duels. We needed to improve that in the second-half and in the first 25 minutes we were much more competitive in the duels. When you win a duel on the ground and come away with the ball that is when you can play.”
Flemming named three Youth Team players in the starting XI with 17-year-old defender Zach Birse making his full debut alongside Reece Cole and Chris Mepham. Fellow Youth Team scholars Julius Fenn-Evans and Danny Parish were also introduced off the bench to see The Bees finish the match with five 18-year-olds or younger on the pitch. The Head Coach said that he will have no hesitation moving forward in putting youngsters into his starting XI.
“We will see younger players in the team but not because they are younger but because they have potential and the quality to be first-team players,” said Flemming. “We are not looking to just play with the strongest squad that we can play with but we want to play with the right players, no matter what their age. If they are 15 or 16, as long as they are good enough, they can still play in the Under-21s even in such a physical game as today.”