Talking points from Coventry City 3 Charlton Athletic 1 - December a prime opportunity to pull clear of bottom three or be sucked into the drop fight skirmish

Addicks have faced 82 shots in last four Championship matches and one goal never looked likely to be enough to subdue leaders on home turf

Harvey Knibbs celebrates scoring the opening goal for Charlton Athletic at Coventry City

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

After shipping eight goals - all in the opening 45 minutes - against Southampton and Stoke City, there was more than an air of trepidation ahead of Charlton Athletic facing the Championship’s outstanding side in the opening four months of the season.

Before we dig a bit deeper on proceedings, Saturday’s 3-1 loss to Coventry City was nowhere near as deflating or dispiriting as the previous two matches.

Did Charlton deserve to get anything from the match? No.

Would they have been able to even if Amari’i Bell had lasted more than 30 minutes in his comeback match? Not necessarily.

The Sky Blues underlined exactly why they are already on 50 goals, with another five fixtures still to play before the halfway stage of the campaign.

There was good news when the team line-ups were announced with Brandon Thomas-Asante, Haji Wright and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto sidelined - the trio have a combined 22 goals and eight assists in the league.

But Coventry still had players that could do damage. Striker Ellis Simms scored twice to make it five goals in the space of eight days while Ephron Mason-Clark created the most chances in the match, completed the most dribbles and set up Josh Eccles’ equaliser.