Shrewsbury must not let Charlton defeat derail season says Steve Cotterill

Salop have had a successful League One campaign to this point, but they were on the receiving end of their worst defeat of the season on Saturday at The Valley.

Charlton scored three first-half goals, a wonderful Scott Fraser free kick, Albie Morgan's strike from inside the box and Jes Rak-Sakyi scored after a silky run forward.

Miles Leaburn added two more, either side of a red card for Tom Flanagan and Macauley Bonne netted in stoppage time.

And Cotterill said his side must not let the events of Saturday afternoon define their season - with eight League One clashes left to play.

He said: " I said to the players that we have got to make sure this kicks us on and does not define our season.

"You feel a little helpless, when your team is already 3-0 down when you go in at half-time but we did not deserve to go in trailing by three goals at the break.

"If you look at the first half, and you look at it in isolation we were the better team and we finished it 3-0 down.

"That is really tough when you are player in the dressing room when you have given everything on the back of it.

"We got into better positions.

"I do not think there is any particular reason, if you look at the goals they will be individual mistakes.

"And what you can't do is you cannot afford to make too many of them and we did and got punished for it.

"All the hard work to get us into a +6 goal difference get wiped out in one 90 minutes."

The players gathered in front of the fans at the final whistle, and some chose to give their shirts to members of the 646 loyal Salopians who made the trip down to south London.

And the boss revealed Luke Leahy was the man who had chosen to say a few words to his team-mates.

He said: "Luke was the one who wanted to talk to the lads really, I was just talking in general.

"I don't tend to address players on the pitch, I don't do that so it would not have been me it would have been Luke talking to the lads."