CHARLTON boss Phil Parkinson defended his decision to make eight changes to his side for their Carling Cup exit at the hands of Shrewsbury.

Despite almost entirely comprising of new signings and inexperienced youngsters, the Addicks raced into a three goal lead courtesy of Lee Martin and a Pawel Abbott brace, their first goals for the club.

But the Shrews, enjoying a new lease of life under returning manager Graham Turner, produced a stunning comeback to win 4-3 and advance to the second round.

The makeshift Reds, in particular overwhelmed rookies such as Yado Mambo in defence, struggled to remain mentally strong as the pendulum swung in the Shrews favour but Parky was philosophical following the result.

He said: “I take responsibility because I was the one who picked the young team and the benefits of that are for the club going forward in terms of the young players who got 90 minutes experience under their belt.

“But obviously the negatives are that we’ve gone out in a game we really should have won and I honestly felt the team I picked had enough quality to win and when we were 3-0 up we were all patting ourselves on the back and I thought we’d cracked it.

“Whatever team we had out tonight, when you’re 3-0 up you’ve got to see the game through and we did some incredibly naive things.

“Any defeat is damaging – when you’re three up obviously more so – but all we can say to all of the team is what we needed to do better, that we need to improve certain aspects of our defending, and we need to be a lot more compact than we were tonight as it was far too open out there.

“But we will improve on that and it’s a great learning curve for all our young players.”

Indeed, while the Charlton fanbase reels from the unenviable turn of events for their side, Parkinson feels that the ordeal of suffering such a result may serve to benefit the entire squad in future league fixtures when the Addicks are protecting a lead.

He explained: “When you’ve had a night like we’ve had tonight, we recall it as the season goes on and the next time we’re in that situation then hopefully we don’t get over-confident like we did in a five-minute period in taking that extra touch and giving away some sloppy passes.

“Their first goal was a very basic goal, a long kick down the pitch and we should have just dealt with it so that one little lack of concentration from the back four cost us and gave Shrewsbury a lift.

“Saturday was difficult against Bournemouth. We had to dig deep at a goal up with ten men and tonight was another tough game.

“The team we picked wasn’t a lack of respect for Shrewsbury, it was a decision we took in terms of giving some young players a chance and also that we’ve got a big game on Friday night.”