Lee Bowyer saw evidence his Charlton side are starting to believe they can challenge for promotion after producing the “perfect away performance” in a 2-0 win at Rochdale

First-half goals from Chuks Aneke and Deji Oshilaja earned the Addicks the points in a contest they dominated throughout.

It was the perfect response to losing against Portsmouth in midweek and Bowyer has challenged his players to put a run of results together in a push for the top.

“It was the perfect away performance, we were good from start to finish,” he said.

“It’s not easy coming to places like this in the wind and the rain and to keep a clean sheet against a side who are the third highest scorers in the division. We looked solid from front to back and the clean sheet was one of the most pleasing aspects of the performance.

“What we’ve got to do now is back this result up and go on a run. It’s come to the point where we’ve got to put a big run together. I believe the players are capable of it but it’s okay me believing in them, they have to believe it themselves.

“Today they showed they have started to believe in themselves but there’s a lot of games to play.”

The visitors were ahead eight minutes in when Liam Millar fed Aneke and he was allowed to turn in the area and slam a shot wide of Gavin Bazunu in the Dale goal.

Oshilaja was in the right place after 28 minutes to tap home the second after Dale failed to clear their lines from a corner and it would have been three but for Aneke’s shot taking a deflection which carried the ball onto the foot of Bazunu’s post.

The home side improved after the interval, Aaron Morley’s corner threatened Ben Amos at his near post and Stephen Humphrys having a couple of efforts on target, but Dale carried little genuine threat and Charlton were able to see the game out in relatively comfortable fashion.

Rochdale manager Brian Barry-Murphy admitted his side had been disappointing.

“We didn’t play to the standards we’ve set in recent weeks, the lads have been brilliant and we’ve sat here loads of Saturdays and said how unlucky we’d been, but I don’t think we deserved anything from the game and it goes down as a disappointing performance,” he said.

“We didn’t have the kind of intensity that we have done recently, even when we’ve lost games we’ve been really good and we’ve had a free week.

“The lads have trained brilliantly and we’ve added new players to the squad and we’re in a really good place – so our excitement levels moving forward are really high but the performance levels today weren’t what we’d previously managed and we’ll be looking to put that right as soon as possible.”