Lee Bowyer is eager to keep Macauley Bonne at The Valley this season.

Bonne arrived in the summer from Leyton Orient in a deal worth a reported £200,000, and was seen as a prospect for the coming seasons.

With game time limited, and looking increasingly unlikely giving the further addition of Tomer Hemed in the week, there were suggestions that Bowyer would be willing to loan the 22-year-old out.

The manager however, has outlined his plans for the striker, and sees him very much part of his attacking stable.

“I would like to keep him here and keep working with him,” the Addicks boss said.

“As it stands he’s staying, we’ve got Macauley.

“I understand he’s a project.

“He wasn’t the finished article, he’s improving all the time, his movement’s getting better.

“We have a good base to work from, he can finish, both feet, good in the air.

“It’s the other side of his game we are working on, his movement, being more clever in and outside the box.

“He’s improving.”

Bonne was an unused substitute in Charlton's 1-0 win over Brentford at The Valley on Saturday, as Hemed made his debut for the Addicks from the bench.

Asked whether he sees Hemed as the perfect strike partner for Lyle Taylor, the Charlton boss said:

"We need strikers, strikers win games, the more options we've got the better, one might be in a bad spell, one might be injured, it would limit my options, but I wouldn’t limit it it down to the two strikers (Tomer and Lyle), it wouldn’t be fair.

"I've got three strikers in the building, you could say Chuks (Aneke) can play there, so four good strikers that will keep competing every day.

"Jonathan Leko is playing up there, so we could say five."