Seventeen Minutes

That was horrible, truly, truly, horrible.

At half time, I actually thought about leaving. I never would of course, but I thought about it. Who are the team playing for right now? It isn't for us, that's for sure, but more damningly, it isn't for Pardew either. The Valley is an increasingly depressing place to be right now, and there are no easy answers as to how to put that right, beyond winning games, and at present, we are nowhere near good enough to do that. I deliberately left this posting until this morning to try and put some perspective back into the situation, but quite frankly I can't. The players should be good enough, and at present Pardew is not good enough.

I believe he is a good manager, but crucially, whenever he has shown that in the past, he has always had money to spend. There is none at Charlton, and even sacking him, is going to mean members of the Board putting their hands in their pockets yet again. How long can they keep doing that? Who would we be able to afford to replace him?

I sit directly behind the home dugout, and whatever I hear, Pardew hears. There was a fairly steady stream of invective being flung at him yesterday, albeit by a vocal few, but the momentum continues to build. The Covered End will be more voluble next time out, and the thirty or so who chanted for his head in the West Stand car park after the game, will be considerably more.

As somebody shouted out, when any pretence of aiming for promotion was finally obliterated, seventeen minutes into this game, "Taxi for Pardew"