Wat More Can We Do?

Trying to avoid the result for four hours so I could watch it 'as live' was more problematic than I expected, and it played all sorts of havoc with my mind. Firstly, a Watford-supporting friend called me ten minutes after full-time (naturally I didn't answer it), and then a couple of hours later a Tottenham-supporting mate texted me, and he's not averse to a bit of schadenfreude at my expense.

So you can imagine my concern as the match transpired, with us playing some of the best passing football I've seen in a long while, that surely Watford would deliver a cruel late winner to leave us even more in the mire. Thus I may be one of the few Charlton fans realtively satisfied with the solitary point I predicted we would take from the game.

It's difficult to know what else Dowie could have done today. He had the guts to drop Hasselbaink and use a 4-5-1 formation that got the best out of Andy Reid. He also kept faith with Diawara despite his cramp at Fulham, and frankly he was absolutely immense - he reminded me a lot of Jorge Costa's best performances for us and not just because he also wore gloves.

And of course in my view some of the aforementioned flowing football deserved a goal and probably a win too. Most of the chances and half-chances we created were from a series of cohesive moves, with Reid invariably pulling the strings. If Jerome Thomas had taken his early chance, then I'm confident the nerves would have dissipated and we would have won comfortably. As it was, some of the tension from the stands must have reached the players as the game wore on, and in the end I was happy to ensure we took a point, not least when Darius Henderson somehow missed from six yards in the second period.

I suggested yesterday that a draw could, with hindsight, prove to be a more important result than we realised at the time and I stand by that prediction tonight. Our next six fixtures are very 'winnable' and include fixtures against Newcastle, Wigan, Man City and Sheffield United, all teams that currently make up the bottom eight, a group of strugglers that (Spurs aside) are likely to be our main relegation rivals in 2007.

I am hoping that some aspects of the performance, if not the result of course, will take some pressure off Dowie. It is worth remembering that the most serious candidates that the club considered (publicly at least) in the summer (Billy Davies, Peter Taylor and Phil Parkinson) are not exactly setting the world alight in the Championship, reminding us that it is rarely easy to just turn up at club and begin generating results, particularly as in Dowie's case, it was not exactly handed down to you in tip-top condition.