Forest Gumps

For those of you that read my half-time report, you will perhaps not be surprised to learn it didn't get any better. Arguably it got even worse. When the Forest fans sang, "You're so sh*t it's unbelievable," they were only half-correct of course because we can believe it alright. The look on Pardew's face suggested he had severely underestimated the dire state of the team he's inherited, and now I honestly question whether he might just walk away.

I would like the club to issue a statement on Monday morning confirming that the following players are available for transfer and will not wear a Charlton shirt again: Faye, Traore, Fortune, Rommedahl, Ambrose, Hasselbaink, M Bent. Better still, I'd like to see the Board have the bottle to seek to mutually cancel their contracts - they have virtually no transfer value anyway, and the £150,000 or so per week that their wages are draining from the club and the damage that their very presence is currently doing to our club is incalculable.

There was a darkly comical moment midway through the second half. After Talal el Karkouri had delivered his second foul throw of the game, and then delivered a (fair) throw straight out for a goal-kick, the camera panned to Pardew who was clearly telling him he was not to take another one. This is a Moroccan international and a highly-paid footballer whose ineptitude requires his manager to resort to the type of man-management usually reserved for Sunday morning pub games. I do hope they show the sequence on Match of the Day, I really do.

You can devour every single one of Les Reed's coaching manuals but if you don't have the heart for the battle, you will receive deserved comeuppance. I don't need to be UEFA-qualified to spot that Ambrose pulled out of a late header, or that Kish challenged for a 50/50 ball in the 81st minute like he was dipping his toe into the bath. I don't need to have attended the FA School of Excellence to know that for £2m I'd expect more than a succession of pointless long balls from Djimi Traore. I don't need to be a conditioning coach to know that Rommedahl is not giving 100% when he stands still after passing the ball instead of sprinting into a better position. In his cowardly mind he might believe he's giving 100% but it's the type of 100% that the likes of true winners like Roy Keane would spit in the face of (and literally I hope).

So it was the players after all. Apologies to Les Reed and all that, but anyhow he wasn't the answer for Charlton at any time, and certainly not at this time. Richard Murray would like us to believe that it is Dowie's fault for bringing some of these jokers into the football club; that however is a cop-out for me and anyhow, who appointed Dowie in the first place as the 'outstanding candidate' interviewed? Plenty of comments from Murray suggested he was uncomfortable with the amount of control (and the accolades) that Curbs received, and the 'new structure' imposed thereafter was evidence of a new desire to take the control back. He (and his lackey Varney) have to take some responsibility for this mess and I'd like to see them do so publicly.

Any company with a modicum of internal control would have checks and balances from the scouting network to the actual transfer negotiation, to ensure players only end up on the payroll if they are worthy of it. His argument also breaks down when you consider Cory Gibbs (remember him?) arrived at the club when we didn't even have a manager (or 'head coach').

Are we really meant to believe meanwhile that Dowie was flying Ryanair every other week whilst at Palace to check out Diawara at Sochaux? Or was his availability signalled via a fax to Andrew Mills and a DHL package full of video footage of him in action, to which Dowie simply said 'yay' or 'nay'? And anyhow, he is not the worst of the new signings; a quick review of the Newcastle message boards when we were looking at Amdy Faye would have told Murray we'd be sold a dud.

I was feeling more upbeat about Charlton thanks to Pardew's appointment and a couple of promising home performances. It's now pretty clear on today's evidence that the damage done by two to three seasons of mismanagement will not be undone in the space of two weeks. We have been promised that new blood will be arriving in early-January but personally I'm keener to see the door marked 'EXIT' left open as the aforementioned players collect their belongings.