The Ides of March

Oh dear. At least I wasn't there to witness it. I couldn't bring myself to read any reviews last night when I got back from Edinburgh but have taken the medicine this morning and it looks like it was just as bad as the scoreline suggested. Beaten at home again by relegation candidates.

Interesting that a number of the reports are reading pivotal signs from this game. Alan Pardew has conceded automatic promotion for the first time and his obvious anger has come through in his comment that this was "a load of crap." Peter Varney's decision to step down at the end of the season is also being linked as a sign of a terminal decline in Charlton's fortunes following the Curbishley era. Whatever's happening, the facts are clear for everyone to see, we are not playing well at the Valley and despite the biggest squad in the league, we seem unable to change our pattern of play when it's all going wrong.

The players might be feeling relieved that they have two away games now but the pressure will build if we return on Good Friday outside the play-off places. It's time to hunker down and get on with the task in hand and focus on grinding out results at Burnley and Ipswich. It's looking like a big ask and Good Friday is set to be anything but good.

Having enjoyed the rugby at Murrayfield for the first time in ages, I am off to the Canaries tomorrow and for once I'm not going to miss the football. It really could be worse, just ask the West Ham fans I travelled with this weekend. They don't rate Alan Curbishley and say he can't motivate his players beyond retention of Premier League status (deja vue). At least we weren't singing "we're going to lose 4-0" when it was only two-nil. Ironic too that our season continues to resemble West Ham's play-off winning promotion of two years back under Super AP. It looks like that might be the only redeeming feature of the season.