Barnsley 3 v Charlton Athletic 0

If the alarm bells have been ringing in recent weeks, the sirens are wailing now. I have just listened to a summary of the match and the words were all too familiar, "woeful", "pathetic", "lack-lustre" and "outclassed." The one positive thing for Charlton was the youngest debutant in our history as Jon-jo Shelvey made his introduction to professional (sic) football. The Club website at least credits him with a decent debut and the best Charlton scoring chance from a first-half volley.

Five wins in the last 26 matches is staggeringly poor given the size and supposed quality of the squad Alan Pardew has assembled. If we had started with five wins from the first 26 matches, Pardew's position would have been untenable. So what has gone wrong? He simply doesn't seem able to get anywhere near the level of performances we were seeing every other week at least during the first 20 games. Our early season problem was inconsistency, our latest is consistenly poor displays lacking passion, cohesive, drive, etc etc. I am not big on rumours but they have been circulating in terms of player/manager unrest and this might at least explain what we have been witnessing. In any event, we have struggled all season to win games that we have not taken the lead in. The Sheffield Wednesday home game is the only win I can remember all season where we went a goal down and we managed to concede twice in that one.

Something has to change before August or we could be in a relegation fight. I think we all know our engine room needs an overhaul. There won't be pots of money about and I can't see us attracting big sums for any of the current squad. There will surely be pressure on to reduce the squad by half-a-dozen, so I can't see more than 3 or 4 newcomers or else you are looking at shipping out nearly ten. Maybe that's what we need to clean the blood if there is any bad feeling. It is going to be an interesting close season and one in which Alan Pardew needs to demonstrate all of his mangerial strengths..

If I renew my season ticket, I will do so at the last minute on the back of decisive and positive managerial action and because I whole-heartedly support the Board's decision to extend the freebie offer. It should be said that the risk to the Club of having to fork out for our season ticket rewenals in 09-10 is looking fairly small right now. At least it will all be over next weekend. Oh, and Campbell-Ryce had to open the scoring today didn't he?