Ipswich Town 1 Charlton Athletic 1

On the face of it, a good away point at Portman Road. However, the underlying performance was extremely poor and the point was fortunate. Barnsley looks like a must-win for Alan Pardew.

Unable to find a commentary, I joined the Charlton Life match thread which was a different way to follow the game whilst listening to Five Live. There were about 70 people following the thread which was largely negative but not surprising bearing in mind our scarcity of chances and generally pathetic display. With ten minutes to go I was consoling myself with the prospect of a final show-down for Alan Pardew on Saturday and the opportunity for the players to see the back of him with another inept, win-free display at home. Sad to say, but when Bailey equalised, I felt cheated. It sounded like we had a few frantic chances to completely rob them at the end.

The side was pretty much as expected - a return to the old faithfuls and a 4-4-2 that played more like a 4-5-1 with Todorov dropping back into midfield, possibly to try and get a touch. Youga came in at left back, Cranie started in central defence in place of Primus and Holland was back in the middle with Bailey. Hard to be objective with only text and comment updates but we sounded poor throughout the side. Ipswich scored from a 35-40 yard free-kick which shouldn't have beaten Weaver by all accounts. Nothing much heard from Sam, Varney, Holland or Bailey until his goal. Darren Ambrose did get a number of mentions but maybe they are fixated on him up there, like he was a sheep or something. Pardew threw on all of the subs towards the end once again as he tried to press all the buttons. Strange that you can't compete for 80 minutes and then go flat out for the win.

Elsewhere, news wasn't much better for us. Forest won at Palace (ok not so bad either) and Southampton took a point at home to Coventry. With Barnsley beating Doncaster we are now level on points with the Tykes and two clear from third bottom Southampton. We simply have to beat Barnsley on Saturday. The Board will be praying for three points because they can't afford to sack him and I'd love to see us turn the corner but I am resigned to another disappointing performance and probably not a winning result. If we don't put in a performance on Saturday I believe the Board will act before our next home game.

With snow failing across the country this evening, perhaps the weather will save Pards for now. If he survives Saturday, we face two consecutive defeats at Plymouth and Birmingham before we entertain Sheffield United. No matter how you look at it, the end is nigh and we will enter the lottery for a new manager in the hope of getting us out of the relegation quick-sand.