Burnley 2 v Charlton Athletic 1

Another depressing away result conceded in added time. We are now nine points adrift from safety with fifteen games left. In short, if it was going to happen we needed to build on the Palace win and that meant taking something from this game, especially having been leading 1-0 at half-time.

Phil Parkinson does, for a change, have some reasonable mitigation for this defeat. We lost our centre-half pairing against Palace so Matt Holland was deputising alongside Darren Ward who only arrived at the club yesterday. He also showed more ambition than he has for a long time by playing two upfront and it was encouraging to see Dickson get a long-awaited start alongside Deon Burton. I think the 4-4-2 formation helped us take the game to Burnley in the first half and we deserved our lead when Bailey arrived to finish off a ball from Chris Dickson.

In the second half we were looking good until Stephen Thompson's arrival as substitute. At that point Burnley began to up the ante and the Charlton goal came under siege. Rob Elliott had to make two good saves and Graeme Murty cleared off the line before Thompson arrived at the back post to equalise with 14 minutes left. From then on their was a feeling of the inevitable and with five minutes of added time he popped up to repeat the feat and win the game. 

Bristol City away on Tuesday looks like another defeat and Cardiff will arrive at the Valley next Saturday expecting to beat us. We really do need to take four or six points in the next week if we are not be relegated in March.