Colchester Utd 2 v Charlton Athletic 2

Before the game Alan Pardew would probably have settled for a point. As half-time approached he would have given anything to get level and at the the final whsitle he must have felt that a point was something of a missed opportunity. I certainly did.

Deciding to rest Reid after his midweek game for Ireland, Alan Pardew started with the weaker midfield that including Darren Ambrose, Jerome Thomas, Jose Semedo and Zheng Zhi. With the size of our squad and the anticipated quality of the opposition, I guess this wasn't the worst decision he could have made - that would have been leaving Reid out altogether.

The first-half started well enough but Colchester were giving as good as they got from back to front. We were clearly missing Reid's controlling and pushing influence in midfield. We needed a goal to up the ante but it was Colchester who struck first after half-an-hour. Teddy Sherringham continues to haunt us at 40. He fed Yeates who easily beat Nicky Weaver. Six minutes later and Colchester applied salt to the wound. For the fourth time this season a smaller opposing player has managed to beat the Fortune-McCarthy pairing virtually unopposed in the air from a set-piece to score. It had to be Kevin Lisbie. With fears of a rout on the cards, Todorov slid home from Iwelumo and settled the nerves just before the break. Collective deep sigh of relief and the chance to do something about this game.

Credit to Alan Pardew, he acted switfly at the break and introduced Reidy for Thomas. That added the missing ingredient in midfield at least and we began to hold and play. It was a Reid through-ball that resulted in Colchester losing Connolly to a straight red for a challenge on Big Chris. The home crowd were incensed and they may have had a point but I'd need to see it again before making Iwelumo the villain of the piece. As if to shelter Iwelumo from the abuse he was now receiving, Varney came on for him shortly afterwards and made a contribution to Zhengs equaliser with just less than 20 minutes remaining.

Beating 10-men has never been a Charlton forte. Frankly we struggled after the equaliser and some dreadful defending from McCarthy, Fortune and Weaver might have handed Colchester the winner.

We simply can't keep conceding goals like this and expect to get something from games. The Fortune and McCarthy partnership at the back is not working and there has to be a better option. Madjid, Sam Sodje and maybe Cory Gibbs have something to offer here?

On a more positive note, the point puts us up to 5th in the table with two home games to come this week against Norwich and Leicester and we should expect to get 6 or at least 4 more points from these two. The other Championship fixtures are doing us favours at the moment and I can see us climbing into the top 3 if we can take 4 or 6 points this week. However, the table is very congested with only 3 points separating 17 teams so we must take this opportunity. We have to be picking the players who are playing best for us....

Layer Road hasn't improved since I was last there in the early-80's. For me it serves as a perfect reminder of how far we've come as a club because the Valley wasn't much better in the early 90's after we returned. The Championship is the limit of Colchesters' ambitions because they cannot progress with their tiny and delapidated ground, however, that doesn't mean you can beat them just by turning up!

News from the Lane?

Two snippets of news from White Hart Lane today that may be of interest....

Darren Bent has finally been goaded into making a statement about his decision to turn down the Hammers in favour of the Lilywhites. Bent told Sky Sports. "It was nothing to do with Curbs. “He's a fantastic manager. He did wonders for me and made me the player I am today by giving me my opportunity. It was just a career decision and I chose to join Tottenham." Clear enough to me.

The second piece is a rumour that we might be interested in taking 17 year-old "starlet" stiker Terry Dixon on loan? Not sure how that works with transfer window but presumably this would be about his development rather than any serious prospect of being considered for the first team.

Good to see the Colchester tickets have sold out quickly. We have only been given a 1000 but that will represent a larger percentage of the gate than we had at Selhurst on Saturday. It's got to help the players away from home when they know we are selling out and making a lot of noise. If we can maintain some momentum in the coming weeks and begin a prolonged challenge, then we might start to erode the travelling malaise of the last five or so years.