Charlton 2-2 QPR

I managed to make it up to The Valley yesterday, and was pretty glad I did as it was a decent game of football played out on a lovely winter's day. Shame there it didn't end in three points for the south London team but you can't have it all I guess.

Traffic problems meant I arrived late so hurriedly bought a programme and a pint and had a bit of time to consume both. I don't know if there is any relevance to this at all but the squad list had been stripped of all youth players, those put on loan (Randolph, Ambrose, Varney) as well as Linvoy Primus and Jay McEveley. Surprising then that the latter was in the starting line up but who was I to complain. Keith Gillespie's imminent departure meant he had no part to play, with Jonjo Shelvey taking a place on the bench alongside the displaced Grant Basey.

For the first ten minutes I thought Charlton actually played OK. We pretty much controlled the pace of the game and QPR didn't appear to be offering much. However, the remaining 35 minutes were a total horrow show. The defence looked poorly organised, the midfield sat far too deep and the front pairing hardly got a sniff of the ball. It was little surprise when Lee Cook whipped in a curling free kick after 16 minutes after Hameur Boauzza had stupidly fouled. Even more stupid was the fact that we didn't have anybody on the post for it.

Going into half time, I was more than content to take my time over my pint and miss the first few minutes of the second half. Luckily common sense took over and I was back in my seat for the second half kick off as Charlton began to show a bit more appetite for the game. The first goal came from a excellent passing move which left you wondering why we didn't witness this kind of thing more often. Sam's cross from the right actually found the head of a Charlton player and all of a sudden we found ourselves equal courtesy of Nicky Bailey.

The game had undoubtedly swung in Charlton's favour but as is common with this side, there was a lot of posession with no end result. As such, we were punished at the other end when Dexter Blackstock took advantage of a questionable challenge on Mark Hudson and lack of defensive cover to put the Hoops 2-1 to the good. Charlton kept coming though and another Lloyd Sam cross saw Cerny punch the ball through a crowd of his own players, only as far as the diving head of Nicky Bailey.

We then entered usual last ten minute heart in mouth territory. And the point we had fought so hard to win almost disappeared into a puff of smoke as Heidar Helguson hit the post and Emmanuel Ledesma smashed in the rebound from the underside of the crossbar. Having thrown my programme to the floor in disgust, my head was firmly in my hands. It was a pleasant surprise therefore when I raised it to find that the goal had been disallowed for an earlier foul. This was all too much for Parkinson who got sent to the stands. It looked to me like Kinsella has taken charge of touchline barking orders well before Parkinson headed off, but it was left to the Irishman to guide us through the last few minutes.

So a point won then but valiant draws with good performances will only take us so far and it won't be far enough to preserve our Champiosnhip status. I would doubt very much that this will have been enough to keep Parkinson in a job past the end of the year (although he still does have one game left to prove everybody wrong), and the board seriously need to start considering managerial options to rescue our season. With Colin Calderwood being sacked on the back of Forest's defeat to Doncaster Rovers (which also sent us bottom), they need to act quickly to ensure their preferred candidate is snapped up and also to make sure Forest don't gain any extra momentum on us. We will probably be entering 2009 bottom of the league and on the back of the club's worst run in history, so I guess things can only get better.