From today (Monday's) Telegraph report
Alan Pardew's emergency training fails to save struggling Charlton
Charlton (0) 1 Barnsley (3) 3
By David Miller
Last Updated: 11:32PM GMT 02 Nov 2008
The credit crunch, a consequence of gambling by spending beyond our means, is visibly infecting football. Charlton, with a wage bill grossly out of proportion to performance, have almost zero options for alternative moves to escape relegation.
Here is indisputably, as John Cleese might say, a distinctly dead parrot. Barnsley, on the other hand, are currently bright enough for Sir Michael Parkinson to remind us, yet again, of his boyhood allegiance, if not important enough actually to be present.
Charlton cannot expect a Gordon or Alistair bailout. So what do they do when confidence is rock bottom, the crowd is shouting "Pardew out" and potential Arab or Chinese investors are hesitant? They cannot afford Pardew's dismissal, and have no cash in hand to strengthen a squad already overweight in numbers.
Their crowd would have been even angrier had they been aware of the background to becoming three goals down in 37 minutes.
So anxious was Pardew that he had summoned players for an emergency training session in the morning to work on set-pieces. How did the goals occur? Why of course, set-pieces: two free-kicks and a corner, with Charlton's defence as impregnable as a row of plastic traffic cones while Jon Macken, twice, and Darren Moore struck home.
Mark Hudson's consolation goal barely mattered.
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