Duncan White from The Sunday Telegraph gets it bang on.
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It did not bode well for Charlton but then Pardew has built an aura here: he is developing a talent for luck befitting a Napoleonic general. He conceded that his side had played poorly and that Bent had given the worst performance he had seen of him at Charlton, but with a terrific atmosphere from the support they managed to find a way out.
It is another stage in the heartening recovery of Charlton, a club who had so badly lost their way. They were guilty of credulity and no little vanity in their appointment of Iain Dowie and Les Reed: false gurus with a penchant for vapid commonplaces dressed up as innovation. Wearing a Bluetooth headset is no guarantee of sophistication. With Brentian truisms ringing round The Valley, Charlton were a club sliding fast: football cliche is bad enough; the management cliche of corporate culture is worse.
That's where Pardew's honesty comes in. With his rolled-up sleeves and his relentless enthusiasm he is like a pepped-up PE teacher, and he is certainly getting the best out of his kids. It is not complicated for Pardew: put good players on the pitch and inspire them to play as hard as they can. The hungry youngsters Alexandre Song and Zheng Zhi have brought zip and bite while some more experienced hands are pushing the limits of their capabilities: the formerly fickle Jerome Thomas looks especially sparky. It is Pardew's sincerity that is winning these players over.
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Comments
A bit harsh, I don't want to open up the Dowie debate again, but it should be remembered that Pardew was not available at the time that Dowie was appointed and the latter's sacking was for "more than just football reasons". It's easy to suggest that Pardew has gotten more out of say Thomas, but Dowie brought in a lot of new players - Carson and Diawara in particular have gotten better as the season has progressed and had to rebuild the side from the squad left by Curbs, which I think everyone will admit, was no longer good enough for the Premiership.
I'm more than happy that things have worked out and that we have Pardew, but I'm under no illusions that we only have Pards because he screwed up at West Ham and got the sack there - had he been available at the end of last season then that might have been a different story.
However, that still leaves JFH, Reid (injuries, which we knew were a factor), Traore, Faye and Pouso as awful, awful signings and you have to say that at times under Dowie the whole thing looked like a complete bloody shambles, notably Pompey at home and Wigan away.
I think that someone like Roy Keane would probably have Dowie down as one of his "bullshitters," in that it all sounds convincing but once you scratch beneath the surface when the hard times come then there is not really that much there.
Pards has come in and gone right back to basics, you can see that from the way we hold a much tighter shape these days compared to the shambolic stuff we saw under Dowie and Reed.