Pards: our destiny is now in our hands

At 4.39pm on Saturday (March 31) one decision from the referee gave Alan Pardew's side a ticket to fight for the right to play in next season's Premiership on almost even terms for the first time this year.
A dubious decision - although one that referee Peter Walton probably got right after Wigan's Fitz Hall felled first Hermann Hreidarsson and then Marcus Bent - to award the home side a penalty, which the otherwise rusty Darren Bent dispatched, was all it took to hand Charlton three points they scarcely deserved and continue their unlikely attempt to escape the drop.
It all added to the feeling that has been brewing in south-east London for the last month or so that Charlton can, and will, haul themselves clear of the Premiership's relegation zone and condemn one of the clubs above them - perhaps Wigan; maybe Sheffield United; possibly even a club that thinks it's safe - to Championship football next season.
Winning when you deserve to is one thing, and Charlton have not taken 10 points from their last four matches by playing as poorly as this, but triumphing when your opponents have comprehensively outplayed you on your own turf is another matter altogether.
At this stage of the season the 12th man is not to be found on the substitutes' bench; it is not even the crowd, vocal though the home fans were. It is, in fact, not a man at all but a lady and her second name is Luck.
"That was a big, big win for us and one that we wouldn't have achieved two months ago," said Pardew. "Our destiny is now in our hands, with us still to play Sheffield United at home, and we'll take that with seven games to go.
"I felt that this was the most important game to really bring the other teams into it," he added. "Now we go into the Easter programme with all the teams above us feeling nervous. That could go up as high as Middlesbrough even.
"With West Ham winning as well, it's brought some real life to the fight at the bottom when before it looked as if it was dead and buried," he said.
But this display against Wigan should be as much of a warning to Pardew's team as a cause for celebration and relief. Another display like this and Charlton could be plunged back into the depths of despair - 12th man or not - and teams with better strikers than Wigan would have put this game out of reach long before Hall's cynical lunges.
Perhaps it was the pressure of playing such an important game in front of their own fans that nullified the Addicks, or maybe they were missing the underdog role that comes when so-called bigger outfits, such as the most recent guests Newcastle United, venture to these parts. Or it could have just been the kind of display that was so common earlier in the season but which, to his enormous credit, can now be described as an off-day under Pardew.
Whatever the reason, Charlton still have much to do if this is not to prove a high point of a season that ends in tears. The team now face a crunch away game at fellow strugglers Manchester City on Good Friday - the club is subsidising coach travel at #5 a head in a bid to take as much support as possible - in an Easter schedule that also sees them take on Reading at home on Easter Monday.
Pardew, though, has not come this far to let his players start believing the hype that inevitably follows such undeserved wins.
"We really have turned the tables on our form," he said. "We've got more wins in this last period than the rest of the season but we have to continue to do it. The real work is still to be done."
The tide may be turning but Charlton remain a long way from land. 
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