Pards - 'we all need to hold our hands up'

"At the start of the season we looked like a team that could get bags of goals but the international break has affected us," he said. "We've lost
that little bit of spark that we had before and we need to get that back."
Even the best teams are liable to hit a rocky period at some stage in the season and it's vital players and supporters alike keep this recent run of poor form in some sort of perspective. But the performance against QPR was so inept - to use Pardew's own description - that it cannot be written off as just a bad day at the office.
The defenders continued their woeful recent form, although with a solid full debut for youth product Grant Basey at left-back there was at least some cause for optimism.
The strikers too continued their own barren run in front of goal, with Luke Varney, Chris Iwelumo and Izale McLeod all failing to rise to their manager's challenge to prove themselves.
And with the news last week that Svetoslav Todorov's knee injury has ended the Bulgarian's season,
Pardew will now surely move in the January transfer window to strengthen his front line.
The only goal of the game was eventually scored after 72 minutes by Adam Bolder but the game should have been well out of reach of the home side by then.
Jonathan Fortune conceded a daft penalty just after the hour mark which Martin Rowlands cannoned against the post, while a slip by Danny Mills presented the visitors with a great chance that they also failed to convert.
"We didn't look like a good side, which we have in all our other games," said Pardew. "Our fans booed us off and quite right too. We weren't good enough.
"We weren't tight as a team. The desperation of trying to score affected us a bit and our movement was perhaps over-indulgent. Too many holes were made available to QPR.
"We were tighter in the first half but we didn't threaten their goal. We got loose and conceded a penalty and then a goal. We need to be much more resilient and tighter as a group."
Pardew, too, must take some share of the blame for this display. Having discovered early in the season that it takes more than trying to play teams off the park with superior football to win matches at this level, he made the tactically questionable decision to remove the team's holding midfielder, Jose Semedo, at half-time and replace him with another attacker in Jerome Thomas.
"We all need to hold our hands up," he admitted.
"The substitution in hindsight didn't work. I thought that Andy Reid might be able to get on the ball more and bring Lloyd Sam and Jerome into the game, but I'll hold my hands up and admit it didn't work for us.
"We mustn't think this a temporary blip. Let's deal with it now and make sure we're right for the next game."
After their traumatic experiences in their previous three home games - a disappointing goalless draw against Barnsley preceded the defeats to Plymouth and QPR - Charlton may be relieved that their next two matches are away ones.
But while this Saturday's (November 3) trip to Southampton and next Tuesday's visit to second-placed Bristol City represent a chance to claw back some lost ground, these are two of the toughest fixtures the Addicks will play all season and Pardew will need to raise both his and his players' performance over the next two weeks.
For if he fails to avert this terrible recent run, Charlton's hopes of playing Premier League football could be dead and buried long before Christmas.
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