Sheffield Wednesday 4 v Charlton Athletic 1

Another heavy defeat inflicted on our prominent glass chin. Nineteen league games without a victory - that's 7 (seven) points from 57 (fifty-seven). I listened in to an abysmal commentary from, I think, BBC London (via CAFCTV) which didn't make the unpleasant defeat any more bearable. The bloke doing the commentary failed completely to realise that his listeners weren't sitting next to him in the stadium. He gave virtually no view of what was going on other than mentioning the player on the ball every 15 seconds or so, by which time the ball was often at the opposite end of the field from where it had been last time he told you. That and he kept mentioning the scoreline every 40 seconds or so as if we wouldn't believe him or needed reminding.

Anyway, we can't blame him - it's down to Plucky Parky and the non-believers he selects. Once again we seemed to settle quickly and sounded confident only to concede a goal unexpectedly after about 12 minutes. This time it was a powerful shot through a crowded box from a half-clearance and it beat the unsighted Randolph. The scorer was Darren Potter making his loan debut from Wolves and he featured heavily in the first half for Wednesday. After the goal, Charlton could have scored with the next attack but Bailey dived in and steered a header wide, not that us listeners were treated to the excitement of the chance as the commentator said it matter-of-factly after the event as he obviously hadn't been paying attention immediately following the Wednesday goal.

We continued to have a lot of midfield possession and were getting the ball wide to Sam and Soares although we weren't creating any chances, then, with 38 minutes on the clock we stuck our chins out again and Marcus Tudgay headed home unopposed from a corner. Two-nil, game over, Groundhog Day!

In the second half arrogant Scouse-git Franny Jeffers scored his first goal for years to smack salt into the wound and he was booked for his celebrations. Matthew Spring managed a consolation strike and a fine long range volley it sounded too, but Wednesday weren't finished. Potter hit the bar from a free-kick and Randolph saved twice from Michael Gray before Tudgay converted a late penalty after he had been brought down by Basey.

I hope Phil Parkinson and Richard Murray can keep their mouths shut after this latest disaster and save it for the players in preparation for the potentially embarrassing home game against Palace on Tuesday 27th January. I don't want to hear anymore about how hard they are trying and how once our luck turns , win-after-win will follow etc etc.

As I suspected, three of the bottom sides above us won today; Forest, Norwich and Doncaster. We are now 7 (seven) points adrift of Southampton in 22nd and it's 8 (eight) points to Doncaster and Watford. It's about time we stopped fretting about staying up and tried to save some face by playing some whole-hearted attacking football. Enough of this one-up front nonsense; it's getting us nowhere. Let's have two up front and four or five pressing from midfield. Our "back four" aren't individually bad players but they leak goals. Let's take some risks - it can't be worse than we are managing at the moment. Please, please Parky, can you send out a side to attack Palace throughout the game? Your squad isn't capable of playing football chess, so just give them the basic facts - we need to score goals and we look like we need two a game for a draw and three or more will probably get us a win before the end of the season. There are precious few highlights in a relegation season but you can get us one in the next home game.