Charlton Athletic Online

Arsenal 4 Charlton Athletic 0

Mike Riley - don't you just love him? The man who gave Chelsea a last minute penalty when Frank Lampard dived into the Charlton box a couple of years ago did even better last night, awarding two penalty kicks to the home team, and sending Osei Sankofa off.

OK, they wre both undoubted penalties this time, but it was harsh on Osei as he had cover in El Karkouri and was not the last man between van Persie and scoring. Stupidly, the already booked Diawara should have gone off later, when he fouled Henry and then kicked the ball away in frustration, but Riley missed that. Inept at every turn!

In between, Hoyte scored the Gooners second, when left free by Ambrose to run onto a return pass. Late on, van Persie gave the scoreline gloss by chipping over the superb Carson to make it four.

I don't believe that this will go down as a bad Charlton performance, whatever the score looks like. At least the team competed, and with no real result expected, the sending off just compounded the problems.

Sadly Darren Bent missed the game and is injured, having fell when shoooting against Vila on Saturday, just before half time, and he is out for a few weeks it seems.

The lack of fire-power that Iain Dowie left the club with is now becoming apparent. Although Jeffers, Johansson, Bartlett, Bothroyd and Euell had many detractors, to lose all five of them at the end of last season and only bring in Hasselbaink was pure folly! The Dowie legacy rolls on and on...

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see one of the youngsters - Simmons, Walker (when back from Orient), or Carvill for instance being brought into the squad and getting Premiership playing time this month. Lisbie is still around, and not too far from fitness it seems, but he isn't a long term answer to any goalscoring requirements.

The injury to Dazza has further implications with regard to the January transfer window.

It had been presumed, in the wheeling and dealing that Pardew needs to do to raise money for new players, that possibly big Bent, and maybe Hasselbiank, amongst others, may be sold off to finance acquisitions. That would be dangerous now if Dazza was sidelined for more than this month.

It would not surprise me in the least now that some of the other fringe players have to go, in order to raise enough cash for the right sort of team players Charlton need.

While nobody would be too bothered if Faye, Traore, Sorondo, Pouso, and Fortune (plus Marcus and Jimmy Floyd) went in this months firesale, I now thnk that in order to get some cash, some or all of Young, Hreidersson, Hughes, Rommedahl, Thomas and Ambrose may be offered up to bidders. Some other bit-part players (Youga, Ashton, Elliott) may also be off-loaded to lighten the wage bill further and provide more cash.

Alan Pardew will need to be looking long-term, and he may have to be quite drastic with his transfer actions during January if he really does want a chance of avoiding relegation with the Addicks this season.