Paul Parker Pens: Pardew has to mould a new breed of player

30 August 2007

CHARLTON managed to get their first league win of the season, coming from behind against Sheffield Wednesday to win 3-2 on Saturday.

Similarly to every other top side, they're finding it very difficult and the players have got to mould their game so they can cope in the Championship.

The players have got to stop thinking about being Premier League players, because it's a different animal in the Championship, in which most clubs don't care where you've come from.

Now they have got that win and a decent performance, Alan Pardew will be looking for them to do it again and use their home games as a platform for success.

Home form is very important in the Championship, but it is what you do away from home that really counts. I was at Ipswich against Crystal Palace and I thought Palace were too negative. You've got to win away from home.

Once Charlton get used to the way they need to play, other teams will find it difficult because they haven't got the quality Charlton have.

I will be very, very disappointed if Charlton don't get an automatic promotion place. Pardew knows what the play-offs are all about and it can become something of a lottery.

IT was a terrible shame to hear what happened to young QPR player Ray Jones, who tragically died in a car crash before the club's game against Burnley on Saturday.

I haven't had many experiences of this sort of thing, though I can remember - when I was about 17 - the former QPR keeper Dave Clement took his own life because of depression.

It only came back to me later on in my career when his son Neil, who now plays for West Brom, asked me about his dad when he was an apprentice at Chelsea.

It is always particularly poignant when it happens to someone so young - regardless of the fact it looked like he was going to be a good player - and that he is never going to fulfil his potential in life.