is talk cheap? Richard Murray blames Dowie and slates Diawara, Peter Varney tells the players to look in the mirror and Uncle Les says that he would watch us as a fan - blimey Les, have you seen the old cack they've been turning out recently? Oh you have, sorry.

Murray's comments, which were as we've come to expect pretty heartfelt, did disturb me slightly because the appointment of Dowie and the sanctioning of Diawara's signing and others are obviously his responsibility. If people think that Dowie decided how much to spend on Faye, Traore, Diawara and others then they do not understand how the club works or in fact how corporate governance works in any company.

Reading in between the lines it does look like Murray has excepted our relegation. "I am not going to wave white flags but the way it is looking, Reading and Sheffield United are going to get out of it which means two established clubs will go down."

I am also extremely worried about where the money is going to come from in January. We have already overspent and have the largest wage bill ever (that leaves you with a nice fuzzy feeling doesn't it after Tuesday's disaster) and with debt previously at around £22m these are worrying signs. The board have publicly declared they are not going to sell Darren Bent. They might sell Diawara, who incidentially I think has potential, but Murray rubbishing him in the press, "apparently the best centre-half you've never heard of," is not going to help flog him is it?

Onto Varney, again he spoke as a fan, which he is, but unlike us he has ownership, if not financially in the going's on at the club. His words were more of a passionate battlecry than Murray's and I wonder if a public slagging of the collective players will do any good.

"A display like that wasn't acceptable. If you can't be up and passionate about that, what can you be? I would like to think that the players will look at themselves in the mirror after a performance like that against Wycombe."

He backed the management team and likened them to Lennie Lawrence and Alan Curbishley, which is a bit like comparing Colin Powell to Dennis Rommedahl. However he left us with this thought: "We haven't given up, we still believe we can keep this team in the Premiership, but we have got to change some personnel. More than anything, though, we have to keep our chins up and our chests out because we are not accepting that we are leaving this division at all."

And then it was left to Les to give us his thrupence. God this bloke is so nice, and how his life has changed in the last couple of weeks. I bet Mrs Les is well happy. It makes you really want him to succeed but I need a lot of convincing.

"Players don't have to go out there and play for me, I want them to play for Charlton Athletic Football Club and have enough professional pride in their performance to play for themselves. If they do that they'll turn it round."

But Les they look to you as a motivator and master tactician, we are talking about multi-millionaires here with ego's the size of Mars and brains the size of Maltesers!

Oh well for all the words, actions speak louder and the next 3 games are the most important three games since Ipswich (a), Ipswich (h) and Sunderland (at Wembley) and my were we up for those.  ¶ 17:02