Alan Pardew faces an uphill battle with Charlton after Birmingham defeat - match report

Crisis? What crisis? It depends on whether your name is Alex McLeish or Alan Pardew.

McLeish was able to relax after watching Birmingham pull out of their recent slump of one point from three games and get their promotion drive back on the road.

But there were no such luxuries for Charlton boss Pardew, who is facing the unthinkable as he approaches his second anniversary in the job - a fight to stay in the Championship.

Charlton didn't play badly at St Andrews but threw away victory with a couple of schoolboy howlers by goalkeeper Nicky Weaver.

"I wouldn't say we are in arelegation battle, but we are down at the bottom and we have two very hard games against Sheffield United and QPR to come," said Pardew, who has seen his side win just once in 11 attempts.

"It's been a very difficult season, very frustrating.

Things will break for us, there is no doubt. There's still a long way to go."

Charlton tossed away a winning position for the second week running.

They led after Hameur Bouzza and Andy Gray wiped out James McFadden's early opener and Lloyd Sam hit the post.

Then Weaver handed Kevin Phillips - on his 500th senior appearance - an equaliser and fumbled again to gift Franck Queudrue the winner.

Added Pardew: "I feel sorry for Nicky. He knows his errors cost us. He's big and strong enough to be able to deal with that."

Birmingham held on with 10 men after on-loan Nigel Quashie's sendingoff after collecting a second yellow for a tackle on Nicky Bailey.

McLeish said: "Nigel reacted and retaliated. But don't forget this boy has just come back from a 15- month injury and those tackles could have maimed him badly."

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