Brown's looking up for Preston

By MICK COLLINS

Last updated at 23:05 08 March 2008

Two goals from striker Chris Brown ensured

that not only the better side won, but this will

again be a Championship fixture next season.

Preston are too good to get relegated while

Charlton, on their current form, are too poor to

earn automatic promotion and far too flimsy to

triumph via the play-offs.

"We fully deserved our victory," said Preston

manager Alan Irvine. "I thought we played really

well throughout and that's a huge three points

for us. We passed it well, worked hard,

and made sure we were hard to beat."

Charlton began uncertainly, and grew

slowly worse. Tamas Priskin spurned

an early Preston chance, and while

Charlton's centre-half, Paddy McCarthy,

conducted a drawn out and vocal inquest,

the visitors went ahead. Darren Carter

fed Chris Brown, who, with no marker in

sight, applied the finishing touch from

eight yards.

Charlton's manager, Alan Pardew, called

a team meeting last week seeking out

those players who still believed they

could achieve automatic promotion.

Those who did were labelled as "naive",

because the task was beyond them.

Whatever the players thought about

the mind games, after this abject

performance there is no doubting the

accuracy of Pardew's assessment.

"We need to show character," he said

afterwards. "The crowd expect us to win

every time, and that builds pressure.

I thought they might be very critical of us

today — and they were."

After just four wins from their past 15

games, why the fans expect so much is a

mystery, and the criticism was fully

merited.

If a neutral had been asked to identify

the promotion chasers and relegation

fighters, they would never have guessed

correctly.

Preston wisely kept things simple,

watching Priskin repeatedly expose

McCarthy's lack of pace and Sam Sodje's

lack of poise. Greg Halford, Charlton's

right- back, was woeful.

Charlton failed to fashion a single

chance and loan signing Leroy Lita was

invisible on his debut.

They eventually scrambled an equaliser

16 minutes from time, when McCarthy

prodded home from close range, only to

then switch off completely. Minutes later,

Brown claimed his second, pouncing

as the defence dozed to seal a richly

deserved win for his side.

Publicly, Pardew has offered several

excuses in recent weeks, among them the

claim that the away fans sit in the wrong

part of the ground. The reality is simpler.

As the season moves towards a climax, his

side are just not good enough.