BELEAGUERED Charlton boss Alan Pardew offered few excuses following Saturday’s abject 3-1 defeat against Barnsley.

The loss against the Tykes plunged the sinking Addicks into the Championship drop zone and provoked a furious response from fans, with several publicly calling his head in a demonstration outside of The Valley afterwards.

However, the manager gave no indication he was considering his position in the wake of Charlton’s eighth defeat of the campaign and vowed his struggling side would not go down.

Pardew said: “I'm confident that this team, even with the squad we have now, won't be relegated.

“We will have to make sure in the next two, three, four months that we get ourselves away from the bottom into a stable position then see where we are and address it in the next window.

“It has been a difficult season from the Reading result really, where I felt we really had a side which was going to threaten this division.

“We have kind of gone down the scale with less confidence, with results and in doing so we have rotated the squad to try and find a better team.

“Unfortunately it has come unstuck in certain situations.”

The boss added: “We were a bit unlucky today in having Linvoy not available from Thursday.

“We saved him on Tuesday hoping he would be ok for today, but he got an injury on Thursday and that lack of power and height was a real factor today.

“In the Championship, you have to be big enough and strong enough to have a platform to play from and we didn't have that today.”

Pardew also accepted the boos which came his way from from the stands throughout and after the match.

He said: “When you concede two goals as early as we did, the team is not going to play with any fluidity.

“We certainly didn't have that so it was an ugly performance and their frustration I can understand. I have no problem with it and I didn't react and nor did my players.

“They want to see a bit more power on the pitch and a bit more character on the pitch than they saw today.

“From that base you can start playing some football.

“Whatever we did today, whatever good moment we did have in the game - and they were brief moments - it is going to be in and out of the memory as quick as that, whereas if you can cope, then you can remember those things.

“It was obviously a day which we won't look back on with any pride or pleasure. It was a tough day at the office for all of the players, myself and my staff and the only way to react is to roll your sleeves up and deal with it.”

Charlton have yet to find a settled side this season and the manager conceded this could well be a factor in their current problems.

He explained: “To have used them all already is a bit of a worry, but when performances have been below par I've tried to introduce one or two young players.

“At the moment, where I stand now, I feel I am better armed knowing the players in the squad I have this year.

“I have to really now stick my neck out and say: “This is my strongest side” and win, lose or draw I have to stick with it to some degree.

“But certainly within the side I need more power than I had today and certainly at set plays it was a major factor. That is something I'm going to have to address.

“When we go to Plymouth I will make sure the team is strong enough to cope and hopefully have a platform to try and get a result there.”

Although reluctant to brush aside the flak coming his way, Pardew pointed out his was not the only side who came down from the Premiership in 2007 to begin to find it difficult to cope with the harsh realities of life in the Championship.

He added: “It was the same for Watford who got beat again today.

“It is not an easy scenario to get relegated and lose a lot of players.

“We lost a whole back five and our star striker from the team which got relegated. On top of that this year we've lost Zheng Zhi at a critical time for us just as we won a game here in his first game, so we've had some blows.

“I really didn't make the decision to make some excuses here, I've really come to hold my hands up and say: "Look, we weren't good enough today".

“We will accept that as a team. I'm not going to name any individuals or talk about any individuals, we have to accept it and be stronger next week and hopefully get Charlton fans back on our side.”