CHARLTON boss Phil Parkinson admitted the jeers his side received at half-time against Gillingham were more likely due to the 4-0 defeat at Millwall last week than anything else.

Parky reacted angrily to the booing in the post-match press conference, which mostly came at the interval where the Addicks found themselves 2-1 down despite having most of the chances and looking much improved from the Den debacle.

But he went on to explain that while he feels the bigger picture is being overlooked slightly, the fan reaction struck him more as an outlet for the humiliation of last weekend than for trailing to the Gills against the run of play.

He said: “I do understand that the Millwall defeat was a bad one for everybody at the club, I totally understand that.

“I do think that there were no excuses for the Millwall defeat and it was a game where we made some terrible errors which gifted the opposition goals and when you do that it can have a demoralising effect on the team.

“However, I do think that there’s an air around the place of a lack of understanding of what I as a manager have had in terms of resources to put this team together, and we’re doing very well to be third in the table.

“I’ve been a supporter myself and watched a lot of football stood on terraces and sat in stands and I like to think as a supporter I can identify when a team has given their all and just been unlucky.

“Today at half-time to come in 2-1 down I think everybody in the ground said how are they not winning that game? But we weren’t.

“I think the majority of fans were fine. They were frustrated and I understand the frustrations but equally sometimes I feel have they put the right messages out there?”

Charlton went on to claim a share of the spoils after Dave Mooney’s quality equaliser, and thanks to results elsewhere on the day they remained in third place.

And Parkinson pointed out that with automatic promotion still a possibility, the season as a whole has been far from a disgrace with limited resources to boot.

He added: “In pre-season with the threadbare squad we had, if you had said to me we’d be third in the table with nine games to go with a chance of automatic promotion I’d have said that’d be fantastic.

“Obviously because of the size of the club, the expectancy from the supporters is slightly different but sometimes I need to have press conferences like this to explain what I’ve actually had in terms of resources to build this team.

“I think everybody looked at Leicester last season, they went up but if you compare last year’s division to this year, it’s a totally different division.

“You’ve got Norwich, ourselves, Leeds, Huddersfield who spent a fortune, Colchester who spent a lot of money, Southampton who spent a fortune... so it’s a very competitive division.”

He went on to say that the type of support offered by the fans for their remaining home games could help to determine where Charlton finish in the league come May.

“It’s up to the supporters”, said Parky. “Do they want to help us get to where we want to be? I say they do, and if we don’t make it then everybody sits down and assesses the situation in the summer.

“I’ve got to say, at the start of the first half the way they responded to the way we were playing was terrific.

“But at the moment we’ve got nine games to go and we need to pull together as a club, and that’s it.”