Sheffield United 3 Charlton 1

Charlton's plight at the foot of the Coca Cola Championship worsened with Sunday�s defeat at Bramall Lane which cut them five points adrift of safety.

Defeat stretched the Addicks' winless sequence to 16 games and left caretaker manager Phil Parkinson still without a win in eight attempts and less likely than ever to make the job his on a full-time basis.

The club, who once believed they had established themselves in the Premier League in 2006, now seem certainties for relegation to League 1.

Charlton last won in the league at home to Ipswich on October 4 when they were 14th in the table. Though they took the lead against the Blades through Hameur Bouazza�s fourth goal of the season, it was the familiar, depressing story of the side letting yet another lead slip from their grasp.

Once United equalised, there was only going to be one winner.

Bouazza took his chance well in the 33rd minute, pouncing on goalkeeper Rob Elliot�s long clearance before curling the ball wide of United goalkeeper Ian Bennett.

The lead lasted until the 65th minute when James Beattie played in Stephen Quinn who beat Elliot from the edge of the area.

Danny Webber gave United the lead with a 71st minute shot, snapping up the rebound after Elliot had saved his first attempt.

United made sure of the points with a third in the 77th minute, conceding again from another set-piece goal, this time from Quinn.

Parkinson pointed to the team's second half failure to stick with their game plan as the root cause of their problems.

He said: "What we said at half-time we didn't put into practice.

"We needed to stick to the game plan, stick to our jobs, stick to what we had done well in the first half.

"Had we done that, we would have been alright and the worst we would have come away with would have been a draw, I'm sure."