The foul count today was 7-19. Psychologically that gets in the refs head and can colour his decision making.We gave away far too many fouls in dangerous areas. Certainly cost the first goal.
The ref today was truly sub standard. Not one to be OTT critical of the officials but the guy today was not good. Inconsistency was his major fault.
An issue which needs dealing with is our appealing for fouls. It is becoming a habit that a Reds player feels he is fouled, falls to the floor, appeals, but then spends precious seconds waving arms at the ref, rather than getting up and getting on. It's a weakness in our method. You could argue that we were caught with the same napping attitude when Blunts took the free kick quickly and scored. It's the same mentality which can't afford to switch off. I thought we were excellent throughout the first half and most of the second. I would honestly rather have a side trying to play fast passing football than the long ball stuff of last season, even if we don't win as many. Some of our speed of passing and the movement and understanding of the players off the ball was outstanding today. A pity that we conceded by being asleep and there was then always the risk of a break away second as we pushed forwards. A lot of positives today for me and hard to pick any of the starting eleven who didn't put in a shift and play well. Brittain's confidence is coming back; the central two look indomitable again; Wolf and Gomes protected the back four while they were on; the creative midfield three all played their stuff; Morris worked as usual as target man/striker. We will play worse than that and win this season.
A half decent referee, that wouldn't be anywhere near that count. There were 3 or 4 against Hourihane who went down with a whimper every time he got closed down
I don't think it would have changed the result though, but so, so, so many cheap fouls the ref gave. But our undoing was falling asleep from a stupid foul (actual foul!) from Brittain, and after that our heads went down and never looked like getting near their box after that. Poor
Do you reckon it's the Poya way? In the post-match presser after the incredibly soft penalty decision in our favour against Fulham, he bemoaned the fact that their player wasn't penalised with a red and that we had to play the rest of the game against 11 players! He wasn't satisfied that we were merely awarded the penalty.. A red card against their man on top of a very very soft penalty decision would've been incredibly harsh, and we shouldn't really be advocating for getting players sent off.
