Thought the referee's leaning towards advantage was laudable but extremely poorly applied. The chances of obtaining an advantage was vanishingly small. Furthermore, he didn't "tot up" the countless niggly fouls committed by 'Boro'. In real time, for me, the penalty would have looked more convincing if the lad had gone down immediately under Vita's challenge rather than taking one-and-a-half more strides and then diving....
The ref was absolutely shocking today. The fact he didn’t give any Boro players yellow cards at all during the game gave them carte blanche to commit fouls at will.
Never seen anyone in my life waste as much time as Freddie Woodman for Swansea in that play-off first leg last May and he started doing it about 15 minutes into the game yet didn't even get booked and the awful ref then added on what, 3 minutes, even though there were multiple subs and injuries? It should have been 10 minutes at least, or 15 by today's benchmark. So I've absolutely no problem with Collins wasting as much time as he can but tbh it's miniscule by comparison and also in relation to others we have come up against game in, game out. There were only two substitution breaks (two subs were made at HT, 3 were done simultaneously on 68 minutes and Cole later on), and no other stoppages so 1, maybe 1 and half minutes. Collins didn't waste 3 and half to 4 minutes - I bet he didn't even have the ball in his position for that long to start with. The ref was just pandering to their crowd after they, unjustly given his hitherto bias, got on his back. Even with the 5 he played very nearly 7 with absolutely no justification at all for any more than 5 other than his awful bias. Truly awful performance from the podgy guy who rarely managed to keep up with play, or indeed, move very far from the centre circle. Missed dozens of fouls, particularly on Morris, in the first half and tolerated persistent cynical fouling by Boro without taking any card action, inexplicably. Second half he was appalling and applied a threshold verging on GBH for giving us a foul, whilst Boro got a free-kick every time a Red breathed within 2 metres of a player in green. God knows why the guy who was assaulting Shirley whilst he scored the third wasn't booked. Shockingly bad. Makes the win even better and sweeter.
Three minutes for subs. They don’t run on at the same time do they? Announced and made one after the other so still your standard 30 seconds additional time. No stoppages but goals and time wasting.
Not as many goals though with one rather than three? Didn’t see much time wasting/injuries either. I thought five minutes was probably one minute too long but hardly outrageous.
Fully agree ref was terrible and definitely only saw fouls being committed one way but then viewing ours with a different threshold. Not a pen for me either definitely favoured Boro. Probably there man of the match.
Thought it was definitely harsh giving Kitchen a yellow a couple of mins after coming on, after his foul, especially considering how lenient towards Boro he was with the cards. Especially that Dijksteel. He should have still got a yellow for the foul on bassi when he scored his second - just because we scored doesn't mean he didn't get fouled.
Yes, in the 1st half, Boro players were taking it in turns to foul Quina but he simply refused to protect him by booking one. The first time one of our lads brought their right winger down, out came the card.
Should have been a red, he was the last man and it was a clear professional foul - sorry rugby tackle.
I genuinely thought that too. It can't be double jeopardy because it wasn't a penalty given, it was just an advantage.