Thought we played OK for the first half hour. Could have had a couple of goals and were under absolutely no pressure from Bristol. Then a piece of poor defending by Foster from a long ball let in Maynard and we were one down. No worries, we were still in the game, but Mark Robins has a stroke or an aneurysm or something and goes completely loopy. Players are moved about in to god knows what system, I'm damn sure the players didn't know, and all of a sudden we're all over the place. The rest of the half is a fecking disaster. JCR and Hammill both appear to be playing up the left with no one at all down the right. Bristol start to run riot. Dickinson is out paced and out foxed for their second and we're very lucky not concede a third or a fourth. Mark Robins has received a lot of credit on here for changing things during games, but sometimes he's got to learn to leave well alone. There was nothing wrong with our play in the first half hour yesterday, nothing needed changing and certainly not to whatever mess that was. Second half started slowly and we looked nailed on for defeat until in the 60th minute when we had a penalty shout for handball. Was it inside the area? The crowd said yes the ref said no. I thought so, my brother reckoned not. I'm not confident either way now and would like to see it again. 3 minutes later a tame shot by Bogdanovic inexplicably goes through their 'keepers hands and we're right back in it. The noise level and expectancy from the crowd increases and the players start to look up for it after appearing pretty flat for most of the second half. De Silva starts to shine and we're all sure an equaliser is on the way. Then we give away a stupid penalty. Everyone is leaping about going crazy at the ref, but it looked a nailed on penalty to me. I've seen it since on the TV and Shotton put his arm on the opposition striker and pulls him back. It's a penalty. And if you're going to pull back a forward who is through on the 'keeper then you've got to expect a red card. Sometimes players get away with it, but a lot of times they don't. Thing is, Steele had got himself in a good position, so Shotton really didn't have to do it. But he's a young inexperienced lad, so you've got to expect some mistakes. That's the risk of playing young players. He's done plenty of good stuff too. However, what really pissed me off was when he received the man of the match. We had every chance of getting back into this game, but that was pretty much scuppered by a silly foul from Shotton. The lad effectively cost us the match. And we give him man of the match? It's no wonder we get called Dingles. And just to add insult to injury, Steele pulls off a superb save from the penalty but our players can't be arsed to follow up for the rebound. Cheers lads. Hammill, who was shocking for most of the game, scored a great goal near the end, but the game had already been lost. You win some, you lose some, but I thought we were complicit in our own downfall yesterday. As for '3-1 to the referee' - load of ballacks.
jay cant see how you can defend that ref. I go to the home games with my grandad and has he said the ref was crap. He does not say a lot about the ref normaly has you can understand with him seeing plenty of bad ones in 65 years of watching football.
I had the feeling Davey was still here with the tactics We had long spells of 'Headless Chickens' football just as we had regular with Davey. Players looking at one another wandering what to do next. JCR was like a 'lost soul' for most of the time he was on. Still I think Robbins will have sussed that and unlike Davey will take the necessary action. Only hope he gets it right for the Blunts.
