Originally Posted by
MadAmster
I thought we had the best of the first 15 and the last 15. The hour in between belonged to the DYS. We can't complain at losing this one based on play.
The ref let a lot go and that, IMO, led to the raft of cards late on. If he had done his job properly from the off. Here are a few things he got wrong.
Tomori. Double footed, straight legged dive on the ball. The ref spoke to him. He got away with this one because the nearest DYS player was a good 2 yards away from the ball. Anther ref, another day and he might have seen red.
The head butt. That was red all day.
Huddlestone. Forearm into a DYS neck. Only yellow and fortunate IMO.
The that non-penalty. The incident happened and the ref gave a spot kick. I smiled and thought "this makes up for some of the ones that got away". Then the assistant put his oar in and the decision was reversed. They then showed a replay and I changed my mind. It looked like Bogle got his hip and leg between player and ball, the player then tried to kick the ball but took Bogle'sleft leg instead. The ref's first thoughts were right. Had that in the centre circle happened it would have been a direct free kick so, IMO, it was a penalty.
The ref wasn't as bad as the one I saw earlier in the afternoon in the Dortmund v Dusseldorf game. He awarded a penalty that wasn't. When the taker made contact with the ball, the keeper was 4 yards off his line. Tehe taker put it wide. Kick not retaken. Unbelievable Jeff.
As I predicted, they muscled Wilson out of the game and he was totally ineffective. Same with Lawrence to a lesser degree. We basically played them with 9 men. The return will tell us a lot about FL and tactics. If he starts both of them again then he hasn't learnt a thing. The DYS "style" virtually takes both players out of the game. I said start without them, I feel I was right.
At Bellend Road we have to go at them. Sitting back as we did for an hour will be no more than signing our own Dexit papers.
We CAN do this but not if we start with Tom and Harry. Not that they aren't good players but with a horses for courses mentality they aren't suited to this course.