Welcome back Steve Evans

[gazan]

Well, the ?10 curse strikes again!
A great goal to start with but then a typical error to concede. I think Connolly had an awful game. A number of times he misjudged the flight of the ball; he rarely managed to head a ball straight and I do not trust him that much with the ball at his feet. He is now suspended for accumulating 5 yellows. So no first choice CHs for the visit to Walsall. Whatever, I don't want the Alex to keep him come the end of the season.
However, the match was overshadowed by the worst set of officials I have ever experienced. We say similar things all the time but in this case, there is no doubt. The referee had no control from the first couple of minutes. He continued to allow their CHs to pull, push, trip and wrestle from the whistle. In the end Thibaut lost his cool and the referee can can chalk that down to his own contribution. I can't comment on what Adrien did as I couldn't see it. In fact I hadn't known anything was 'going on' until the referee brandished the red card.
But then, pulling March by the neck in the box wasn't even a foul; scything O'Reilly down above the level of the ankle with studs showing wasn't worth a second yellow card; he did see the goalkeeper deliberately handle the ball outside the box, went through the pantomime of consulting the liner before ducking the decision. Either he committed a red card offence or no offence.
We will have even more missing personnel for the visit to the league leaders. Unless, that is, people emerge from the black hole that is the treatment room.

[Harlzed]

Having now watched the highlights and zooming in I don?t think Thibaut should have been sent off, it?s a yellow and their player clapped the red card which I hate to see. Absolutely he should have been off himself twice later in the game. Having seen the Bristol goal again I think it is Connolly at fault rather than Waller. Agree with Gazan, we will miss him at Walsall but I would like him to be gone in the summer. Flashes of good are not enough, he makes mistakes on a very regular basis.

[MikeSB]

Having now watched the highlights and zooming in I don?t think Thibaut should have been sent off, it?s a yellow and their player clapped the red card which I hate to see. Absolutely he should have been off himself twice later in the game. Having seen the Bristol goal again I think it is Connolly at fault rather than Waller. Agree with Gazan, we will miss him at Walsall but I would like him to be gone in the summer. Flashes of good are not enough, he makes mistakes on a very regular basis.

Players should not be sent off unless they commit a very dangerous foul and that incident was two players having a go at each other and both should have received a yellow card. The Ref spoiled the game for the 9000 plus crowd as it was always going to be difficult with ten men. Why the Ref bottled the decisions later on I don't know. I'm not sure about their GK coming out of the pen area as he was also pushed by our player and think the FA changed that rule but could be wrong.

Our players should know better than getting involved like that as some clubs have players who go out of their way to antagonise the opposition. But imo it was a 'nothing' incident.

It was a good point in the end and hope we can string a few wins together as the league this year is a bit iffy and so we have had some poor results,so have most clubs up there and so promotion is up for grabs imo.

[jimmyboldon]

Well, the ?10 curse strikes again!
A great goal to start with but then a typical error to concede. I think Connolly had an awful game. A number of times he misjudged the flight of the ball; he rarely managed to head a ball straight and I do not trust him that much with the ball at his feet. He is now suspended for accumulating 5 yellows. So no first choice CHs for the visit to Walsall. Whatever, I don't want the Alex to keep him come the end of the season.
However, the match was overshadowed by the worst set of officials I have ever experienced. We say similar things all the time but in this case, there is no doubt. The referee had no control from the first couple of minutes. He continued to allow their CHs to pull, push, trip and wrestle from the whistle. In the end Thibaut lost his cool and the referee can can chalk that down to his own contribution. I can't comment on what Adrien did as I couldn't see it. In fact I hadn't known anything was 'going on' until the referee brandished the red card.
But then, pulling March by the neck in the box wasn't even a foul; scything O'Reilly down above the level of the ankle with studs showing wasn't worth a second yellow card; he did see the goalkeeper deliberately handle the ball outside the box, went through the pantomime of consulting the liner before ducking the decision. Either he committed a red card offence or no offence.
We will have even more missing personnel for the visit to the league leaders. Unless, that is, people emerge from the black hole that is the treatment room.

Connelly not suspended. Reset after 19 games.

[gazan]

Well, in a sense, that's good because the other 2 will probably be missing and the black hole of a treatment room won't be producing any returnees soon.
I have to wonder what goes in that room. Earlier on they told us Shilow was ahead of schedule and could be back in December; Lankester has been on the 'verge of return' for about a month; Demetriou has been the subject of a news blackout; Golding was due to come back relatively quickly from something said to be minor. So what is going on? Are their diagnostic systems all to cock? Do they have recovery/training programmes that are not suitable?
They need a policy: either shut up and say nothing about injuries or be honest with us from the beginning (in a general sense bearing in mind limiting information to immediate opposition).