Wba

[mistaram]

Let me start by saying the better side won, no doubt about it.

We weren't in it. Missing experienced players like Wisdom, Lawrence, Waghorn, Bielik and the now departed (Derby not life) Huddlestone the squad was full of kids and we finished the game with EIGHT Academy graduates on the park. That was about the only bright spark of the evening.

We had 59% possession but only 4 shots. None on target. They managed 18 and 7.

They pressed when we had the ball we didn't.

We gave them time on the ball, they gave us nowt. Constantly under pressure and rushed into mistakes.

Hamer - Can't fault him. Not a faultless performance but he didn't cause us problems
Bogle - Off his game. Where's his speed gone? The crosses? Why did he fail to get back at speed on 4 or 5 occasions. Ball control was less good than usual. The foul for his yellow was unnecessary
Evans - All too often played into trouble by teammates. Played well
Clarke - see Evans
Forsyth - One of our better players, not quite as good as the 2 centre halves
Bird - Another who was all too often put into difficult situations by a teammate but he still had a decent game
Shinnie - 4 mistakes in the first 4 minutes and it went downhill from there. I'd have subbed him when he got carded
Holmes - off the pace from the off and I suspect he had the hamstring issue before the game.
Rooney - did a lot good but way too many errors for the 3rd game on the spin
Sibley - Found it hard to get into the game out right. Personally I'd have had him on the left and Holmes on the right. Could have had a yellow for one involvement when the ball was off the park. His red was probably justified because there was a forward motion before he pulled his foot upwards and out of the leglock it was in. Opponents will continue to do this as they know he is likely to do the wrong thing
Martin - Not his best game but he was isolated quite a lot and rarely got any decent ball.

The ref was, IMO, most definitely a homer. No real issue with Whittaker's yellow as he made a meal of it and that's a yellow. However, early doors 2nd half, he made minimal contact with one of their players who fell over, totally unnecessarily, and all he got was the free kick. This was typical of his decisions. They knock us over and nothing. We look at them too hard and we get carded. I hope Cocu asks the ref, politely, if he would look at the video of the Sibley red. He might just change his mind.

IMO, if we had VAR tonight, their goal may well have been ruled out for offside. Shoulder beyond the last defender.

The one decision that really went in our favour was the Clarke push in the 2nd half. Many a ref would have given the penalty.

As for promotion or the playoffs, still possible but improbable, just as it was 5 games ago. It's certainly no longer in our own hands.

MA you tell us his red was justified then want the ref to look at it Sorry there's no way that's a red what was the lino doing stood right next to it The lads locked Sibleys leg between his own two legs He was committing the foul the lino should have been flagging that No way has the ref seen it from where he was