Just spent 15 minutes reviewing the penalty decisions on Sky highlights and i’m still not any wiser. I can see why he has given the penalty, but in response he should have given the Ismail one later on in the half - in both cases they had lost control of the ball, turned possession over but got caught by the opposition … If you give one, you have to give the other. Think their centre half should have walked for the sheer number of fouls that he was giving away.
Moving from the referee to our performance - as has already been said, too many didnt turn up, Cook should have started, the Leahy/Ginelly move down the left wing is too predictable (we need to change the direction of play across the pitch to shake things up a bit), Ferrier needs to adapt his game - the centre half was always looking to ‘pinch’ the ball and hence would have done better drawing him in and then spinning behind him but as already mentioned it needs to be quicker - allowing teams to get behind the ball doesnt help our style of play.
Thought we deserved more than we got today - but we need to be shooting more and pressing more to take advantage of being at home.
On the decisions, their bloke was prepared to take a kick (a kick he knew he would get as Osbourne couldn’t have known he was about to nip in). Whereas Ismail’s flamboyant evasive action meant that there was no contact and the flailing arms, legs and general panache will have planted doubt in the ref’s mind.
I think they were both pens as causing an opponent to take evasive action is a foul. But I can absolutely see why theirs was given and ours wasn’t. There’s a difference between taking evasive action and giving the impression you have just been fired out of a cannon. If Ismail had taken the contact like their player, I’m sure the ref would have given it.
Plus watch the replay of the penalty and see how many player’s you can count in the box before he’s even kicked the ball , so how come our brill offical didn’t make them retake ?
They don’t usually give a retake for that only if the encroaching players do something like score from the rebound or a defender who’s encroaching clears a rebound.
