Even when we came out after the break, I felt we looked half decent again. We had a couple of moments, a corner or two, and I felt we’d exert our dominance and come away happy. Let’s be honest, this is a game we need to be winning if we’re to trouble the upper area of the bottom half, and I thought we were capable of doing so. We weren’t at our best, we certainly lacked some pace up top, but in the main, we seemed to have control.
That’s the opposite of what the referee had. I thought he was abysmal, from start to finish. I’ve no problem with him playing advantage, that’s part and parcel of the game, but his decisions were just random. He’d give a free kick for pulling in one instance, but not a moment later. The free kick they equalised from, for instance, was no less of a free kick than three or four at the other end, so why the reticence to give those? How did he completely ignore one of their players throwing the ball at TJ after contesting a throw-in? Also, how did two of theirs stay on? Firstly, their keeper has twice raised his hands to Tom Hopper with clear shoves; is that not a red card? Also, (another moment involving Tom), but how did a blatant block by a player already on a yellow not get punished? It was the moment where he waved play on (rightly), and Hopper passed to Kendall instead of shooting after hesitating. I’d imagine Mark Kennedy will be fuming about that; play to the whistle is something you tell 13-year-old players, and we didn’t. That’s not the point; if it was a foul, which it was, why no punishment? It’s denying a shooting opportunity, a yellow card, and their player was already on a yellow. With the right decision by Tom and the referee, that moment sees us go 3-1 up and face ten men. Even with Tom’s poor decision, if Yates then books the player for the foul, as he should have done, it’s a second yellow and they’re down to ten. Instead, it remained 2-1, and they kept all their players on the pitch.
Maybe I’m just really angry, but I can’t recall seeing such an inconsistent afternoon from a ref in a long time. We call John Busby and even George Cain still, but they made single decisions in other half-decent performances. Ollie Yates, for me, spoiled a decent game of football. We weren’t always the victims; one or two of our tackles didn’t get punished either, and I could live with that if he didn’t then sporadically blow for an infringement for less serious than others, he’s let go. Either let everything go or nothing, not randomly choose. Hopper was twice wrestled to the ground from corners, once I thought enough to warrant punishment, but nothing. Referees need to do better.
Whilst he did dampen my enjoyment of the game, he wasn’t the only reason I left unhappy. Once Sean Roughan went off, we saw Jamie Robson targeted by the long crossfield ball to Rooney, which he lost every time. They went route one, and it worked, but when we went long, we won nothing. I like that we mix it up a bit, but I’m not sure Tom won a header all game that we benefited from. When he did flick a ball on, nobody found the seconds, and it felt at times like we were flicking it on with no real purpose. I lost count of how many times the two keepers just punted it to each other, or indeed lashed it forward only for it to come straight back. I’d hoped to see us getting a bit savvier in the air, but it hasn’t happened; I haven’t checked the stats but I’d wager only Regan Poole won more than 50% of his contested headers; everywhere else we were just outmuscled.
My worry is this; last season, we struggled in matches like this but had the ability to outplay better teams. Whilst we’ve got results at Oxford and Portsmouth, we didn’t outplay either team and we’ve had to hang on in those games. It feels like we may have regressed in terms of playing the better teams but not shown significant improvement in the games we should be winning. Yes, we’ve lost one game, but as harsh as it sounds, on the balance of chances, we should have lost yesterday. We should have lost to Barrow. Hell, if xG was to be believed, we shouldn’t have come away with points from the Kassam or Fratton Park. I’ve always relied on xG as an indication of how a team is doing and right now, I’m not sure we’re quite there.
Look, I can see the positive aspects and what we’re trying to do, I really can, but with injuries and the lack of transfer business conducted, we still look very short of where we need to be. I know yesterday we had Garrick, Mandroiu, Walsh, Montsma and Sanders all out, but even with those players we still lack the steady head in the middle of the park. I fear we’re going to get past the deadline and be relying on the central midfielders we have right now, and whilst they’re good players, they’re good young players, and we just need someone on the field to guide them. Yesterday, we lacked that, someone to calm things down, to get on the ball and hold possession. Sure, we worked hard, we did good things at times and of course, we didn’t lose, but that’s not the point. Two home games on the spin now we’ve done good things, got ahead in games and then just been undone by the opposition bringing a lump on up top.
Maybe it’s because I’m hungover, but I don’t feel a great amount of positivity towards that point yesterday, and when you put it alongside the Forest Green point, it feels like we’re losing ground in games we need to be winning. I fear that the current squad could find games like last week against Peterborough happening more often than we’d like, home and away. I don’t feel teams are looking at Lincoln City and thinking we’re hard to beat. We are (we’ve lost one, remember), but there’s a clear way to get at us at Fleetwood saw that yesterday. We should have been home and hosed at half time, three points in the bag, thank you very much, but we just never got ourselves back into a game that we controlled for the first half an hour. Were we bullied? A bit maybe, but were it not for Rushworth, we’d have been taking zero points home, not one. I find that very disappointing.
We desperately need to find a way to inject pace in the wide areas, to transition quickly from front to back with the ball at our feet and to get players around Tom when he’s flicking the ball on. I thought Tom worked hard yesterday, but he didn’t get a lot of joy and we found it hard to put a coherent attack together. However, when Vernam came on, whilst he didn’t get a lot of the ball, one moment did show what he has, knocking it past a player and going around the outside to get the ball. We need that, the je ne sais quoi that changes games. Vernam has it, Garrick has it, but they have pace also. When we do get our patterns of play right, we look excellent and we have the potential to get fans on their feet, but I’m concerned we don’t have the right profile of player to fit the patterns of play we’re trying to pull off. Ted Bishop is not a right winger, he’s a central midfielder and he was just a square peg in round hole again yesterday. I get that’s down to injuries and transfers as much as anything, but as deadline day looms, I can’t help but fear we might not quite get what we need and Ted in every position but his best will, like last season, be the norm. Also, what if Tom gets injured? We have no target man to bring off the bench, as they had yesterday. I’m not sure a striker is on our wishlist, and we’re clearly not looking to the Premier League loan market for an exciting young player, but are we missing a trick? We could go into the autumn period looking very short of pace and attacking prowess.
If that happens, then the results of the last eight days might become the norm.
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