With respect, Bolton started the second half really strongly; they’d clearly had a blast at half time, but as well as decent football came some pretty ropey antics.
Bolton’s second half was prime Danny Cowley, with some theatrics thrown in for good measure. Ofolayan, a player I would love to play for us, isn’t allowed out when it’s breezy as he’d fall over (I heard he falls over on the pavement if a cyclist creates a draught of air going past him). When that happens, their press is triggered; the press from the dugout to the fourth official. Ian Evatt is much in the Danny mould, in the official’s ear, trying to ref the game for him. Look, that’s their approach, and we’d be hypocrites to start calling it now when we loved it back in 2019, but it takes a strong referee to manage that. Eltringham is a Championship official, he had a play-off semi-final last season, so how on earth he lost control so badly, I do not know. If he’s booked them for their antics on the bench, and they do it repeatedly, why is there not another card? Why warn someone, then just let them carry on like he’s said nothing? It’s not even like he thought it was acceptable because he booked Danny Butterfield for doing the same thing, and that booking came during an incident in which Evatt is clearly seen on the replay almost in our technical area! Weak officiating.
I felt he was looking to make amends for his mistake in the first half, and boy, did he try. There was Joe Walsh’s first yellow card, which is bizarre. Now, I watched the moment unfold, I don’t know why, but as play moved on, I focused on the two players tussling in the middle of the park. It was absolutely 50/50, their lad holding down Walsh, to which Walsh pushed back. If one gets booked, the other does. The ref didn’t see it, and the lino didn’t see it, so it was the fourth official, Tom Neild, who saw it. I like Nield as a referee, but if his advice was to book one and not the other, it’s utterly crazy. I’m not saying it’s not a yellow, but if it is yellow for one, it’s yellow for the other.
The whole incident was farcical, drawn out for far too long, and the way it broke the game up perhaps contributed to us switching off for their goal. In fairness, it’s a great corner and there are three of our boys on their scorer – Poole, House and Mandroiu, and their lad still gets the header away. It was a blow, but I felt we’d still get something from the game.
Three minutes later, that was all but made impossible. Joe Walsh dragged down Dion Charles and was correctly sent off. The striker tricked Walsh to get passed him, and our man dragged him back by his shirt. It was obvious, clear and a yellow card. No complaints – in fact, if I do have a complaint, it is how we drag players back and keep getting pulled up (!) for it; Bolton away, Burton away – we’re doing it too much and a little too obviously. I don’t mind if it’s a first offence, but Walsh knew he was on a yellow. I’ll not go as far as to say brainless, but it wasn’t a great moment. I would say it’s likely Walsh would have rested for Jackson on Monday anyway, so we might not miss him in the way we would if it had been Paudie, or Matty Virtue.
After this, the ref just completely lost control. One minute later, Diamond broke free and tried to get past their full-back, who went to ground. I’ve watched it repeatedly, and it’s not even a foul, let alone a free kick and yellow card. There’s hardly any contact, but what happens as soon as the player goes down? Impressed by the Olympic diving, Evatt decides to try out for the 100m sprint to get down the line and let everyone know it was a foul, including a weak-willed referee, who pulls a yellow out. Every time he pandered to the theatrics, they tried harder. I began to lose count of the times Ofolayan went down like he’d been shot, only to get up and be fine when he didn’t get a free kick. That behaviour, in my opinion, was encouraged by the officials.
I’ve looked at other bookings as well – Virtue was booked for explaining (politely, no doubt) to the referee that Mandroiu had been booked for a deliberate trip to break up an attack, but Morley was not booked for exactly the same cynical foul in the latter stages. In fact, Bolton committed six fouls in the last 15 minutes without a single yellow, including one where Bakayoko deliberately targetted Carl Rushworth without even looking at the ball. How? There was also a corner for us where before the ball was played, one of their lot bundled over Regan Poole in the area ahead of a corner. The ball wasn’t in play, so he couldn’t give a penalty, but after a talking to, the ball came in, and he immediately gave a foul by Diamond in the area. I’ve watched it back, and the foul is non-existent – Diamond is simply trying to get around a player who is watching him, not the ball, and blocking him off. How is that a foul? If anything, it should perhaps be the other way. I’ve even captured the moment below for you to see. Watch Poole disappear from the corner of the screen, and then try to spot the foul from the corner. Poor.
I’m not going to go on about the referee anymore, but his second-half performance was woefully inadequate, and he seemed so hellbent on giving them everything after his mistake in the first half, it became a bit of a joke. When he did spot the infringement from Morley, a clear yellow, he still avoided showing it and gave Virtue one instead. I’m glad he’s a Championship referee because I wouldn’t want him at the Bank again. Utter joke; all we want is consistency.
That applies to the Imps as well, because if we’d shown the fight, heart and desire that we did from 62 minutes onwards on Boxing Day, we’d have beaten Burton. The remaining ten players were excellent, and we blocked, harried and harassed to earn ourselves a point. Bolton went for it, intent on exploiting our weakness, but they got nowhere. Considering they had a man advantage, and they’re in the top six, I felt they looked average when trying to break us down. The broken, patchy game actually played in our favour as proceedings wore on, but it shouldn’t have had to come to that.
Eventually, without any real scares, we got through to the final whistle, and surprisingly there didn’t seem to be many boos aimed at the referee. I think fans were happy we’d got a point earned through fight and true grit, as well as battling against a truly awful referee. It felt like the Cowley days a bit, that ‘us against the world’ mentality, which I’m learning fans seem to prefer over good football and flair. I suppose the thing is, if you have a fight, and put your body on the line, it’s easier to invest in a game that you’re not winning. If you’re playing great football and not winning games, people want to know where the fight is. It’s interesting how a majority of fans see games. One moment highlighted that for me; the guy in front of me, who I have never spoken to before, heard me tell Matt I thought we were doing well in the second half, and he turned around, almost incandescent with rage, saying how we couldn’t get basics right, how we weren’t setting up well at all and how it was a shambles. I didn’t argue, I just politely disagreed, but he later explained he might have been over the top, but he was a Sunday league manager and his teams did the basics.
Sunday matches must have got a lot better since I last watched. I would make a joke about a Sunday league referee here, but with Andy Pearson as a regular reader/podcast listener, I won’t.
Still, we got a point, we’re unbeaten at home for the first half of the season, and I think we can be proud of how we fought. I’m sure if we’d stayed 11 v 11, the game would still have ended in a draw, and had we had the perfect referee, a draw would have been a fair result. That’s the odd thing – I’m really angry at the official, but he changed nothing and probably even did us a favour in the first half. Maybe I was influenced by Mark Kennedy’s sensible reaction after the game, refusing steadfastly to be drawn on the official and instead praising the team. I feel maybe, just maybe, I could have gone down the same route, but I didn’t.
Still, hats off to some great performances. House, TJ and Matty Virtue were all excellent, whilst young Sean Roughan has to be up there as well. Paudie played well – he’s been a huge signing for us, and the others all contributed to a good point against a top League One team. We press on to 2023 now in such good shape, far better than 12 months ago, and hopefully looking forward to having a proper League One referee at the Bank on Monday (Declan Bourne, the same ref who i hated in this game…) As long as he’s consistent for both teams, I won’t have a serious issue.
As long as City show the same fight, desire and application we did last night, then who knows, we might come out of these two challenging games with a couple of points for our troubles.