Joey, I imagine that was a frustrating watch at times this afternoon?
I could see it from where I was and he’s seen it himself. He knows.
I’ve got to be careful here as the FA love fining me, but our fans have paid a right few quid to get up here and then the referee swings the contest with as blatant a handball leading to a goal that you are ever likely to see in professional football.
A tough afternoon. We must be better as well, we’re back to the drawing board, we need some players in and we’ve got a bit of work to do in the market.
There are 57 points for us to play for and hopefully, we can get competent officials who know the laws of the game. He’s just had the law book out to me saying the handball in the box, because it wasn’t deliberate and because he wasn’t the one that scored the goal, that’s OK.
Well, why would we not advise our players then to handle it to each other and let’s have a game of volleyball or basketball? The reason it is called football is because you are not allowed to use your hands.
He will sail off now into the unaccountable sunset of being a referee having short-changed the fans here of what was a fair contest.
Accrington won’t care because they are fighting for their lives, but our fans have been short-changed today a really bad officiating team.
In the second half going forward, you got into some good areas and the final pass was not what it needed to be, but you did create opportunities.
Yeah and we knew if we stayed in there, credit to Accrington and they’re fighting for their lives, but we knew we would create chances and you’ve got to get that first goal.
They get the first goal and we have to chase the game after that. The lads kept pushing and scrapping away.
We’re a few bodies short and I can’t fault the players. I thought the players were excellent in the midst of the officials being really poor for our team. I thought there was good discipline with nobody getting sent off and reacting to the nonsense that comes with playing Accrington at Accrington.
We had a chat about Bobby Thomas going before the match. Is there anything moving closer in terms of a replacement for him or an incoming somewhere else?
Yeah, we’re scrapping away. Obviously, it was late notice and in my opinion as a human being and a footballing man, you’ve got to conduct yourself in a slightly different manner.
But we’ve clearly got an issue to fix in our defensive line and we thank Bobby for the work he has done here. He’s scored a couple of goals for us and he’s won big headers, but we feel we’ve got to improve our defence. We need components to come in and take the defensive side of the performance on.
As of yet, we haven’t got anything permanent signed, but we have got a few irons in the fire.
Would the hope be that this time next week, you will have the ability to have someone else in there?
Yeah, we have got a tough game with Wycombe at home and we’ll be harem-scarem probably until February 1. When the market presents, we’ll tale quality.
But I still think we had more than enough to win the game here today and I think if the referee doesn’t make such a blatantly obvious mistake, I don’t think Accy would have been good enough to beat us.
They have had a leg up and we’ve got to chase the game a bit and the corner is elementary.
Joey, the suggestion is this situation was driven by Bobby. Is that how you see it, that he has just wanted out?
Yeah, and not only that, I’ll level with you, we’ve had enough of him as well. He is a young player and he came in and did well, but virtually a goal a game and he was causing a lot of issues.
He was fantastic for us and he gave us everything he’s got. We just feel that in the market there is an opportunity to maybe take a permanent or a loan that can help us.
Football is a strange-old game and Bobby and his agent will have been aware of us trying to move centre-backs on in the background to replace him, so we can’t sit here and cry that he has done the dirty on us and gone to Barnsley because we were actively looking to recruit and replace him and use a valuable loan spot because we felt we had seen what Bob could do for us and we felt we could find, certainly in the second half of the season, a bit more of a different structure defensively.
Him and Beefy weren’t the partnership we were looking for and outside centre-back where Bobby ended up playing is probably not his best position.
He goes with our good wishes and hopefully he plays as well for Barnsley as he did for us.
Do you feel a bit stitched up because you sold a defender this week? Does that sting?
Alf had gone and he went the next day. One thing this game teaches you is you have to be ready to improvise, adapt and overcome.
Loads of things happen in football and you don’t take it personally. It is the game sometimes but the key for us is making sure we are stronger on February 1.
Bob goes with our thanks for the loan. Could they have done it differently? Yeah, absolutely, but it fits with the characters.
You were undermanned but there were a couple of iffy moments defensively. It seemed the long, straight ball caused too many problems for you and there was another set-piece concession. The referee has definitely changed the game, but there were moments you could have done better, weren’t there?
First half, they have had one chance. Whalley hits the post and maybe should do better, but they had nothing after that. They were humping it and had nothing.
You’ve seen it yourselves, lads, the handball changes the contest. At that point, we started to play a little bit and I said to the lads that we must do that at 0-0 because we are a better footballing team.
You have seen their methodology of breaking the game up, people going down and we’ve been ‘Accringtoned’, that’s what it’s known as.
The officials are brand new here and haven’t got a Scooby Doo how to handle what Accy throw at you. They have done a job on the officiating team, hence he gives a basketball three-pointer as a goal in football.
We’re back to the drawing board, we need a few players, and we’ll be fine.
In the aftermath of the goal, there didn’t seem to be huge protests but the ball clearly struck the arm.
I think the players are shocked. They are expecting the official to give it, especially with how finicky he was in the first period.
I think everybody in the ground barring the people that mattered could see it. The fourth official standing next to me says it is handball.
The referee is closer than all of us and at first, he said it didn’t hit his hand. Then he’s had to swallow ground and accept it hit his hand, albeit he said it wasn’t deliberate.
We might as well all handle the ball in the box to each other if it’s not about being deliberate. It’s strange.
Did you go down the tunnel early?
No, I’d just had enough. I thought ‘If I stay here, I’m asking for every decision, I’m not getting heard, I’ll end up swearing and they will end up sending me off’ because they were desperate to book me and send me off.
I thought if we are going to be treated this way by officials, I don’t want any part of the game. It’s just going to be moaning at the fourth official, who hasn’t got any clout at all and that leads to him calling the referee over and he gets after you.
We’ve been severely hampered today by the officiating team. They have swung the game to Accrington.
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