MATCHWATCH : Wrexham (h)

[Extended-Phenotype]

Parky obviously criticised the ref for the penalty but also mentioned the sending off in the same breath.

Right or wrong, it was certainly an odd one that is rarely enforced.

Second yellow for time wasting would be harsh enough, but it was hardly any time at all.

[bloody Volvo driver]

The ref had an absolute shocker, it cannot be that often when a ref who has given the home team a very soft penalty, and where the home team has won gets booed off the park at the end.

Yes Stickers was a little naive especially as he’d booked JP quite harshly for time wasting 5 minutes earlier. However it was nowhere near a time wasting “threshold” to warrant a card. Furthermore, when the ref blew his whistle and started to walk over going for his yellow, the look on his face when he’d realised who it was and he’d have to send him off was one of, OMG what have I done. However he couldn’t backtrack.

A truly shocking decision by an abysmal ref.

[Orion1871]

The ref had an absolute shocker, it cannot be that often when a ref who has given the home team a very soft penalty, and where the home team has won gets booed off the park at the end.

Yes Stickers was a little naive especially as he’d booked JP quite harshly for time wasting 5 minutes earlier. However it was nowhere near a time wasting “threshold” to warrant a card. Furthermore, when the ref blew his whistle and started to walk over going for his yellow, the look on his face when he’d realised who it was and he’d have to send him off was one of, OMG what have I done. However he couldn’t backtrack.

A truly shocking decision by an abysmal ref.

Nah. A very good decision from one of the better refs we've had this season.

[Norfolk Royal]

we're chasing the playoffs - how can it be a free hit? They're not 90s AC Milan *

*we'll lose obvs

In theory we are chasing the playoffs but surely no one really thinks we will achieve it?

Precisely. We aren't in shape to make the play offs, if we did make them we're in absolutely no shape to do well in them.

It's all about surviving with a top 10 finish if possible and no result collapse.

The average age of our current defence is under 20 ffs

That’s an extraordinary stat.

[andrew1957]

The ref had an absolute shocker, it cannot be that often when a ref who has given the home team a very soft penalty, and where the home team has won gets booed off the park at the end.

Yes Stickers was a little naive especially as he’d booked JP quite harshly for time wasting 5 minutes earlier. However it was nowhere near a time wasting “threshold” to warrant a card. Furthermore, when the ref blew his whistle and started to walk over going for his yellow, the look on his face when he’d realised who it was and he’d have to send him off was one of, OMG what have I done. However he couldn’t backtrack.

A truly shocking decision by an abysmal ref.

To be fair we have had much worse referees this season. Thought it was a definite penalty. The yellow cards for Savage and the first for Stickland were fair enough but I thought the two for time wasting were extremely harsh. Although Wrexham fouled far more I cannot recall any really bad challenges worthy of a card.

I wouldn’t mind if all referees took the same approach re time wasting but I have seen other refs letting our opponents get away with much worse than our players were guilty of tonight.

[andrew1957]

Thought Garcia was outstanding tonight. He gets a lot of flack on here but he is a talent.

[bloody Volvo driver]

The ref had an absolute shocker, it cannot be that often when a ref who has given the home team a very soft penalty, and where the home team has won gets booed off the park at the end.

Yes Stickers was a little naive especially as he’d booked JP quite harshly for time wasting 5 minutes earlier. However it was nowhere near a time wasting “threshold” to warrant a card. Furthermore, when the ref blew his whistle and started to walk over going for his yellow, the look on his face when he’d realised who it was and he’d have to send him off was one of, OMG what have I done. However he couldn’t backtrack.

A truly shocking decision by an abysmal ref.

Nah. A very good decision from one of the better refs we've had this season.

Appreciate its all about opinions, but x-thousand or so don’t people didn’t agree with your assertion “one of the better fans we’ve had all season” based on the reaction to him and the linos when they walked down the tunnel.

[stealthpapes]

Norwich get an assist from the ref, chests down the ball for a Norwich player to volley the ball into the top corner from outside the area.

Took my ex-missus to that game, she had a whale of a time.

Big lass, is she?

Ironically, no, well under 5 ft tall

BANG BANG CLAP

[Greatwesternline]

The ref had an absolute shocker, it cannot be that often when a ref who has given the home team a very soft penalty, and where the home team has won gets booed off the park at the end.

Yes Stickers was a little naive especially as he’d booked JP quite harshly for time wasting 5 minutes earlier. However it was nowhere near a time wasting “threshold” to warrant a card. Furthermore, when the ref blew his whistle and started to walk over going for his yellow, the look on his face when he’d realised who it was and he’d have to send him off was one of, OMG what have I done. However he couldn’t backtrack.

A truly shocking decision by an abysmal ref.

Nah. A very good decision from one of the better refs we've had this season.

Appreciate its all about opinions, but x-thousand or so don’t people didn’t agree with your assertion “one of the better fans we’ve had all season” based on the reaction to him and the linos when they walked down the tunnel.

He'd already booked Pereira for time wasting. He'd set a precedent.

Then between the two of them Stickland and Pereira decided to do more time wasting, while both were on yellows.

One of them was going to get a yellow for it.

The idea that refs should be more lenient to players who are 21 seems fanciful. At what age are the full rules going to be applied? He's 4 years older than Garcia.

[Sutekh]

Took my ex-missus to that game, she had a whale of a time.

Big lass, is she?

Ironically, no, well under 5 ft tall

BANG BANG CLAP

Never mind, I hear you can get ointment for that now.

[WestYorksRoyal]

When I saw the replay of the 2nd yellow, I thought it was fair enough. He eats up about 30 seconds to take the free kick while the ref is signalling to hurry up; he must have been warned 3 or 4 times.

He then decides to walk away and gets a 2nd yellow. You can't say he wasn't warned.

The frustration is that you see other players get away with it every week, and the ref has been particular about a rule that is not consistently upheld; you basically never see 2nd yellows for it. So it does feel a bit unfair, but that unfairness comes from too many refs bottling the right decision.

Thought Stickland was great otherwise. Where has he been? Kanu and Holzman don't look ready; Stickland does.

[JedMaxwell]

I thought we were superb throughout the team last night.

Pereira - 8 Dealt with everything that came his way, showed good leadership and command of his box. Would really like him to stay next season
Abrefa - 8 One who I've not seen a lot of praise for but I think he was excellent last night, probably his best performance for us. Dealt with McClean pretty well and had some very good runs forward, showing skill and good interplay with Chem
Stickland - 7 I thought he slotted in seamlessly next to Bindon, defended well and looked composed on the ball. I actually thought the first yellow was harsh, and the second was probably correct by the letter of the law but I think a stern final warning would have sufficed. If it was the other way round no doubt we'd be delighted
Bindon - 8 I have nothing more to say than anyone else. Absolute superstar
Garcia - 8 Best game he's had for us too. Easy to forget he's only 17 and has only just started playing men's football. Didn't have a lot to do defensively but when he was called upon he largely got it right, and looked good attacking as well
Wing - 7 Couldn't influence the game with long balls from deep but he started to take a bit more control as the game wore on and we moved the ball through the lines a bit quicker. Fabulous goal
Savage - 8 Fast becoming crucial to the team. Didn't stop running all night and kept the ball moving nicely. Some really good positional defending in the James Harper mould at times, cutting off space and forcing Wrexham to look elsewhere
Knibbs - 7 Had another quiet game but stepped up for the penalty, then after that was great. When we were down to 10 and weathering the storm a bit, he was popping up in defence and up front chasing the ball. Really mature performance
Campbell - 6 Did a lot of good work defensively with Abrefa but couldn't get into a rhythm going forwards. Needs to regain a bit of fitness
Ehibhatiomhan - 6 Struggled to make an impact as well despite a good couple of runs. Looks a bit low on confidence which is odd considering he scored a good goal at the weekend
Wareham - 7 Led the line fantastically, did well to win the penalty, and was constantly a thorn in the defender's sides. He's growing into the role and I think should be the first choice striker

SUBS
They all get a 7 as they contributed to the clean sheet and the win. Timely return for Dean who you'd expect to come in on Saturday, and Yiadom continues to improve.

Perhaps Wrexham had an off night, but I'm more inclined to think this is another example of how dire this league is this season, as others have mentioned. Makes you think that if we get the takeover done and can keep this core of players, with some good additions, we could have a real chance next season. But that's not something to worry about just yet.

[Snowflake Royal]

If the ref has already booked a player for time wasting and is telling you to hurry up, there can be no complaints about getting sent off when you're already on a yellow.

I don't care how rare it is, you've had at least two warnings not to do it and there are another 7 or 8 players on the pitch you can leave the timewasting to if you really want.

It doesn't matter how rare a yellow card for timewasting is, or a second yellow card, you've been warned twice.

It's so rare to get sent off for timewasting because most players aren't stupid enough to do it whilst on a yellow card, when another player has already been booked for it and you're being told to hurry up.

Take the piss of the ref at your own peril.

[Royals and Racers]

Really surprised that Wrexham hadn’t done their homework on Knibbs penalties. Not that we have had that many but he always puts them in the same place( i think) and if the keeper had gone the right way he would have saved it as it was nowhere near in the corner of the goal.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Really surprised that Wrexham hadn’t done their homework on Knibbs penalties. Not that we have had that many but he always puts them in the same place( i think) and if the keeper had gone the right way he would have saved it as it was nowhere near in the corner of the net.

All 3 have had the same routine of letting someone else hold the ball, this time Wareham, before Knibbs stepping in and going low to the right of the keeper. It wasn't in the corner or massively powerful, it was saveable. Maybe next time we get one, they will have done their homework.

[Hound]

When I saw the replay of the 2nd yellow, I thought it was fair enough. He eats up about 30 seconds to take the free kick while the ref is signalling to hurry up; he must have been warned 3 or 4 times.

He then decides to walk away and gets a 2nd yellow. You can't say he wasn't warned.

The frustration is that you see other players get away with it every week, and the ref has been particular about a rule that is not consistently upheld; you basically never see 2nd yellows for it. So it does feel a bit unfair, but that unfairness comes from too many refs bottling the right decision.

Thought Stickland was great otherwise. Where has he been? Kanu and Holzman don't look ready; Stickland does.

Yeah I’m all for yellows given for this but it needs to be done consistently. I’d love refs to really crack down on timewasting and be as harsh as that ref was last night across the board. But they’re not and seen 100* worse in other games this season

As it was it felt a bit harsh - the one for JP seemed really harsh to me at the time, he didn’t seem to be timewasting at all tbh - but then you don’t know what the ref is communicating on the pitch and before the game hence difficult to make too much of a judgement

Would have been more annoyed if we’d gone on to drop points though

[Orion1871]

The ref had an absolute shocker, it cannot be that often when a ref who has given the home team a very soft penalty, and where the home team has won gets booed off the park at the end.

Yes Stickers was a little naive especially as he’d booked JP quite harshly for time wasting 5 minutes earlier. However it was nowhere near a time wasting “threshold” to warrant a card. Furthermore, when the ref blew his whistle and started to walk over going for his yellow, the look on his face when he’d realised who it was and he’d have to send him off was one of, OMG what have I done. However he couldn’t backtrack.

A truly shocking decision by an abysmal ref.

Nah. A very good decision from one of the better refs we've had this season.

Appreciate its all about opinions, but x-thousand or so don’t people didn’t agree with your assertion “one of the better fans we’ve had all season” based on the reaction to him and the linos when they walked down the tunnel.

The feelings of a vocal group of emotional fans of the team who had the player sent off doesn't negate the fact it was good refereeing.

[Hound]

As it was the sending off didn’t hurt us a lot anyway

Got the crowd riled up and involved, ref got a load of shit and gave us some soft decisions after, Dean came on in the kind of situation he lives for

Stickland will learn from it long term as well

[Crusader Royal]

Time wasting is such a daft offence.
No time is actually wasted, the ref just adds it on.
I think a card is a totally disproportionate punishment.
I woukd rather the officials simply reversed the restart if a team can’t get the ball back in play quickly enough. If it’s a goal kick then change it to a corner etc.

[Snowflake Royal]

Time wasting is such a daft offence.
No time is actually wasted, the ref just adds it on.
I think a card is a totally disproportionate punishment.
I woukd rather the officials simply reversed the restart if a team can’t get the ball back in play quickly enough. If it’s a goal kick then change it to a corner etc.

It's used to disrupt the flow of the game, and time generally isn’t added on for when the ball goes out of play or there'd be far more of it as the ball certainly isn’t in play for 85 minutes.

I'd rather go the rugby route and stop the clock at every point the ball goes dead, restarting it when it's live, and cut the match time to 80 minutes.

But you could still affect the flow of the game by extending those stoppages and causing more of them.