I'm consoling myself with a beer on a balcony bar in Bridgetown. The air quality is intoxicating.... Think the ref was smoking the same
Its not as though Neil got in refs face shouting and screaming like some players have done numerous times in the past and still do now. He got punished for saying '****ing' from a distance, like a naughty school kid heard swearing in the school yard by the teacher. Its an absolute disgrace and i dont think anyone can have a dig at Neil for swearing. Its not kids football ffs.
Some of the posts on here are totally unbelievable. The game today didn't go our way but that's football. Similar thing last season against Stoke when all the nay sayers come running out. So we are 11 games in and sitting 4th...me I will take that any day of the week after games played. What before today we won 5 out of 6 something like that so underlying trend is definitely promising. In my opinion we still have a great team, great manager and great club.....nothing today changed that. One game ffs and we were affected by some injury issues in team selection. Will be there be more todays like today before the end of the season.....in my opinion yep.....comes with having such a young team......flip side the football is dynamite at times.....well alot of the time. Roll on next game.......HTL!!!!!
Watching that video again, he was ready to get his yellow card out before Neil got half way towards him, he'd made his mind up straight away to book him. The look on his face afterwards to me says he knew he'd messed up, he looked a bit "bemused" straight afterwards, to me. So @Southern A could be right, he'd forgot he'd already booked him. Then the brawl is caused by Coburn leaping elbow first into Ballard's back (initially I thought he jumped in with his shoulder), which he missed. Coburn is lucky that he wasn't given a red himself. Neil is in the wrong with the dissent, don't get me wrong I'm not defending him for it, but that is honestly **** poor refereeing. And it's all in the space of of a couple of minutes. Though I'll make a prediction that in two weeks he won't be refereeing again, either he'll be fourth official somewhere or back on VAR, out of the way.
Aye he might have been but Bob would have been licking his lips when he got sent off can't wait for him to put a foot wrong.
Don't get this at all. He didn't swear at the ref, just used language I'm sure is very common on a pitch in a man's game. Christ I've heard worse from Jill Scott in the Euros. Insane decision.
Truestory its absolutely pathetic that a grown man can get punished in a game of football when emotions are high for using a swear word. Id understand if he called the ref a kunt or something
Just watching that not even sure the ref saw the elbow on Ballard. I am not defending Neil but the ref should have issued a red for that elbow
For what it's worth I felt before the sending off, we were the better side. The sending off changed the whole game. But tbh, I'm a little disappointed with the way we totally imploded. I think losing Hugill was as much of a blow as the sending off. We need to remember we have a very inexperienced side however. We are going to batter teams but then also have games like today. The players should gain experience from today and hopefully deal with being down a man better in future matches.
If we take what Neil and Mowbray said about it to be true, and there's no reason not to, then Neil is absolved of any blame. Mowbray said he didn't do anything wrong or words to that effect and I agree. I don't think Neil has anything to apologise for or to learn from. If he needs to learn not to swear on the pitch or criticise the ref then so do literally 100% of people playing professional football. It's a joke.
You could see by Neils reaction walking off the pitch he had no idea what hed done wrong to warrant such a punishment. If he had lost his head and said things he shouldn't have said that Red would have given him a reality check and hed have walked off sheepishly.
Spot on mate, the ref was the one to lose his head not Neil. I think it's probably true that he'd (the ref) forgotten he was already on a yellow and it would mean a sending off. Nobody gets sent off for a bit of bad language not aimed at anyone in particular. Never happens. Feel for Neil because he'll be feeling guilty but also pissed off as ****. Doubt he'll get much sleep.
Im fuming/devastated a good match with potentially an even better 2nd half has been robbed from us and once again we are talking about refs getting things wrong instead of what should have been a great day out for everyone. Id happily take a defeat on the chin if its warranted, but today has left a really big sour taste.
This, very much this. It's not even as though he's called him over, given the second yellow then the red, then said "dissent, didn't like the way you behaved to me" and explained it. He's just went "card, card, off" and actually waited for Neil to come close to him then approached him to give him the cards. Maybe that's "empathetic management of the game" in his head?
We were 1 min away from half time ffs, the ref should have bollocked him there and then on the pitch and given him verbally his last chance. To just randomly pull a card out is inexplicable especially when Neil wasnt even directly swearing at him personally. I agree with Nacho, i think he'd forgotten hed already booked him and in his own head thought he'd give him his first yellow to stamp his authority on the game.
Aye it's been a tough one to digest. I don't mind getting beaten when it's fair and square but that wasn't what happened today. Of course we should have done better in the second half and Middlesbrough deserve credit for killing us off cold bloodedly, but everything hinged on that insane refereeing decision on the stroke of half time. I hope we do learn something from it and it's how to deal with a crisis because we were all over the shop. Regardless of why it happened we should have handled it better.
