From the intro to MOTD2 you would think that we were down amongst the dead men.They lumped us in with the relegation strugglers "Two of the most off colour teams" was one loosely veiled insult.Nobody bothered to check that we had lost one game in seven,that one away to the Champions elect!
At least they did mention our game which is something talkSHITE failed to do this morning. Didn't even mention at all that we played yesterday on their sports bulletins at 7.00 and 7.30am
personally i don't think it's unfair, we have been offcolour for a few weeks before yesterdays game. sunderland have been on worse form / confidence. i haven't seen it yet, but i prefer MOTD2 to MOTD. often the guests are better than motd where it's always the shearer/lawrenson/hanson combo.
Lawro was on MOTD2 last night and he was his usual self saying had we have played like that against Chelski for instance we would have been "anhiliated". Not much was said in all truth - we were on last and the comments by Nevin and Lawro were crass and inane.
I watched MOTD2 and I have to say that the coverage of your game was simply shocking in it's ignorance! Is it me or did anyone else notice that they quoted Kamara instead of Bassong as setting up the goal for Hoolahoop? The commentator called the wrong player and then so did the idiot Nevin on his analysis! I thought these guys were meant to be professional pundits who would have done their research beforehand. I watched the game on SKY and I being a referee myself I thought that Chris Foy got the Bunn sending off correct for deliberate handball and denying a goal scoring opportunity, the Bassong Handball correct, the Rose Handball should have been a penalty and Holt should have been sent off for endangering the Sunderland Goal Keeper! Apart from that I thought the ref did alright!
JWM - As a ref yourself would Fletcher coming back from an offside position to pressure Bassong not merit an offside decision regardless of whether Bassong handled the ball or not? I am not questioning your analysis as I am not a ref and I would imagine that you know a hell of a lot more about the rules of the game than I ever will but just interested in what you see as interfering with play and what you would discount?
90% of handball penalties given are incorrect.They are ball to hand.Think about this logically to deliberately handle in the box and give away a penalty is absolute madness.The only situation that I could see a justification for doing it would be if your team was a goal up in injury time and you as an outfield player handle it on the line to prevent a goal. Defenders don't deliberately handle as a rule,the game just isn't worth the candle.
You are technically correct with regards to Fletcher coming back from an offside position but in the opinion of the assistant he had no influence over Bassong clearing the ball. It is a borderline decision I grant you and there is a stroing case either way but that's the beauty of football it is all down to opinions in most situations!
What was Bassong thinking of??? No one near him, all he had to do was belt it away! Bad Bad decision making. Cost us three points.
It was Holt who cost us three points AGAIN after his penalty miss last week. His first touch when put through one on one with their 'keeper was dreadful and he knew it. He was lucky not to see red for his two footed 'tackle' on the 'keeper. Some refs would have sent him packing. Oh and BTW, I am calling that penalty a miss, he may have struck it hard but it was the perfect height for a goalkeeper if he were to guess the right way which he did
You are right - there has been a lot of focusing on three refereeing decisions and not a lot said of the awful header from Turner which ended Bunn and Wes's matches and the tangle that Bassong got himself into to give the ref and assitant a decision to make. It is a pity as Sunderland looked ripe for the taking and I had the unusual feeling once Wes had scored that we were going to win by a couple.
Fair enough but that's not his style. Bassong always likes to get the ball on the floor then pick out a team-mate. I would argue he has earned more points for us this season by playing this way than he has lost.
Also, to pin the blame entirely on Holt is unfair. It was a bad touch, but he simply underestimated the distance between himself and the 'keeper - it's not like the ball rebounded out of play off his shin. If anyone cost us three points it's probably Turner with that awful header back to Bunn, as has been alluded to, but football is a team game and the fact we didn't win is not the fault of any one individual - neither in the Southampton or Sunderland games.
Take your point about the miss and definitely about the stupid challenge (and that's being generous) on the keeper which could have left us with 9 men but I think that Turner and Bassong's errors were the direct cause of dropping two points. Strikers miss chances and we have all seen easier ones missed than that but Turner cost us our keeper and consequently our most creative player was sacrificed and Bassong as ILD points out only had to hoof the ball away rather than try to be clever and make a mistake. Pity as both otherwise played well but if both your centre halves make clangers costing you a player and a penalty the damage has already been done regardless of how well they subsequently cope.
KIO, On the penalty "miss", it was NEVER a penalty in the first place, so in my opinion Holt won that, I don't think it cost us points we didn't deserve anyway. The game got ruined, which was a shame as it's the best we played since the Spurs game. Bassong had loads of options to clear the ball and made a bad decision, that's all I was saying, not that he's generally rubbish!
thats got to be as good a result as we have had all season given events on the pitch. turners header was poor but apart from that he played well. i still rate holt but i cant help thinking that if kamara had been given that chance the ball would have been in the back of the net
