It would be great for Marcus to have a decent keeper to compete with or an experienced keeper to help him. The "pyjama bottoms" as my daughter calls him is not competition...
In this (scratchy) video clip it certainly is doubtful, as Surly said, whether Hutchinson handled. However, what is clear is how bizarre the ref was to send Woodrow off before calling him back and giving the red to Hutch - Presumably because the ref got it 'correct' in the end, there's little chance of any appeal being successful. Will this mean a 4 game ban, given that Hutchinson aleady has a red to his name?
One thing is for certain (imo) it was not deliberate hand ball and for me it is cleared with his chest so no red card at all. Woodrow was apparently in tears having been sent off - I like his commitment. He gives 100%.
Average age of the starting 11 yesterday was 23.7 years of age. Far cry from last year - The future is still bright, especially after a win.
We can certainly appeal and get it overturned if we can prove that the ref got the decision wrong. If those kinds of videos are all we have to go by then we have no case really. Interestingly if Woodrow actually went off instead of Hutchinson then we could get the ban turned over 100% as it was mistaken identity (like Gibbs had when the ref sent him off instead of Oxlade-Chamberlain).
I thought the same as you, silkship, concerning the handball/shoulder. Much as I'd like to see more gametime for the youngsters (particularly Roberts), we still can't afford to assume that we're safe just yet. Let's get some more points on the board (hopefully!) before we start thinking that way. While we got away with murder on Saturday, sneaking a win out of a game where we were, by all accounts, hopelessly outplayed, you can argue that the opposite happened against Leeds. I'm willing to give the new Kit 'n' Curbs double act some time before writing Kit off. If we'd lost at the weekend, things would be looking a lot bleaker right now, but we didn't so let's ride the morale-boosting wave and see where it takes us.
Lucky 3 points, according to the BBC report I saw about the game. We were dreadful, but very, very lucky to come away with points. I'm not reading anything into this result. I'm thankful, but not at all happy about the state of this team.
