Not many positives from tonight, although Rushall’s wheels appear to have fallen off and miraculously we remain top with a frail margin.
The referee did just about everything but get a grip on the game. After Chasetown scored they spent 75 minutes time wasting and despite the ref gesturing to their keeper on at least three or four occasions, the fact he took absolutely no action meant the keeper could afford to carry on. When the ball went out of of the ground the home side would not even throw one back on to the field, instead our players had to actually go and fetch one out of the dugout!
Whilst it would be easy to blame the ref for the scoreline the truth is we didn’t create enough. I don’t think their keeper made one save in the 90 minutes and that is the reason we got nothing out of this one. Foster was isolated upfront and feeding only from scraps. We missed Moseley alongside him without any doubt and the absence of another striker is a problem.
The changes at the back didn’t help, Dylan on the left and Booth at right back didn’t work. It was a wide pitch and we were exposed time and time again on the wings. Chasetown had quite a lot of pace in midfield and upfront and had they have had better finishers could have increased the winning margin. There is no doubt that we struggle at the back when up against quicker forwards and our usual good organisation in defence was not there tonight.
I’ve seen enough of Heler now to personally think he’s not good enough. Tandy and Henry were anonymous in midfield and despite Hall’s efforts he could not run the whole of midfield as a one man show! Brad played pretty well although is prone to give the ball away at times and often in costly positions.
Foster missed a guilt edged chance to equalise and given the lack of chances you have got to put these away (indeed most of us thought he had done)!
Bizarre refereeing at the end of the game, when depsite showing Foster a second yellow and then a red card he managed to stay on the field for the final 4 or 5 minutes. The challenge he was booked for was 50/50 but the referee is always going to give those in favour of the goalkeeper. What is annoying is the keeper’s play acting to get the player booked, after getting hold of the ball he pretended to be injured (a good second or two after the contact), which contributed to the booking. Of course he managed to get straight back up and carry on, although the acting suggested he was badly injured. Their players reacted aggressively but failed to be booked. Overall an extremely poor refereeing display, although I guess in keeping with Unibond standard.
Chasetown did score a good goal to their credit, but did resort to time wasting and cheating to seal there win. If their keeper had of wasted anymore time he still be playing last Saturday’s game That said if we have played all night we still probably wouldn’t have tested him!
It’s a reminder of the work still to be done, losing 5 games in 12 is not promotion quality and we still need to strengthen the team!
Oh and one more thing, if they close anymore lanes on the M6 they might as well make it a single track road!