I'm waiting for a ref to make a mistake for us that they do so reliably against us!
I think this may be because like some other teams we are not continually moaning to the referee. I don't like the teams that do, but I suspect they do because they know that it gives them an advantage. Perhaps we could get Pearce to give some coaching to the first team on the dark arts?
At the game, I enjoyed it! We started on the front foot and took it to the Tykes. There was fluid passing, accurate approach play, and decent movement. Perhaps my only criticism was that we were struggling to get many players in Barnsley's box, but overall we were pretty dominant. It was the first game this season that we put two halves together. Frazier playing a little deeper, Dobbo driving from midfield, it was looking pretty comfortable. Even early on in the game the ref was looking inconsistent, giving soft free kicks, for both sides, then obvious fouls going unpunished. Then we had the Dobbo incident in the corner, to be fair I initially thought that George had cocked it up, but having seen the replays, it was clearly out. Perhaps in the past we might have collapsed, but to be fair to the players they continued to play with confidence. I didn't see the handball, but again, seeing the replay it was a clear penalty. Second half, we weren't quite as dominant, but continued to cause Barnsley problems, it became a little more open, with breaks form both sides. Can't fault the application, there were some excellent blocks from Charlton players. Chem Campbell, tired and was subbed CBT's goal opened up the game, then later on was subbed, clearly limping when he came off. Both teams had a go at the winner, but neither side was quite good enough to finish the game off. Difficult to name a man of the match, it was just a good all round team performance. The clear loser was the referee. I don't think he was a homer, just totally incompetant. Brain scrambled, he was giving weird decisions all over the pitch. The worst being a deflected shot for us which was given as a goal kick. Thought Appleton did OK, my only criticism would be bringing on M'Bick, he ran around a bit but didn't really put any of their players under pressure. I would have gone with Louie Watson, to strengthen the midfield, to provide some cover for a tiring defence, and maybe launch a possible counter attack. As I said at the start, a 90+ mins performance, oh and another thing our corners and free kicks in promising positions are still wank, they have been for two years now. we need a dead ball specialist, someone like Alfie Doughty at Luton!!
This is where hawkeye will eventually come in, at least down to the EFL, as the only way to be 100% certain whether the ball is in or out is via an overhead tracking camera, along the goalline and indeed touchlines. And it has to be 100% of a round object out of play, and there will be occasions as with the Japan goal at the WC that a miniscule part of the ball is in when the naked eye thinks the ball is totally out.
I thought the ball was out, but the TV pictures aren't 100% conclusive evidence that it was, so the 4th official couldn't overrule the ref in this case.
We seem to have a theme, where people are criticizing Apples for bringing on attacking players at the end of the game.
Given where we are in the table, should we be defending the point(which we’ve been largely poor at), or go for the win? A few more draws and they’ll be no chance of reaching the top 6. It will be difficult enough now.
This is where hawkeye will eventually come in, at least down to the EFL, as the only way to be 100% certain whether the ball is in or out is via an overhead tracking camera, along the goalline and indeed touchlines. And it has to be 100% of a round object out of play, and there will be occasions as with the Japan goal at the WC that a miniscule part of the ball is in when the naked eye thinks the ball is totally out.
I thought the ball was out, but the TV pictures aren't 100% conclusive evidence that it was, so the 4th official couldn't overrule the ref in this case.
Really?
And why do you believe the 4th official would intervene? Where have you learnt that they do this?
It's funny how some people who were predicting we'd get a thumping pre-match are some of the same people now saying that a draw wasn't good enough post-match.
I guess there's some sort of logic in that somewhere.
I don’t understand this ‘play to the whistle’ thing in this case. We’re not talking about Dobbo being down and hoping for a pen, or stopping for a marginal offside, he literally saw the ball go out in front of his eyes. It’s entirely reasonable for him to assume that any competent official would see the same thing. I don’t blame Dobbo at all.
Expected a narrow defeat, secured a draw and battled well. Dobbo’s character shone through, could have easily crumbled while Fraser is very sadly adding little at the moment. Kanu changed the tempo of our attacks when he came on. Ash pulled off some great saves. Sky at sunset over Oakwell just pipped by CBT’s equaliser. Win next - absolutely necessary to try to close the current gap.
I thought we played well today and we should have won. But, we didn’t. We never really tested their keeper though and that was the main problem. Our midfield is pretty woeful in that regard (more specifically Fraser). I don’t really see what he gives us any more. May is such a good player but today he didn’t really get into the game. I’d like to say he shouldn’t be playing out wide but you can’t argue with his goal tally. Something is working but not today. And, the ref gave them their goal. What a woeful performance from him.
A frustrating game. Just about sums up our season really.
Genuinely believe if we had a proper decent striker to play as the 9 that Appleton wants in the last few games, we would have won at Carlisle, won at home by a comfortable margin against Cambridge, and won today.
May and Blackett-Taylor have score 22 league goals between them, 15 and 7. The next behind them is Leaburn on 3 and he’s out for practically the rest of the season.
Not enough players are chipping in, nowhere near, but not enough quality is in that central striker position that Appleton clearly wants.
It’s clear we’ve missed Aneke and his presence and I hope he’s back soon, especially as he’s been outside on the grass for over a week.
However, I think this highlights how important Blackett-Taylor is to us this season and it would be ludicrous letting him go in January unless he came to the club and said he wants to leave. Let him go in the summer if that he doesn’t want to sign a new deal. If we lose him, we lose any tiny bit of hope we might have to sneak top 6 because the service will dry up further and the pressure on May will become far too much.
We all know we have huge issues defensively where we seem completely incapable of keeping a clean sheet. 3 all season at this level is quite simply a disgrace. But we are also in such desperate need up top that we aren’t winning enough games because of the lack of quality in that central role as well.
If we manage to beat Burton at home next week and get a result at Orient on Boxing Day, it will set us up for what’s needing to be the best and biggest January window we may have ever had.
A well earned away point, given that we came back from being behind, which is always good.
I know a number of posters are pretty hot on statistics. I have a hunch that when Corey-Blackett-Taylor scores for us his goal (s) earn us either a point (today for instance) or three points. In other words his goals tend to be important. Am I right or wrong in that opinion Stattos?
Come On You Reds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His goals alone have directly won us 6 points more than we would’ve without them this season.
His assists alone have directly won us 5 points more than we would’ve without them.
13 goal contributions in 20 league games sees us with an additional 11 points. That’s just direct and not what else he has added to the team.
Sure, someone else would have played. However, none of them have shown anything like his quality and not on anywhere near a consistent basis. So the likelihood is, we would be 11 points worse off. We’d be in the midst of a relegation dogfight.
Quite simply, think it’s mental anyone who is okay with the idea of him leaving in January.
A well earned away point, given that we came back from being behind, which is always good.
I know a number of posters are pretty hot on statistics. I have a hunch that when Corey-Blackett-Taylor scores for us his goal (s) earn us either a point (today for instance) or three points. In other words his goals tend to be important. Am I right or wrong in that opinion Stattos?
Come On You Reds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His goals alone have directly won us 6 points more than we would’ve without them this season.
His assists alone have directly won us 5 points more than we would’ve without them.
13 goal contributions in 20 league games sees us with an additional 11 points. That’s just direct and not what else he has added to the team.
Sure, someone else would have played. However, none of them have shown anything like his quality and not on anywhere near a consistent basis. So the likelihood is, we would be 11 points worse off. We’d be in the midst of a relegation dogfight.
Quite simply, think it’s mental anyone who is okay with the idea of him leaving in January.
If our season is over, which it might be, then I’d rather get a fee for him than lose him for free. If we are still in with a chance of play offs then it would be silly to get rid
It looks like Louie Watson is the latest to fall out of favour with Appleton. 2 games in a row he’s been left on the bench when we’ve been crying out for someone with a bit more energy who can take care of the ball. Appleton would rather put a 17 year old striker on and put Kanu on the wing?
Watson should be starting most games, but should be at the very least involved in every game with our lack of options at the moment
A well earned away point, given that we came back from being behind, which is always good.
I know a number of posters are pretty hot on statistics. I have a hunch that when Corey-Blackett-Taylor scores for us his goal (s) earn us either a point (today for instance) or three points. In other words his goals tend to be important. Am I right or wrong in that opinion Stattos?
Come On You Reds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His goals alone have directly won us 6 points more than we would’ve without them this season.
His assists alone have directly won us 5 points more than we would’ve without them.
13 goal contributions in 20 league games sees us with an additional 11 points. That’s just direct and not what else he has added to the team.
Sure, someone else would have played. However, none of them have shown anything like his quality and not on anywhere near a consistent basis. So the likelihood is, we would be 11 points worse off. We’d be in the midst of a relegation dogfight.
Quite simply, think it’s mental anyone who is okay with the idea of him leaving in January.
If our season is over, which it might be, then I’d rather get a fee for him than lose him for free. If we are still in with a chance of play offs then it would be silly to get rid
We have 26 games left. If we manage to get 7 points between now January 1st, our season is very much alive. 35 points with 23 to go, we would feel we could get play-offs, for sure.
Why throw away any hope of success just to get a small fee for him when we won’t be able to replace that quality he has at this level, not in January at least?
If he stays, and we bring in some decent players in January, there’s an outside chance we sneak play-offs and he could be a Championship player with us next season instead. However unlikely that is right now.
Think it would be a complete waste letting him go when he’s so key to us. We’ll get offers for him, but they’re not going to be much when he’s out of contract in the summer.
If he had 18 months left, sure I’d completely understand that we’re more likely to sell because we’d get a better fee that we could do something with.
My opinion is in this situation, you keep him and give yourselves the best chance possible of any form of play-off hopes.
A well earned away point, given that we came back from being behind, which is always good.
I know a number of posters are pretty hot on statistics. I have a hunch that when Corey-Blackett-Taylor scores for us his goal (s) earn us either a point (today for instance) or three points. In other words his goals tend to be important. Am I right or wrong in that opinion Stattos?
Come On You Reds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His goals alone have directly won us 6 points more than we would’ve without them this season.
His assists alone have directly won us 5 points more than we would’ve without them.
13 goal contributions in 20 league games sees us with an additional 11 points. That’s just direct and not what else he has added to the team.
Sure, someone else would have played. However, none of them have shown anything like his quality and not on anywhere near a consistent basis. So the likelihood is, we would be 11 points worse off. We’d be in the midst of a relegation dogfight.
Quite simply, think it’s mental anyone who is okay with the idea of him leaving in January.
If our season is over, which it might be, then I’d rather get a fee for him than lose him for free. If we are still in with a chance of play offs then it would be silly to get rid
We have 26 games left. If we manage to get 7 points between now January 1st, our season is very much alive. 35 points with 23 to go, we would feel we could get play-offs, for sure.
Why throw away any hope of success just to get a small fee for him when we won’t be able to replace that quality he has at this level, not in January at least?
If he stays, and we bring in some decent players in January, there’s an outside chance we sneak play-offs and he could be a Championship player with us next season instead. However unlikely that is right now.
Think it would be a complete waste letting him go when he’s so key to us. We’ll get offers for him, but they’re not going to be much when he’s out of contract in the summer.
If he had 18 months left, sure I’d completely understand that we’re more likely to sell because we’d get a better fee that we could do something with.
My opinion is in this situation, you keep him and give yourselves the best chance possible of any form of play-off hopes.
I don’t disagree with you, but I’m also not that confident we will pick up 7 points between now and then. We are looking very thin on the ground at the moment and 4 games in 9 days is exactly what we don’t need. Probably be 5 games from now until we have any new players in and I think we will slip too far away in that time. Hope I’m wrong though
We are 9 points off now, surely if it gets to 15-20 points and we are in January we should just take the fee, might get a few hundred grand for him that we can use to spend on a player
Genuinely believe if we had a proper decent striker to play as the 9 that Appleton wants in the last few games, we would have won at Carlisle, won at home by a comfortable margin against Cambridge, and won today.
May and Blackett-Taylor have score 22 league goals between them, 15 and 7. The next behind them is Leaburn on 3 and he’s out for practically the rest of the season.
Not enough players are chipping in, nowhere near, but not enough quality is in that central striker position that Appleton clearly wants.
It’s clear we’ve missed Aneke and his presence and I hope he’s back soon, especially as he’s been outside on the grass for over a week.
However, I think this highlights how important Blackett-Taylor is to us this season and it would be ludicrous letting him go in January unless he came to the club and said he wants to leave. Let him go in the summer if that he doesn’t want to sign a new deal. If we lose him, we lose any tiny bit of hope we might have to sneak top 6 because the service will dry up further and the pressure on May will become far too much.
We all know we have huge issues defensively where we seem completely incapable of keeping a clean sheet. 3 all season at this level is quite simply a disgrace. But we are also in such desperate need up top that we aren’t winning enough games because of the lack of quality in that central role as well.
If we manage to beat Burton at home next week and get a result at Orient on Boxing Day, it will set us up for what’s needing to be the best and biggest January window we may have ever had.
Agreed. I disagreed with Curb's thoughts after the game, as it missed another scenario, which is that both CBT and Dobbo aren't signing new contracts because they want to see in what division we're playing in next season. Indeed if I was them, I wouldn't sign a new Charlton contract at the moment.
Get promoted, and they might choose to stay. After all if the offers are from other "struggling" Championship sides, then staying here might be a more attractive option. It's not as if in January the likes of Leeds or Leicester will be after them.
Their posts sum up the manner in which we played this afternoon, highlighting the postives without singling out any one player that may have disappointed some, but making it abundantly clear that CBT is a huge asset in our fight to climb into the top 6.
I believe that Curbs' opinion on whether we should shrug our shoulders & wave him on his way should he continue to turn down the contract offer currently on the table, is to do just that. ie no point going overboard financially if a player decides he can progress his career elsewhere....
I see that opinion as being rather short sighted.
A bit like today's officials, if you like.
If Corey was playing the same role for A N Other L1 team - taking on defenders, skinning 'em and establishing an enviable record of assists & goals in the first half of a season, wouldn't we hope that OUR scouts were salivating & urging their boss/es to put in a decent offer in January ?
A no brainer.
THIS time, we, little old Charlton are in the driving seat....or should be .
Maybe the problem is that we haven't beeen in this position for some time...that we've almost forgotten how to convince a much valued player that he can progress at a club with clear ambition ....
....and have the balls to put their money where it will convince said player that his future is in SE7.
We'll have to wait and see, but, as they say, procrastination is the thief of time.
Still not seen any evidence to show the ball was definitely completely over the line so who is to say it was? Think back to the World Cup when everyone thought the ball was over the line when Japan scored but it wasn’t. Even if it was a bad decision so what? It happens. Maybe instead we should all be piling on CBT who if he’d crossed in the first half would have given Alfie a tap in. Easier to blame the ref though eh? Maybe he made a mistake but he’s only human. I’d rather refs making honest mistakes than VAR ruining games.
A well earned away point, given that we came back from being behind, which is always good.
I know a number of posters are pretty hot on statistics. I have a hunch that when Corey-Blackett-Taylor scores for us his goal (s) earn us either a point (today for instance) or three points. In other words his goals tend to be important. Am I right or wrong in that opinion Stattos?
Come On You Reds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
His goals alone have directly won us 6 points more than we would’ve without them this season.
His assists alone have directly won us 5 points more than we would’ve without them.
13 goal contributions in 20 league games sees us with an additional 11 points. That’s just direct and not what else he has added to the team.
Sure, someone else would have played. However, none of them have shown anything like his quality and not on anywhere near a consistent basis. So the likelihood is, we would be 11 points worse off. We’d be in the midst of a relegation dogfight.
Quite simply, think it’s mental anyone who is okay with the idea of him leaving in January.
If our season is over, which it might be, then I’d rather get a fee for him than lose him for free. If we are still in with a chance of play offs then it would be silly to get rid
And what sort of fee are we going to get when he's out of contract in the summer ?? £250k ?? Supposedly the owners earn that in interest overnight.
To US he is more important THIS SEASON. If he leaves in January without a similar replacement (which for a players with 7 goals & around the same number if assists is going to cost well over the £250k we'd get for him) then we could well get dragged into a relegation scrap. As the figures above show, without him we'd be in one already.
The only person is the world who’ll know for sure whether it was actually in or out is George Dobson.
Unfortunately the incident happened about 30 yards from the nearest official so I’m surprised nothing was given when the ball was that close to being in or out.
It’s super duper nit pick because he’s done his job (assuming it did go out) but hopefully next time Dobbo will be shepherding the ball out of play until there is absolutely no question that it’s out. His only fault, if you can call it that, was leaving it too fine.
I was determined not to watch and pleased I changed my mind.
A very strong away performance and @altrinchamaddick has it about right. We were clearly better than the team currently in 7th which is encouraging.
One thing to add is that some credit is due to Appleton because he seems to be instilling some much needed backbone and discipline into this lot and about time too. I assume that is the reason behind the non-appearance of Louis Watson and the previous absence of Chem Cambpell, Even Fraser is making the occasional tackle.
I thought I detected a glimmer of fightback and team spirit after Barnsley's dodgy and undeserved opening goal. Haven't seen that since the days of J. Jackson.
At the game, I enjoyed it! We started on the front foot and took it to the Tykes. There was fluid passing, accurate approach play, and decent movement. Perhaps my only criticism was that we were struggling to get many players in Barnsley's box, but overall we were pretty dominant. It was the first game this season that we put two halves together. Frazier playing a little deeper, Dobbo driving from midfield, it was looking pretty comfortable. Even early on in the game the ref was looking inconsistent, giving soft free kicks, for both sides, then obvious fouls going unpunished. Then we had the Dobbo incident in the corner, to be fair I initially thought that George had cocked it up, but having seen the replays, it was clearly out. Perhaps in the past we might have collapsed, but to be fair to the players they continued to play with confidence. I didn't see the handball, but again, seeing the replay it was a clear penalty. Second half, we weren't quite as dominant, but continued to cause Barnsley problems, it became a little more open, with breaks form both sides. Can't fault the application, there were some excellent blocks from Charlton players. Chem Campbell, tired and was subbed CBT's goal opened up the game, then later on was subbed, clearly limping when he came off. Both teams had a go at the winner, but neither side was quite good enough to finish the game off. Difficult to name a man of the match, it was just a good all round team performance. The clear loser was the referee. I don't think he was a homer, just totally incompetant. Brain scrambled, he was giving weird decisions all over the pitch. The worst being a deflected shot for us which was given as a goal kick. Thought Appleton did OK, my only criticism would be bringing on M'Bick, he ran around a bit but didn't really put any of their players under pressure. I would have gone with Louie Watson, to strengthen the midfield, to provide some cover for a tiring defence, and maybe launch a possible counter attack. As I said at the start, a 90+ mins performance, oh and another thing our corners and free kicks in promising positions are still wank, they have been for two years now. we need a dead ball specialist, someone like Alfie Doughty at Luton!!
I was at the game and 100% agree with the above, I couldn’t have put it better. However you did forget an important event, the halftime sunset, one of the best I ever seen. No idea how I caught the alien spaceships mind you.
They both look out but was the whole of the ball over the whole of the line …. I don’t think anyone can definitely say it was or wasn’t regarding our one .
Expected a narrow defeat, secured a draw and battled well. Dobbo’s character shone through, could have easily crumbled while Fraser is very sadly adding little at the moment. Kanu changed the tempo of our attacks when he came on. Ash pulled off some great saves. Sky at sunset over Oakwell just pipped by CBT’s equaliser. Win next - absolutely necessary to try to close the current gap.
Comments
Frazier playing a little deeper, Dobbo driving from midfield, it was looking pretty comfortable. Even early on in the game the ref was looking inconsistent, giving soft free kicks, for both sides, then obvious fouls going unpunished.
Then we had the Dobbo incident in the corner, to be fair I initially thought that George had cocked it up, but having seen the replays, it was clearly out.
Perhaps in the past we might have collapsed, but to be fair to the players they continued to play with confidence. I didn't see the handball, but again, seeing the replay it was a clear penalty.
Second half, we weren't quite as dominant, but continued to cause Barnsley problems, it became a little more open, with breaks form both sides. Can't fault the application, there were some excellent blocks from Charlton players. Chem Campbell, tired and was subbed
CBT's goal opened up the game, then later on was subbed, clearly limping when he came off.
Both teams had a go at the winner, but neither side was quite good enough to finish the game off.
Difficult to name a man of the match, it was just a good all round team performance.
The clear loser was the referee. I don't think he was a homer, just totally incompetant. Brain scrambled, he was giving weird decisions all over the pitch. The worst being a deflected shot for us which was given as a goal kick.
Thought Appleton did OK, my only criticism would be bringing on M'Bick, he ran around a bit but didn't really put any of their players under pressure. I would have gone with Louie Watson, to strengthen the midfield, to provide some cover for a tiring defence, and maybe launch a possible counter attack.
As I said at the start, a 90+ mins performance, oh and another thing our corners and free kicks in promising positions are still wank, they have been for two years now. we need a dead ball specialist, someone like Alfie Doughty at Luton!!
I thought the ball was out, but the TV pictures aren't 100% conclusive evidence that it was, so the 4th official couldn't overrule the ref in this case.
I guess there's some sort of logic in that somewhere.
May and Blackett-Taylor have score 22 league goals between them, 15 and 7. The next behind them is Leaburn on 3 and he’s out for practically the rest of the season.
Not enough players are chipping in, nowhere near, but not enough quality is in that central striker position that Appleton clearly wants.
It’s clear we’ve missed Aneke and his presence and I hope he’s back soon, especially as he’s been outside on the grass for over a week.
However, I think this highlights how important Blackett-Taylor is to us this season and it would be ludicrous letting him go in January unless he came to the club and said he wants to leave. Let him go in the summer if that he doesn’t want to sign a new deal. If we lose him, we lose any tiny bit of hope we might have to sneak top 6 because the service will dry up further and the pressure on May will become far too much.
We all know we have huge issues defensively where we seem completely incapable of keeping a clean sheet. 3 all season at this level is quite simply a disgrace. But we are also in such desperate need up top that we aren’t winning enough games because of the lack of quality in that central role as well.
If we manage to beat Burton at home next week and get a result at Orient on Boxing Day, it will set us up for what’s needing to be the best and biggest January window we may have ever had.
His assists alone have directly won us 5 points more than we would’ve without them.
13 goal contributions in 20 league games sees us with an additional 11 points. That’s just direct and not what else he has added to the team.
Sure, someone else would have played. However, none of them have shown anything like his quality and not on anywhere near a consistent basis. So the likelihood is, we would be 11 points worse off. We’d be in the midst of a relegation dogfight.
Quite simply, think it’s mental anyone who is okay with the idea of him leaving in January.
Why throw away any hope of success just to get a small fee for him when we won’t be able to replace that quality he has at this level, not in January at least?
If he stays, and we bring in some decent players in January, there’s an outside chance we sneak play-offs and he could be a Championship player with us next season instead. However unlikely that is right now.
Think it would be a complete waste letting him go when he’s so key to us. We’ll get offers for him, but they’re not going to be much when he’s out of contract in the summer.
If he had 18 months left, sure I’d completely understand that we’re more likely to sell because we’d get a better fee that we could do something with.
My opinion is in this situation, you keep him and give yourselves the best chance possible of any form of play-off hopes.
We are 9 points off now, surely if it gets to 15-20 points and we are in January we should just take the fee, might get a few hundred grand for him that we can use to spend on a player
Get promoted, and they might choose to stay. After all if the offers are from other "struggling" Championship sides, then staying here might be a more attractive option. It's not as if in January the likes of Leeds or Leicester will be after them.
Their posts sum up the manner in which we played this afternoon, highlighting the postives without singling out any one player that may have disappointed some, but making it abundantly clear that CBT is a huge asset in our fight to climb into the top 6.
I believe that Curbs' opinion on whether we should shrug our shoulders & wave him on his way should he continue to turn down the contract offer currently on the table, is to do just that. ie no point going overboard financially if a player decides he can progress his career elsewhere....
I see that opinion as being rather short sighted.
A bit like today's officials, if you like.
If Corey was playing the same role for A N Other L1 team - taking on defenders, skinning 'em and establishing an enviable record of assists & goals in the first half of a season, wouldn't we hope that OUR scouts were salivating & urging their boss/es to put in a decent offer in January ?
A no brainer.
THIS time, we, little old Charlton are in the driving seat....or should be .
Maybe the problem is that we haven't beeen in this position for some time...that we've almost forgotten how to convince a much valued player that he can progress at a club with clear ambition ....
....and have the balls to put their money where it will convince said player that his future is in SE7.
We'll have to wait and see, but, as they say, procrastination is the thief of time.
Or in this case, the loss of a valuable player.
Keep him till the end of the season and if we don't go up and he walks, so be it
To US he is more important THIS SEASON. If he leaves in January without a similar replacement (which for a players with 7 goals & around the same number if assists is going to cost well over the £250k we'd get for him) then we could well get dragged into a relegation scrap. As the figures above show, without him we'd be in one already.
Unfortunately the incident happened about 30 yards from the nearest official so I’m surprised nothing was given when the ball was that close to being in or out.
It’s super duper nit pick because he’s done his job (assuming it did go out) but hopefully next time Dobbo will be shepherding the ball out of play until there is absolutely no question that it’s out. His only fault, if you can call it that, was leaving it too fine.
A very strong away performance and @altrinchamaddick has it about right. We were clearly better than the team currently in 7th which is encouraging.
One thing to add is that some credit is due to Appleton because he seems to be instilling some much needed backbone and discipline into this lot and about time too. I assume that is the reason behind the non-appearance of Louis Watson and the previous absence of Chem Cambpell, Even Fraser is making the occasional tackle.
I thought I detected a glimmer of fightback and team spirit after Barnsley's dodgy and undeserved opening goal. Haven't seen that since the days of J. Jackson.