by Sutekh »
27 Dec 2018 09:35
PistolPete From the Millwall site:
It is is the first time in eons that we haven’t gone a goal behind early on and we could sit back and just keep pressing and score more goals. They had different ideas. Their game looked controlled, they were hitting short passes to teammates and working the ball up field and looking threatening. They had to take a reality check a few minutes later as their CB Blackett went in two footed on Jed...I think...and was off for an early bath. All of my mates around me were pleading with the ref to just give a yellow and leave them with eleven on the pitch but the ref was having none of it. Off their defender went. We all feared the worst. And our fears were not misplaced. One of my mates said that we were one up with eight on the clock, playing against ten men after fifteen but they controlled the game for the next seventy five. They had a decent spell for about fifteen minutes when they really pushed us back. We really did have to stand strong but the real battlefield was in the middle. They knocked it around with ease and their front men looked a threat without being really threatening. Barrow looked a handful but was playing on the right and Meredith stuck to his task. We were not helping ourselves by not closing down from the front. Elliott was the biggest culprit and they played out of the back with ease. We tried to bottle them up and when the keeper struggled to clear and Big Tom made a robust challenge he got a yellow. He backed off any robust challenges after that and we never really looked a threat for the rest of the half.
Seems to be a fair summation from what I've heard. Reading really not helped yesterday by a couple of rash decisions and dodgy refereeing decisions but that's what happens when you're stuck in this sort of miserable rut.