I've let everything sink in and yeah.. I still feel like the referee robbed us. First off I think a lot of people are being far too harsh on Swansea, I'm salty but not THAT salty. Yeah Brentford could beat them at Wembley Stadium but they're still a very good team. I've said before that defense wins championships and they defended very well in both games. Marc Guehi was my man of the match today. Andre Ayew and Jamal Lowe are outstanding players, both goals they scored in each game were excellent. Very good team. However, I totally despise the way they play. I've seen them play before, I've seen the same complaints from fans of other teams, I knew it was coming but I wasn't expecting a referee as bad as this. 17 fouls committed by us today compared to their 7 and it felt like almost every one of them was a complete joke. They definitely should never have had a free kick that ultimately lead to their goal. Their time wasting was absurd, five minutes of injury time but I wonder how much of that was spent with the football actually on the ground with the game being played. So yeah I expected the semantics, the shenanigans, the petty fouls, the time wasting but I thought we'd at least get a competent referee. I said some people are being harsh on Swansea but others are also acting like the referee wasn't a factor and that's equally as wrong. Sorry everyone for the essay but it's been a great season. One I'll never forget, the best Barnsley season I've ever seen. I know some of you are boxing fans so in other news I just watched Josh Taylor become the first British undisputed champion since Lennox Lewis, so hope that's good news for some of you haha.
The incident in the second half where their defender was holding off Morris and both of them went down and they get free kick when it should have been play on or our free kick for obstruction was typical of what is basically wrong with refereeing these days. That is that refs are lazy in their decision making. Typically the player on the ball gets challenged for it, he goes down and gets a knee jerk free kick. The decision which led to their goal was an absolute joke.
Football clearly isn’t a contact sport anymore, I mean how else was Morris supposed to challenge for the ball?
It wasn't even obstruction, he had a handful of Morris' shirt, just like the lad had hold of Helik's shirt for the free kick leading to the goal. However, I could possibly let the referee off for the helik one as I don't think he could see but Morris was right in front of the lino!
Collins should’ve caught the ball if punching it it should’ve have gone upwards and along way out unfortunately we all make mistakes including the ref
Grimes was well outside the penalty area when got on the ball and was still outside it when he shot. Collins would have been at fault if he had gone for the catch and dropped it.
There were many incidents that the ref gave as fouls that clearly weren’t. I get that if the ref is having a bad day but these weren't just bad decisions but almost all (i remember one odd one in our favour) were against us. I think some players and clubs play on the refs more than we do. I cant for the life of me find the ‘flop to the floor’ bit in the rule book yet it seems to draw a free kick 9 out of 10 times
I didn’t see it as a weak punch but irrespective of whether it was or not or whether he should have caught it or not, it was not a free kick which led up to the incident
Understanding and accepting honest mistakes is one thing, but I/we question why these mistakes largely favour the opposition, not just yesterday but in many of our games this season. To take yesterday’s game alone is a great example of not just poor reffing but typical of the poor treatment of one team only. The 5 minutes stoppage time was an utter joke, 4 and a half minutes for the injury to Routledge alone. Ref going over to Hourihane when being subbed, but he just continued to amble off the pitch. Bought into every piece of shithousery that Swansea employed, it it was a lot. The free kick that led to their goal, the foul he gave against Morris as he tried to get the ball from the defender. I am truly pissed off at our treatment from ref’s and equally pissed off at those who just shrug it off as ‘honest mistakes’ it happens all too often for that to be the case. Inconsistent and unequal treatment of players/teams is nothing short of cheating. I reffed for above 15 years, and undoubtedly had bad games, but I can honestly say hand on heart I never ever once treated a player/team any differently because I’m not a cheat.
Imo we started playing differently after we got into the playoff spots . We managed to stay in there but the attitude changed imo. The three forward subs stopped and for me that was fundamental to our game . You could see our forwards batter and run at defenders then when they tired and the defenders thought they’d weathered the storm off comes Dike,Frieser and Woodrow and on comes Morris , Chaplin and Victor . And you could literally see the defenders heads dropped as fresh legs with the same intensity as the first whistle ran at them . Not at all having a go ax we’ve done marvellously well and beyond anything I would have thought since October but just wonder why we didn’t carry on in the same vein that got us there ? There’s probably a very valid reason but would love to know what it is .
Butterfly effect. What if the ref had disallowed Morris' goal against Rotherham and they'd scored any one of their 20 chances? What if the Brentford full back had done his job and Odour wasn't allowed to equalise with the last kick of the season? Could go on forever. Swansea played the ref like a dream, but we didn't win because we didn't score enough goals. That's on us.
That was just luck not poor referring we had chances that game our selfs, you could say if Britain hadn't missed a sitter v swansea 1st leg, if helik hadn't let ayew cut inside etc etc those bits are just luck not bad officials
