The few comments from those at the match have summed it up pretty well and succinctly.
I certainly can't recall seeing a more dire 45 mins than that first half for a long while, if ever. It was embarrassingly poor.
Thankfully Wes, Flint and Ward were awake as none of the others seemed to be (other than Wes's decision to let one of the strikers have a 1 on 1 so he could make another save). Byrne was torn apart for about 20 mins or so but did ok thereafter. I think it was the 44th minute when we first strung 3 passes together!
Second half we were on top but created so very little. Luongo was fairly anonymous in the middle and I could see why 451 might have been preferred as we didn't create enough to serve 2 strikers in any way. I'm struggling to see where our goals are going to come from to enable us to crawl into the playoffs.
Even worse than our performance was the ref's. Made no difference to the result really and in a perverse way provided some entertainment, but was one of the most shocking I've seen in years.
Haven't read through the thread as I'd rather enjoy my evening, but this post pretty much sums it up. First half we just looked a bit shocked that they'd pressure us, and it led to us making mistake after mistake - passes went astray, poor decisions were made... on the rare occasions we did pass it around we created one or two chances.
Second half was much better. We got the ball wide, played across the park, and gave their defence much more to think about. Ultimately, we just weren't good enough though.
As mentioned though, the biggest shout out of the day has to go to the ref. I'm not normally one to jump on officials' backs but the guy had a shocker. Countless free kicks against us and yellow cards to Town players, often for very small things, yet Kitson was allowed to throw himself on the floor and back in, not to mention tripping.kicking Wes in the first 10 minutes. Meanwhile, his team mates got away with every trip, pull and push they could manage. I'm not saying they're a dirty team, it's just that countless little decisions that should have gone against them seemed to be missed.
If anybody can explain to me why Collins or Flint were booked I'll be very grateful. The fact we finished the game with 11 men today is a miracle.
