Post-Match Thread and Ratings Gillingham FC 2-1 Southend United

[Lord Football]

A thoroughly unenjoyable trip to Priestfield. Again. A drab first half. Both teams were poor, offering little, struggling in the conditions going in 0-0 was absolutely the right thing to a happen to a half that deserved to be filed in the "readily forgettable" file.

It wasn't. Somehow we went in 2 down and with ten men.

So, for those of you who weren't there.

Dimi gives away a penalty. Initially the ref waves it away but the assistant is flagging. Thing is, the offence was on the wrong side of pitch for him to be credible. (its a technical ref's thing, but you shouldn't do that) It was poor, poor, poor. When the ref waved it away I thought to myself "seen those given". I've since seen it on the video highlights, and I don't think it was a penalty. 1-0 them. A serious case of injustice.

Now, as a former official, if I'd have done what that assistant did (and I have done), I'd have spent the rest of the game not trying to bring more attention to myself......

Anyhow, we then concede a second after some frankly comical defending.

And then Inniss, already booked and being targeted by the Gills for a second, gets in a tangle with their winger. At best it is a free kick to us as their guys makes contact first. The ref doesn't immediately hit the whistle but our friend the assistant is waving his flag like some sort of demented semaphore indicating a foul to them. Now, I said at the Scunthorpe game when their guy wasn't sent off, that if you cautioned for that kind of stuff everything would be a caution.... incredibly the assistant convinced the ref to pull a second yellow out. Thought Inniss was going to kill the assistant. I don't advocate murderering match officials, but Inniss had a case.

Second half changes. Who would have known how we'd have played with eleven or with level scores, but fair play to us. We had a go. Ranger placed Fortune, who not really been effective and White for McGlashan who the referee was simply looking for an excuse to please Gills fans by showing him a card. And we went for it. Timlin was immense in the middle, but we struggled to create decent chances. Cox was non stop and forced a decent save from their keeper. Eventually it was Ranger who nodded home to make the last 10 minutes interesting. Sadly, we couldn't do it. The game was summed at the end with another piece of comical reffing when Leonard was tripped whilst bursting down the wing only for ref run away.

Oh, and it rained at the end.

 

[Jay_SUFC]

PB's post-match interview :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04v1123

I did chuckle at his comment about Gillingham :smile:

 

[duncan bulgaria]

Poor first half performance , second half was a lot better

Smith - 6. Slow off his line today , maybe being harsh but I thought he should of rushed out and claimed the ball if he was alert for the lead up to penalty , second goal he got a weak hand to the cross

Coker - 6 neat at times but was mainly average today
Innis - 5 first booking was because he was slow in meeting the ball , happened far to often and was clumsy at times
Thompson - 5 slightly better than innis
Demetriu - 4 got bullied for the second goal and had 3 chances to block / tackle or foul the winger for the goal
Wordsworth- 3 I actually can't think of anything positive he done today , Lenny was carrying him the whole game
Leonard -6 had to work very hard today as got let down by his colleague
McG - 5 beat his man possibly once all game
MAF - 5 didn't get into the game and was second to most balls to feet
Cox- 6 dropped to deep at times when we needed to stretch them, still got a lovely touch
Timlin- 6 as per Leonard

Subs
White 7 - a vast improvement on Innis and won his battle
Ranger 7 good link up play and made gills defence look shaky , good goal too
Theo - 7 stretched them with his pace and great knock for Rangers goal

Ref - woeful and was all about him today

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

Poor first half performance , second half was a lot better

Smith - 6. Slow off his line today , maybe being harsh but I thought he should of rushed out and claimed the ball if he was alert for the lead up to penalty , second goal he got a weak hand to the cross

Coker - 6 neat at times but was mainly average today
Innis - 5 first booking was because he was slow in meeting the ball , happened far to often and was clumsy at times
Thompson - 5 slightly better than innis
Demetriu - 4 got bullied for the second goal and had 3 chances to block / tackle or foul the winger for the goal
Wordsworth- 3 I actually can't think of anything positive he done today , Lenny was carrying him the whole game
Leonard -6 had to work very hard today as got let down by his colleague
McG - 5 beat his man possibly once all game
MAF - 5 didn't get into the game and was second to most balls to feet
Cox- 6 dropped to deep at times when we needed to stretch them, still got a lovely touch
Timlin- 6 as per Leonard

Subs
White 7 - a vast improvement on Innis and won his battle
Ranger 7 good link up play and made gills defence look shaky , good goal too
Theo - 7 stretched them with his pace and great knock for Rangers goal

Ref - woeful and was all about him today

Have you seen the lead up to the 'penalty' on the highlights? No way Smith could or even should have rushed out to claim the ball.

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

We won a moral victory today. I went with a mate who is a neutral so he was objective and agreed.
First Innis card was for absolutely clattering their forward, yellow card fair enough.

Pen was shocking. Some contact but not a foul. Not even a premier league penalty.

Their second the ball clearly went out AND there was a handball on the touchline.

Innis cleverly ran across the forward and was fouled, he'd done the same thing earlier and got the foul. But he got fouled and sent off.
He had to walk past the lino and my other mate shouts 'Don't!' Coz it looked like he was going to smack the lino.

Ranger stone wall pen at the end, rugby tackled to the floor.

We were poor but much the better team second half.

Robbery today, shocking

 

[Fairport]

The villian today was Innis rather than the referee. He is a decent centre back but is a red card waiting to happen. He seems to lack self control and seems to want to get into a war with whoever he is marking. I thought the penalty was the correct decision, there was contact, sometimes they go against you but we would have felt hard done by if it had been our player going down in the box. We didn't seem to play at the right tempo in the first half but the second half was an excellent performance by ten men that deserved a point. Fingers crossed that Ferdinand will be back next week.

 

[Shrimper]

Disgrace of a ref. Bottled two key decisions which changed the course of the game

 

[RobM]

Innis was tripped when they scored the disallowed goal, we agree?
In that case, the trip for the penalty was the same.

 

[RobM]

"Superb dominant performance by Innis until the sending off !"

"Inniss is a hot head with no positional sense and poor control, needs to go back"

Make your minds up!

 

[AndyT]

PB's post-match interview :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04v1123

Agree with PB and I'm not too bothered about him speaking his mind.

The start was a bit odd, though, where he talks about the ref asking him what sort of match it will be. Odd, because it's the same ref who did the first match!

 

[kentblues]

The villian today was Innis rather than the referee. He is a decent centre back but is a red card waiting to happen. He seems to lack self control and seems to want to get into a war with whoever he is marking. I thought the penalty was the correct decision, there was contact, sometimes they go against you but we would have felt hard done by if it had been our player going down in the box. We didn't seem to play at the right tempo in the first half but the second half was an excellent performance by ten men that deserved a point. Fingers crossed that Ferdinand will be back next week.

so you haven't seen the video that being posted and retweeted. Innis was fouled and let down by the officials- he will not be playing next week and it's his career, suspect the officials will be enjoying a run out. To have a go at Innis is grossly unfair

 

[Suffolk Shrimper In Dorset]

On the look out today for criminals - there was certainly one with a flag on the pitch

 

[Bromley Blue]

I thought we did ourselves proud today despite being completely hamstrung by an inept referee.

The first half performance was poor from both sides and as others have said, if we'd gone in at 0-0 that would have been frustrating but fair. I really felt like the conditions were a leveller in the first half.

How anyone can see the penalty decision in Gillingham's favour is beyond me. Horrendous decision.

Inniss's first yellow. Fair enough. Stupid foul to give away and I didn't think he was having a great game anyway. As others have mentioned he seemed all over the place and a bit of a loose cannon. But despite that the defending for the sending off was actually very good. He deliberately ran across the path of their attacker to cut his run off and then felt some contact and went down. How that can be viewed as a foul against their attacker is beyond belief!

Gillingham's second goal, I'm told also had a hint of controversy about it as the ball may have been out on the far side. That goal I think we need to look more at the standard of our own defending but there was more than an element of bad luck about that goal. The amount of half tackles we put in which resulted in the ball ricocheting back into Gill's position was crazy but I suppose we just need to react better.

Really proud of the way the boys rallied in the second half but I do feel like it's 3 points dropped.

Let's hope we rally and go again next weekend.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

This has probably been asked before, but is the second booking for Inniss appealable?

Two yellows so no.You can only appeal against a red.

 

[MisterStubbs]

Might just be me but loved Phil's post match presssr, spoke with real passion and sounded generally fed up with today's referee. Also love his little dig at Gillingham!

 

[Maldon Shrimper]

Yes the ref was crap but Gillingham were there for taking but we didn't turn up in the first half.Southend need to learn from this and move on.Let's hope we get a decent competent ref get week.
T

 

[Hawkwell Blue]

The villian today was Innis rather than the referee. He is a decent centre back but is a red card waiting to happen. He seems to lack self control and seems to want to get into a war with whoever he is marking. I thought the penalty was the correct decision, there was contact, sometimes they go against you but we would have felt hard done by if it had been our player going down in the box. We didn't seem to play at the right tempo in the first half but the second half was an excellent performance by ten men that deserved a point. Fingers crossed that Ferdinand will be back next week.

Assume this is a wind up.

 

[Barry.C]

Calmed down just a little now.

First off conditions were not that conducive for great football, the wind was swirling around and the pitch cut up apparently from Tuesday night, causing the ball to bobble up and about quite a lot. Still, conditions the same for both sides to cope with, and we may face some more of this until later in the spring.
Despite the conditions I dont quite concur that we were so poor in the first half, We started pretty well and were on top, pinging the ball around much better than them for 20 minutes. Could have put the ball away a couple of times. Not sure about the first penalty shout against Mc Glashen as we were some way away from observing that. Gillingham started to get into it and forced a few corners, gaining confidence. Everything already said about their penalty. Seemed bizarre with the ref waiving it away as a coming together until the linesman , who was taking huge stick from the Home fans prior to that intervened, waving arms worthy of a crane taking off. Innis was clearly wrestled with from behind and then tussled with their player, should have been our free kick, diabolical decision, Phil will appeal if he can
Fortune in the box was then blatantly tugged down in the box to the ground by two unmissable tugs of his arm whilst attempting to control the ball with his left leg. Wordy should have put the ball in the net with open header. Then a good run across and through our defence by Mc Donald, partly fortunate , given a lucky bounce or two, but shouldnt have been allowed to get to run through us that far, leading to the goal.
Good substitutions by Phil , and brilliant second half effort, I was just a few yards away from seeing Mc Glashen shoved into the boards, nothing given. From afar looked like two good penalty shouts for us in the second half. Soon realised this ref was not going to give us a thing and although I saw him fouled I turned to my daughter and said this ref will send him off
, although again major lino **** up
Ted Smith 6 as usual two really good goal saves ,stops one with his legs, which would have put the game beyond us, still looked a little frail in the wind and kicking yet to improve, he will get stronger and better, bring on the pies
Dimi 6. Good going forward, some neat inter passing and crosses. Much less capable defending than John White at right back, looking very flimsy at times.
Thompson 5 Strangely sluggish today, didnt live up to his previous performances at all, timing poor, missed headers.
Innis 7 Very dominant in the air , barely put a foot wrong until first yellow and steadier than Thommo, caused havoc i in their goalmouth and nearly turned and scored. Never a sending off, but could Phil have seen it coming?
Coker 7. Solid as ever . defended and attacked well, passed the ball around neatly, couldnt get forwrd so much
Leonard 8. Everywhere, dominant . usual number of last ditch saving tackles, passes and clearances. Couldnt elieve it at the end when he went on a surging , gut busting skippers run and was brought down, and got nothing, although shooting boots missing on this pitch. Needs 4 lungs to cover for Wordsworth
Timlin 6 Could have been 5 for less involved first half. Misplaced about 8 passes gifting them possession frequently b but compensated with better and influential second half effort
Wordsworth 3 Again, barely bothered, for fourth game out of 5. Loves to prissy around near the goal and likes a celebration, just as likely to cost a game as score and win one, Couldnt tackle for toffee had rings run around him by stiffs. We need players to wear the shirt with pride and some effort. Time for Amos and Atkinson if w we want promotion
Mc Glashen 4 Desperate to do well but didnt work for him today, ref was on his back and the crod for what they saw as a dive in the box too easily lost the plot and contained by their defence, bit unlucky
Fortune 6 Not many good balls played accurately to his feet, still tried hard, held the ball up where he could and usual nice touches, but ball didnt fall kindly for him
Cox 7 Close to MOM for his usual all round effort and skillful running and positioning, didnt get many chances to turn and shoot, given shape and nature of game and formation

Subs

Smith 7 Came on and solid as ever in back 4
Ranger 7 Good shift, up for it, showed strength and battle, caused problems and good goal
Robinson 6 maybe 7 , but not so much time to influence, good pace and cross for goal, good acquisition, definitely gives another dimension

 

[OldBlueLady]

Subs

Smith 7 Came on and solid as ever in back 4
Ranger 7 Good shift, up for it, showed strength and battle, caused problems and good goal
Robinson 6 maybe 7 , but not so much time to influence, good pace and cross for goal, good acquisition, definitely gives another dimension

Presume you mean the ever reliable but seemingly out of favour, White?

 

[Barry.C]

Yes that useful and able Mr White !