Ref Not The Only One To Disappoint

Last updated : 21 October 2008 By Kev Monks
Referee Steve Bennett has correctly received a lot of criticism for his handling of Coventry City's Championship game at Wolves on Saturday.

His allowing of the goal which proved to be Wolves winner and the one from Chris Iwelumo which was ruled out but was perfectly good, were not decisions beoming of someone rated so highly by the Football Authorities.

His and that of his assistant have also drawn criticism from Referee & Assistant Assessor Paul Rejer, who said to the CT's Andy Turner: If Ebanks-Blake had come back on to the field and kept out of the action there would not have been a problem. "But the fact that he headed the ball in and was clearly active means that he should have been given offside. "The assistant referee didn't flag and that is disappointing."

What is disappointing is the fact that this should merely have been a consolation goal against the Sky Blues who really should have gone in at the break four or more goals ahead.

Michael Mifsud,who scored City's goal,Leon Best, Freddie Eastwood,Isaac Osbourne and Scott Dann all could and should have found the net, even allowed for a great performance from Carl Ikeme.

Last season,we got in the mess we did by not putting away our chances and this game was no exception. We've got talented players with good records of creating chances without a doubt but all of the outfield players do now need to be banging in the chances they get.

Although, Chris Coleman has urged his strikers to keep the faith, football is all about scoring more goals than your opponents and if we are to mount a promotion push then City need to increase their goal scoring ratio.

If you are not scoring goals then that adds pressure on the defence and it was also disappointing to see some of our defending especially that which led to the controversial goal in the 57th minute and undid all the excellent stuff in the first forty minutes of this encounter.

It was losing possession which started the problem in the first place. Danny Fox, who admitted to some poor defending in today's CT, should not have allowed Ebanks Blake to get round the back and deliver into the penalty area.

Now I'm in the keepers union but I do feel that Keiran Westwood was at least a yard further forward than he would have ideally wished. This meant that all he could do was to palm the shot upwards.

When the ball is over a goalkeeper's head then you are in dire straits. You could argue that Scott Dann should have been quicker to clear.

For me, this was all very preventable and again highlights our susceptibility to panic defending which has proven as costly as the misses from our forwards.

Now,my view from a cramped Steve Bull Stand Lower Tier was that it was a Dann own goal and if the referee and assistant who were not well placed thought that it was the City centre half that got the final touch, then although wrong, you can see why they gave the goal.

Sometimes, it is too easy to blame the referee and his/her assistants, they only have one pair of eyes each the same as the rest of us.

Yes, Mr Bennett got it badly wrong this time but for City to progress, we need to analyse why we continue to concede soft goals and why we haven't scored more goals than the opposition before inevitable errors occur.