McKenna Slams Referee Martin Saturday, 27th Aug 2022 18:26 Town boss Kieran McKenna slammed referee Stephen Martin for disallowing Marcus Harness’s second-half goal, which would have put the Blues 3-1 in front, and also the official’s overall performance as his side were ultimately held to a 2-2 draw at home by Barnsley. Sub Harness looked to have sealed the Blues’ fifth win in a row when he shook off Tykes’ defender Liam Kitching and slipped the ball past visitors’ keeper Brad Collins and actually appeared to be pulled back himself. However, Martin inexplicably disallowed the goal much to the frustration of the home crowd, fans and evidently the manager. Even Barnsley's official Twitter admitted it should have counted. “Frustrating. I think it’s obvious what the main frustration is about, the decision of the referee which has cost the game for me,” McKenna said afterwards. “It was a clear goal, it was 3-1, it was what we deserved, it was what the crowd and the players deserved from the energy that they give, and we lose the two points on a decision that was I thought really poor and really in fitting with the performance of the referee in general. “I thought he was much too keen to get involved in the game right throughout, wanted to be actively involved, wanted to make big decisions all the time.
“I thought it was a really good game between two good teams, played in the right spirit and needed to be refereed in a better way to allow the game to flow. “I think it needs to be looked at, to be honest. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever spoken about the quality of the refereeing and I don’t want to speak too much, I think they’re all really good guys, we speak with them before and after the games. “But I really do think they need to look at who is designated to referee the games here at Portman Road. I think it’s a different challenge, it’s 25,000 people, it’s an intense atmosphere and it needs referees with the experience and the personality to come here and stay calm and not get involved and allow the game to flow and to not make unnecessarily big decisions. “We don’t want any help, we don’t want any home decision, but we just want the level of the referee to match the level of everything else going on. “I do think it needs to be looked at in terms of who is designated to referee our games here at home and maybe some of the other clubs in the league would say the same, and I think that was a big part of the frustration today and probably the decisive part of the result.”
Staffordshire-based Martin has refereed more than 170 games at Championship level let alone League One with his first second-tier match coincidentally Town’s 2-1 defeat at Bristol City in January 2013, having begun his EFL career at the start of that season. Martin has refereed the Blues once previously since McKenna took over, the 1-0 home victory over Gillingham last season. McKenna was asked whether he might, as other clubs have done, write to the authorities asking if the official shouldn’t cover any future Town games. “I’ve not spoken to the referee, to be fair,” McKenna said. “I don’t know him, I don’t know if we’ve had him before, so it’s not anything personal, it was more about the level of performance today and I think the level of the refereeing and the level of experience and the level of help and understanding that the referees in our games are going to need. “Nothing historic, nothing personal, I just thought on today’s performance and other things that I won’t speak about in previous games, I think it needs to be a referee of a high level to come here and referee our games.”  McKenna also felt Town should have been awarded a penalty in the first half: “Which one? Leif Davis just before half-time? I haven’t seen it back, but it looked like a penalty at the time. “I thought there were so many bizarre decisions out there. Usually you expect more decisions as a home team. We don’t want them or are not asking for them, but the decisions usually go and certainly that’s my experience if you’re playing in a big stadium with a big support, you usually tend in the history of football to get more decisions. “I thought today it was almost as if the referee was trying to make the opposite point and make big decisions against the home team and against the crowd, and maybe had a reason for that. “But I thought that was the case right the way through the game and obviously it was a case for me with what would have been the third goal and the decisive goal in the game.” The Northern Irishman’s other frustration was the manner in which his side conceded twice. “Absolutely, and we have to own that bit, of course,” he said. “We have to take ownership of that. It’s not like us. “But we certainly have to do better on the two goals, especially the first one. I feel it was a second phase ball hung up in the box and we need to be more aggressive and go and attack the ball, no doubt about that. “I thought at that stage we looked like we were going to run away with the game after we got the first goal and that was a poor lapse in concentration from us to allow them that moment. “The second goal was a little bit different, I thought it was a difficult one in terms that it was an out-swinging delivery a long way from our players to their spare man, who was a blocker. I don’t think he was even expecting it to come when you watch it back in close range and he’s planted a fantastic header from maybe 14 yards. “There are little details there having watched it that we can improve certainly in our zones. But you also have to say it was a great header from the player from a long way out, so credit to them for that.” McKenna was happy with his team’s overall performance: “Pleased. I thought we did more than enough good things to be happy with the performance. It was a difficult game against a good team. “The first half was never going to be a case of creating lots of clear-cut opportunities because they came to defend first and foremost, and they do that well. Michael is very good at setting his teams up in that way and they made it difficult for us. “But we were patient, we had good tempo, we got into good areas, we needed a bit of magic to open the scoring and the disappointing thing was that we didn’t build on that momentum. “In the second half I thought we created more than enough chances against a team who were really, really deep at that point. We did lots of good things in terms of finding the balance in terms of patience and switching the play from side to side but also putting it in the box and putting bodies in the box and arriving for the first ball and the second ball. “We hit the post, we had one cleared of the line, a great save from the goalkeeper, a goal that should have stood, scored a really good second goal, so against a team that have just come down and have lots of good players and a good new manager trying to impart his ideas, I think we have to be happy with the performance and the general direction of travel of the team.” Regarding left wing-back Greg Leigh's absence from the squad for the first time this season, he said the former Morecambe man was fine, it was a case of adding a midfielder, Dominic Ball, to the bench. “Greg was available, it was just the balance of the bench really. We felt like we needed that extra midfielder on the bench,” he said. “Sam [Morsy] and Lee [Evans] have banged out quite a few games now so we needed to make sure we had that cover and then we felt that Kane [Vincent-Young] is someone who can cover at least three different positions from the bench “Greg’s training well and will be important for us in the games coming up.”  Barnsley manager Michael Duff admitted his team was hanging on at the end and that his team had ridden their luck at times. “The game had everything and I didn’t enjoy the last 10 minutes when we were hanging on,” he said. “We showed plenty of resilience and at 1-1 we had chances to take the lead. “We’ve had a lot of bad luck from refereeing decisions this season so I think we might have earned a bit of luck today.”
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