Town boss Kieran McKenna says the EFL’s decision to have the abandoned Blackburn Rovers match replayed in full was the right one and dismissed suggestions that the Blues should gift the Lancastrians a goal or play part of the match with 10 men.
Last week’s match at Ewood Park was abandoned with 10 minutes remaining with Rovers 1-0 up and Town down to 10 men following Jacob Greaves’s red card due to a waterlogged pitch, rain having fallen heavily before and during the match.
Yesterday, the EFL board finally met and confirmed that the game will be replayed in full on a date still to set.
"I think it was the right decision and the only decision,” McKenna said. "I’m surprised that it took so long, though we understand there is a process to follow.
"I don’t think there was any other decision to make from the moment the game was cancelled. I didn’t expect anything else.
"It is going to be a challenge with another midweek game and going up there again, but it was the only possible decision.”
Blackburn boss Valerien Ismael said the only fair option was to award the three points to his side and subsequently has slammed the decision to restage the match as "disgraceful” and "bad publicity for English football”.
"It’s not for us to get too involved in it,” McKenna said when asked about Ismael’s stance. "The process has been run and if you were on the other side, I understand you’d be disappointed because they were in a stronger position in the game.
"But football, over the course of a long history, has been 90 minutes and a few minutes extra time.
"If you are going to say that it’s impossible to score late goals or it’s impossible to score with 10 men, I think we would have to rip up a lot of history books and the story of the game would be very, very different.
"We have already this season scored two goals very deep into injury time, Blackburn have had three homes games and one of them they conceded two goals in injury time against Birmingham.
"There is an awful lot of other things you can say about the context of the game, but I don’t think there is anything to gain from it.
"For me, it was the only decision though I understand you’d be frustrated if the shoe was on the other foot, but there was no other possible outcome. So we focus on the next game and know we will be going back up there in the next couple of months.”
On suggestions that the Blues should allow Blackburn to walk a goal in or play part of the game with 10 men, McKenna said: "I don’t even think they’re worth justifying with a thought, to be honest. You’d be frustrated if you were in Blackburn’s situation because we really gave them a one man advantage at half-time after a pretty good first half from us and that feels like a good position to hopefully go on and get a result.
"But I don’t think there’s a decision to make or too much else to discuss. The conditions were unplayable, in my opinion, safely from probably about half-time onwards.
"The game could have been stopped earlier and absolutely everyone in attendance within reason I think would say it had to be stopped at the moment that it was stopped, it couldn’t have gone on a second later.
"That’s no responsibility of ours, over the course of the season things go your way and there are different situations which occur over the course of the season. We’ll get ready for the next games and we’ll deal with that when it comes.”
Reflecting on the game itself and its lead-up, McKenna added: "From the moment I arrived at the ground, it was the wettest pitch I had ever felt at this time of the year, or in any autumn, and I’ve been involved in football in England for 20 years and lived in the north west for a good chunk of them.
"The footing underneath for the whole game was incredible relative to the time of year. It got worse as it went on.
"I felt like in the first half, the ball was moving but the footing was very difficult and the ball was slowing down from any sort of longer passes along the floor. The substitutes came in at half-time and said the pitch was unplayable.
"There were some pretty good bits in the performance. We had the better chances and we had more control in the game.
"We made a couple of mistakes but in general, we went in at half time and the performance hasn’t been far off and we are probably not taking one or two of our chances to say it was a really good half.
"Of course, the red card was a big moment. If you take out the conditions element of that, it’s something we have to look at. In the early stages of this season, we have had games where we are in the ascendancy and then given away penalties or big moments or defensive moments that have cost us.
"That’s something we have spoken about this week. Take the conditions out the game and ensure that’s something we really focus on. Not having those big moments defensively that are out of context with the game, because we are doing a lot of good work and that can significantly impact the direction of the game.
"That’s something we can take from the game and reflect on. I think there was 45 minutes when the conditions were just about playable. After that, it was very, very difficult so the main focus has been getting ready for Portsmouth.”