Skipper Sam Morsy felt Town made mistakes both individually and collectively as the Blues twice let a two-goal lead slip in Saturday’s remarkable 4-4 draw at Charlton Athletic.

Town were ahead at 2-0 and 4-2 - Morsy the scorer of the fourth - but allowed the Addicks to claim a point from a game in which there were four goals in second-half injury time.

“Disappointing to take really,” the Egyptian international admitted. “Thought we were the better team in both halves, had a lot of chances. I don’t recall them having many chances.

“But I just think we make mistakes, individually and collectively for the goals, which is going to happen, it’s a long season.

“But when you score four goals away from home, usually that’s enough, but today it wasn’t.

“We’ll look at the goals, we’ll analyse the game and we’ll come back as a group and as a team and we’ll try and improve on it.”

Was he able to put his finger on on what happened at 4-2? “Correct me if I’m wrong, they have two chances and two goals. It can happen.

“There are things we can do to avoid it, but ultimately sometimes a drop of the ball, like the last one it loops over Chris [Walton]’s head.

“I don’t think he [George Dobson] tries to score, I think he just tries to put it back in an area and it somehow loops over his head, which I don’t think he’d be able to do again.

“Plenty of things to look at, it’s obviously very disappointing. We wanted to win the game. It feels like we’ve dropped two points there, definitely. But we’ll recover and we’ll go again.”

Clean sheets were a notable feature of Town under Kieran McKenna last season and earlier in this campaign but latterly, the Blues have conceded twice in their one away defeat at Plymouth, at Sheffield Wednesday having been two in front, as well as in the 3-2 victories over Portsmouth and Port Vale and then four at the Valley.

Quizzed on what he believes might have led to opposition sides scoring more goals of late, Morsy said: “Not really, to be honest. You’d probably usually look at how many chances we concede and I don’t think we’ve conceded any more than we had been doing.

“Just sometimes you have that spell. I can’t remember them having many chances today, to be honest, not many at all. I think they were really, really clinical.

“But if you keep doing that, you keep defending like that, if you’re limiting teams to only a few chances, chances are they’re not going to score many. But then sometimes teams are clinical and they do score the couple of chances they have.

“I think in general we’re not really under a massive amount of pressure. It didn’t feel like we were under a massive amount of pressure. They scored the chances they had. From their point of view they’ll be saying how clinical they were, from our point of view we’ll be saying, it’s minimal chances and a few goals.”

The game showed the highs and lows in football, from the celebrations in front of the 3,000-plus Town fans behind the goal to the frustration and disappointment at the end.

“That’s football, that’s why we all love it so much, the highs and the lows, I guess,” the 31-year-old reflected. “But it’s a long, long season, it’s about consistency. At the end of the season the most consistent teams will be the ones who get success.

“There’s plenty to work on, there were plenty good things, so we’ll look it analytically and we’ll go again.”

Morsy says once the dust has settled, there are some pluses to be taken from the game: “There were plenty of positives, I think we played good stuff, we had chances, a lot of chances.

“We should have had a penalty, we had various different things, various good things, but no one’s just going to give you three points and the goals we could have done a little bit better and that’s what we have to strive to do.”

In addition to the eight goals, the game also featured a fan whistling in order to disrupt Town attacks in the first half, while there were refereeing decisions questioned by both teams, Charlton manager Ben Garner trying to whip up his fans having been sent to the stands for protests towards referee Josh Smith.

“You’ve just got to stay focused on the pitch really, you don’t pay too much attention to that,” Morsy said when asked whether those factors were a distraction.

“The referee, I’m sure there will be decisions debated but you just have to deal with what you’re in control of really and we did that in getting four goals.

“Obviously we conceded four as well, but they’ll say it was good play for their goals as we’ll say it was good play for our goals. Like I said, no one’s going to give you anything, we’ve just got to keep improving.”

Garner called for improvements to refereeing in his post-match comments and Morsy was asked whether he agreed.

“I don’t know how the system works really,” the former Wigan, Middlesbrough and Chesterfield man admitted.

“Obviously it’s tough to take because he [Terell Thomas] saves the ball with his arm [in the incident which should have been a Town penalty in first-half injury time], it’s as clear as day, everyone sees it in the stadium.

“That is really, really disappointing but I don’t know how the refereeing system works. But that was a huge, huge error today.”"
Does there need to be investment in refereeing at this level so they can go full-time? “Of course that would help, if they were full-time that would help.”

Regarding the midfield battle with Dobson and former Blue Scott Fraser, he added: “Obviously we knew Scotty, Scotty’s a really good player, I think the other lad’s a good player as well. It was a good battle, but it felt like we were in control really with the chances and a lot of other things. It was a good battle, they’re good players.”

He says he had no problem adjusting to playing alongside Dom Ball with Lee Evans, who is out for a number of weeks with a knee injury, having been his regular partner for most of the season so far.

“Not really, we train a lot, we train hard and I thought we had a good partnership in there,” the Town captain said. “I thought we did well together, it clicked quite early.”

Despite the disappointment of not claiming all three points from such strong positions, the atmosphere at the end was very different from last December’s game at the Valley when there were confrontations between players and fans following a dismal 2-0 defeat in the wake of Paul Cook’s sacking.

“Massively, we’re a completely different team, a completely different club,” Morsy reflected. “When the dust settles, you’ll realise the progression we’ve had and there’s a lot more to go and and you’ve got to keep looking at the positives, keep working on things.

“No one’s going to be the finished article at this time of the season. You have to just keep progressing and that’s what we want to do, just keep improving. There are lots of good signs, lots of positive things.

“A seven-point week. Disappointing not to get nine but sometimes you take seven and you just move on.”

Town are on 37 points from their 17 matches having taken until January 22nd and the 2-1 victory over Accrington to reach that total last season.

“We’re a lot ahead of schedule, we’ve got players coming back in the next month or two,” Morsy continued. “Improving all the time and we’re just going to keep trying to improve to the end of the season, that’s the goal.”

And despite Saturday’s frustrations, the overall context is that the Blues are second in the table still three points ahead of Sheffield Wednesday in third and a point behind leaders Plymouth, who are in derby action at home to Exeter on Monday.

“We’re doing well, we’re consistent, we look strong,” Morsy reflected. “I think the performances up until this point have probably merited a couple more points on the board.

“But if you perform consistently it usually evens itself out, so we’ll just have to keep doing what we’re doing. Keep playing the way we’re playing and just keep trying to improve.”

Photos: TWTD/PagePix

johnwarksshorts added 10:21 - Oct 30 A fair assessment really, what more can you say. I would mention, although not an excuse as our defending shd have been alot better, how did 7mins time added on turn into 9? Charlton manager a disgrace constantly on at ref trying to get Sam booked. Hope an investigation looks at idiot responsible for whistle blowing when town we're attacking. Mad, mad game. Onto FA Cup hard weeks training sort defence out and onto Cheltenham at home. 3 more points🤞

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Bazza8564 added 10:26 - Oct 30 Yesterday was absolutely gut wrenching, but we have to move on, we have 29 games to go so tons of time to learn from this brutal lesson. And 6 goals conceded in two games without Lee Evans in the side, and a poor run after we lost him in Jan / Feb onward, i don't think that's coincidence, lets hope the light November schedule allows us to regroup and hopefully Lee will be back before Xmas

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Gforce added 10:34 - Oct 30 Still gutted how we managed to throw away a 2 goal lead in injury time,but we have to learn from it and move on,as Morsy said it's a long season. With Burgess and Camara back soon,they will make a big difference in the upcoming games. Having said that I've just looked into my crystal ball at the five fixtures before Xmas and I believe we will achieve between 11-13 points, which if it happens would probably put us top of the league on Xmas day 😉

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pennblue added 10:45 - Oct 30 This statement alone shows how far we have come: "sometimes you take seven and you just move on". Great balanced words from our skipper, what a great game he had yesterday. MoM for me.
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Gforce added 10:47 - Oct 30 Just heard a stat on the highlights show,which said we have the second worst record in the league, after Bristol Rovers ,for goals conceded from set plays.Much to work on in training next week and hopefully get back to those clean sheet days 👍
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DavoIPB added 10:58 - Oct 30 Very balanced view. Have to say his goal was superb. Thought took deflection when first seen but it doesn't.
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Saxonblue74 added 11:11 - Oct 30 Same points total as at 22nd Jan last season? That's cheered me up a little!
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hyperbrit added 11:20 - Oct 30 speaking of whistle blowing how about a referee admitting that they have been given instructions from above to slow Ipswich down a bit? "Cool their jets and keep them from running away with the league loosing us millions in revenue." "Let's see,where are they vulnerable?" Oh yes set pieces in overtime.Let's try it then" Town had better get used to playing against 12 men imo!!

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Suffolkboy added 11:57 - Oct 30 Where did that come from ,Hyperbrit ? Refs have generally a hard enough time without Club Staff and Managers in their ear all the time ; it'd high time somebody found a way to control ,curb and punish this sort of behaviour which not only sets a bad example but leads to similar behaviour at lower level . Difficult though it is ,we have to accept human beings make mistakes, miss certain events or do not have a sufficiently critical view to be able to make a decision . At our level ,and thankfully, we don't have VAR : it's become an excuse for indecision and everybody is looking for absolute perfection ,which cannot exist . The awful delay in ruling our H Kanes's goal recently amply demonstrates the fault lines . This system was designed to help Referees when they'd missed an obvious ‘calumny ‘ ,not seek corrections for understandable human oversight ! SO let's get on with the game , accept the ins and outs ,BUT constructively address the ways to bring about a general and all round level of improvement in the officiating . What was the Asst Ref doing when there was a handball ? Where was he positioned ,did he or did he not advise the on field Ref ? AND why was the game even allowed to progress with an errant whistler ? If it had been held immediately ,with a threat that the culprit should be identified OR the game abandoned , then we'd have witnessed someone ‘outed ‘ ,identified and hopefully banned from the Stadia for a while . We do need to play our part off the field in enabling the sporting element ‘on field ‘ to be and remain pre-eminent ! As to ITFC , well done ; but individual unnecessary ‘yellows ‘ ought to be consciously avoided ! COYB

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Gforce added 13:22 - Oct 30 I sometimes wish we did have VAR.When you think back to the decisions in the Barnsley , Sheff Wednesday & yesterday's game ,we would probably have an extra six points on the board.
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ringwoodblue added 14:01 - Oct 30 Great to hear from Morsy - I don't think we've heard enough from him since he joined Town so nice to see he is addressing this.
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Nomore4 added 14:33 - Oct 30 A great club captain who does his talking on the pitch. Long may it continue.
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hyperbrit added 15:02 - Oct 30 I am a confirmed skeptic and conspiracy theorist Suffolk Boy,but with a long memory that goes back to the "Chicago Black Sox" scandal in America years ago and more recently Ronaldo's one time fit just before the World Cup Final between France and Brazil. My point simply is that when such big money enters the game the sport goes downhill fast. "Those with the gold rule"as the saying goes.

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PhilR added 17:31 - Oct 30 I wasn't at the game. I noticed that Keogh came on at 90 +3. I am not a fan of chucking extra defenders into a defensive unit and I just wonder whether this backfired? Did this confuse responsibilities rather than making things tighter? Does anyone have a view on this who was watching? Given what happened next, obviously did not achieve what was intended.
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grinch added 19:21 - Oct 30 Skipper should have taken the ball to opposition corner flag instead of losing it on 18 yard box for final goal left massive hole in middle Also we are going to lose him to another ban as he racks up the yellows thinkvhow many games he has been banned for townvit is poor I like his drive but he also has a flaw in his armour and let's layers wind him up this must be fixed by manager quickly. the 6 mins went to 9 mins because of the goals and restarting think the ref was correct on timings. Also morsy said we should of had a penalty but we did score straight from the resulting corer so less harm done also they had 7 shots on target to our 5 so they did threaten more than he alludes to we did deserve the win but let's tell the truth aswell

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hyperbrit added 21:57 - Oct 30 so the win was lost in midfield then? Town has a history of captains throwing games away it seems.I hope he learns before it's too late.
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gosblue added 23:01 - Oct 30 GForce another stat on there was that Sheff Wed had an average of two pints per game which would normally see them in the top two. For me Edmundson was MOM. Mistakes were in midfield. We need to defend as an eleven, not just a three. COYB
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hyperbrit added 00:38 - Oct 31 lovely misprint Gosblue. I would have needed two pints for the last 10 minutes.
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Tractor_Boy_in_HK added 03:19 - Oct 31 Would have liked to have seen Morsy take responsibility for going for a 5th goal instead of heading for the corner when up 4-2. 6 minutes turns to 9 with 3 goals (and let's be honest Town took minutes to get back to our half) and substitute. I can't blame the ref for adding on minutes.
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BobbyBell added 09:56 - Oct 31 I understand bringing on a sub in injury time to disrupt play but we were on top at the time and had the momentum. All it achieved was to put another 30 seconds on the referees watch. Ultimately those 30 seconds were costly.
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Razor added 10:42 - Oct 31 Lets cut to the chase----the keeper and left back had shockers-----what Walton was doing withe 4th goal is unbelievable----he was like a dying swan who let a simple header go in to his net.This was a halloween nightmare and Oct 29th 2022 will not be forgotten for a long long time. Time now for Burgess and/or Keough and the W men need a rest-----something has to be done. doesnt it? I dont care whether you mark me upwards,downwards,sideways or what,I know what I saw and it still hurts on Monday morning!!

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cat added 12:03 - Oct 31 It was one of those games, but let's hope we not saying that on a to regular basis this season. Agree with Bazza bout missing Evans. He's the most improved player (without a shadow) this season and is proving to be a big loss. Dom Ball looks a top player but desperately needs games under his belt. 7pts from last 3 games is a good return, specially with 2 of then being awkward away games. We'll go straight up this season I have no doubts whatsoever!

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EssexTractor added 13:09 - Oct 31 So much to comment about after the Valley visit, lessons to be learned and hopefully everyone at the club will have watched from the 90th minute onward when the tannoy announced 6 extra minutes. Those extra minutes can be viewed in full and from the moment Freddie's goal entered the net until Kick off resumes 1 minute 50 seconds passed , by , from the moment Sams 4th goal went in until the restart 1 minute 15 seconds passed by, so over 3 more extra minutes had to be played Yes there was excitement but this was not the 91st minute of a Cup Final or the 91st minute of last game of season to clinch promotion, it was the 17th match out of 46… Some of the players reactions were more over the top than the supporters. That jubilation has its place , but not in a circumstance such as that . Thereafter everyone thought the match was over, it wasn't , as we sadly know, our concentration was gone…the concentration , the mindset… The players did not become awful forever more , yes they were in those last two minutes , but more than anything else that's the big lesson to be learned for everyone, game management ,- It ain't over till the final whistle goes

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Gforce added 15:59 - Oct 31 @Essex T.....Good post mate.
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Bert added 22:26 - Oct 31 I'm still playing those added 9 minutes over and over again in my head and I come to the same conclusion. We, the players and the fans, thought it was all over, didn't really think a team who had just conceded two more goals would go again but they did. We did not put bodies on the line, did not tighten up and were punished. Morsy's view that Charlton didn't really have that many chances obscures the issue that we beginning to concede too many goals from crosses and set plays.

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