Gus Poyets post match interview

[Finchley Seagull]

And I would (and have) make the same points if it was Alex. I'm not saying these things because of who our manager is or the level we're at. And his time, I'm not playing devil's advocate.

Again, I'm not denying the ref made a mistake. I'm saying we missed plenty of opportunities to make it 2-0 ourselves. I'm saying their goal came from a free kick which arose because of our players mistakes. We could have won this game despite the referee's mistakes.

If we don't accept that we had a part to play in our failure to win, we will continue to make the same mistakes, and next time, we might not have a terrible referee to hide behind, (though, thankfully, for the home games we'll always be able to blame the atmosphere and the running track and let our players get away with poor finishing, defensive cock ups and so on).

I agree that we missed chances, Bennett probably should have done better near the end (hit it at a good height for the keeper) and in the first half Elphick, Crofts and possibly Murray (although he was stretching for it) all could have done better. However, when you have opposition fans on their forum in almost complete agreement with us about the penalty and red card, it is hard to make a case that the referee didn't cost us today.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

The problem is that EVERY week its down to the ref according to NSC, so when the ref does have a poor game its rather unbelievable

 

[Finchley Seagull]

The problem is that EVERY week its down to the ref according to NSC, so when the ref does have a poor game its rather unbelievable

That is a bit of an exagerration but I do see your point. However, anyone who saw that game yesterday (including most of the Orient fans on their forum) say that the referee was a joke so I think we are pretty safe to say it this week. Rarely have I seen so many fans wait behind after a game to boo the referee off the pitch. There are often a few but the vast majority did yesterday.

 

[Tomnorthi]

Here is the interview itself:
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[Guy Fawkes]

Ignore the fact we failed to win because our players made a mistake if you like. Ignore the fact we had plenty of other opportunities to make it 2-0 and failed to do so, if you like.

I'm not going to ignore these mistakes by our players that are costing us points, I'm not going to blame one ref mistake in one moment of the game for our failure to win, when there were a lot of other moments in the game wherein we could have wrapped things up.

So why are you more willing to blame our players and not forgive a mistake by them when you are so willing to forgive a match official that has cost us a clear cut goal scoring opportunity and possiblity of playing against 10 men for the rest of the match?

What if this was the other way round and one of our players had brought their player down in identical circumstances, what would your reaction be? - i'd bet you wouldn't be defending our player or denying the fact that they should have been sent off had it been given, or blaming the Orient players forwards for not scoring enough to win the match.

The ref made a massive mistake which cost us a massive opportunity to a) go 2 - 0 up, b) play the rest of the game against 10 men, - so how can you deny that his poor decision didn't have a major impact on the outcome of the match, and in this case cost us 2 points?

 

[Jamie]

Ys it was a penalty but Dickenson should have buried it before he was brought down. Lets be honest, you cant dislike Dickenson because he gives his all, but he never looks like scoring and how can someone that plays football every day of his life have such a bad touch? Its f***ing terrible. Missed chances cost us more than the ref. Great to see Poyet has got them playing good football but what he has to work with makes it difficult. This squad really are shit given the money we spent. Elphick and Virgo are too slow as a pairing. Tough games coming up is a worry.

 

[The Wizard]

Heres what the orient fans think of the ref...http://leytonorient2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=230924

They all agree it was a stonewaller and that he was a c*nt.

 

[sussexstu]

There is no need for debate - the ref was S**T. End of!!

 

[1234andcounting]

Unfortunately, the club cannot do anything about the standard of refereeing. But they can do something about the standard and attitude of the employees of the club. And the standard and attitude of the employees of the club at the moment is just not good enough. Control what you can control, and don't waste energy or time on things you can't control, Gus.

 

[Acker79]

So why are you more willing to blame our players and not forgive a mistake by them

Because our players will be in the next game we play. Because if our players don't acknowledge their own mistakes they won't learn from them, and we'll go into the next game with players putting in the same performance as they have for the last few games (which includes missing good opportunities to score, which includes the defence making school boy errors resulting in goals).

I want the players to see their mistakes and learn from them, so that they improve, so that they start making better decisions in front of goal leading to us getting better results, and moving up the table.

It's not about forgiving them or not. I'm not holding their mistakes against them. I'm not saying drop them, kick them out of the club. I'm saying hold them accountable for their mistakes so they learn from them and improve.

What if this was the other way round and one of our players had brought their player down in identical circumstances, what would your reaction be? - i'd bet you wouldn't be defending our player or denying the fact that they should have been sent off had it been given, or blaming the Orient players forwards for not scoring enough to win the match.

Actually, I probably would. This is one of my bug bears in football. This culture in football of putting so much weight on one or two mistakes by the ref and ignoring the multitude of mistakes from the players. The final score is a result of many hundreds of decisions from every person on the pitch, and the managers on the bench.

No one single decision decides the result. It is a combination of all of those decisions, the right ones the wrong ones, from the ref from the players, whether to belt it clear or pass it back, pass long or pass short, shoot or pass, shoot high or low, power or accuracy etc. all combine to decide a result.

The ref made a massive mistake which cost us a massive opportunity to a) go 2 - 0 up, b) play the rest of the game against 10 men, - so how can you deny that his poor decision didn't have a major impact on the outcome of the match, and in this case cost us 2 points?

Yes he did. I'm not denying that. I'm saying it wasn't the only mistake on the pitch that had a major impact on the result of the game. Our players mistakes also had a major impact.

 

[Spider]

Fair enough, he was fired up, but suggesting that Forster doesn't care about the club reduces the chance of club and player coming to any kind of agreement over a new contract, wouldn't you say?

Yeah I didn't like the implication of his comments about Forster. Plus, having watched Forster play in some truly crap Albion teams over the last 2 and a half years, I really struggle to believe he doesn't care about the club. He certainly plays like he does.

 

[jordanseagull]

Hopefully the **** can now f*** off to the Conference. (The Ref, not Poyet!)