Some more reflections on a great day...

...since I'm a Ph.D student and hence I have the time to slack for a bit...

Understandably, the Forest fans were very disappointed and infuriated. Even if both penalty decisions were correct (as I naturally think they were), it's pretty galling to have two penalties given against you in one match, and to have that compounded with two sendings off is a pretty bitter pill to swallow.

Check out this generally very good blog, where the guy clearly sounded off on getting home from the match. If only I could do trackbacks on this thing, and even knew what they were, I'd do one here - I like getting publicity for my site - I got about 100 times my usual site traffic yesterday after putting a link on the JKLatics discussion forum... but to the blog, I think I'd have done the same had I driven over 50 miles and seen my team lose 5-0. When Jack Lester came on, it reminded me of being driven (by Jack Scott actually!) to Grimsby over ten years ago now, when Lester scored a very quick hat-trick and Latics lost 5-0. Thankfully he didn't do the same yesterday.

Considering the various statements knocking around on discussion forums and blogs, I'm inclined to still say pretty much what I said yesterday, which I think most Forest and Oldham fans would agree with: Oldham would have won without the two sendings off and penalties. Forest were shocking before the referee's decisions hampered their cause.

But can they even begin to blame the referee? If the ref is faced with a very bad, red card-able offence early in the game, is faced with two clear fouls inside the penalty area, the latter denying a clear goal-scoring opportunity, he has to make the same decisions again that he made yesterday. It's frustrating, I'd have hated to be on the other end of it, but that's what happened. It's pretty improbable that all those things happen in one game, but when it rains it pours I guess, and it's a bit of a downpour for Forest right now. But they have the quality to fight back, and I'm sure they will end up in one of the two promotion spots come May. I hope we're in the other one!

Before I stop though, it's nice to read all the various reports (especially ones that aren't just copy and paste jobs from some press release...), so (apologies to Forest fans...), PFA website (Calderwood fails to note we dominated before the sending off too), Oldham Athletic mad (a great website that helps me a lot with my attendance model), Manchester Evening News, and finally the BBC report, which appears to think the 43th minute came in the second half...