Reaction to the defeat at Macclesfield

By Nathan Jackson
January 2 2007

It was a very cold, very wet, and very miserable day for the Imps as some questionable decisions gifted the points to Macclesfield Town. In a game where the home side created little, their two goals came from the penalty spot as City were left to rue missed chances and move above MK Dons.

In the past, I've sometimes found players to blame after a defeat like this but I refuse to blame any man playing in black yesterday. We performed reasonably well for most of the match and should have taken the lead many times after pulling back an equaliser but luck wasn't on our side, but no side would have beaten Macclesfield yesterday, mainly because we've found the only referee that makes Jarnail Singh look competent.

I can accept that occasionally we'll give away a penalty, but the fact that for the first penalty, the referee or linesman had no intention of giving it until 5 seconds afterwards Macclesfield fan's shouted for a handball, shows what a easily influenced referee this guy was. Everytime Macclesfield fans shouted for something, even if our player didn't touch theirs, he blew up. There was even a time in the second half where their player chased a punt forward and shot, missed by a mile without it touching a City player, the Macc fans shout "OUR BALL" and he gives a corner.

There have been some truly shocking referees over the years but even names such as Paul Rejer, George Cain, and Jarnail Singh, aren't even in the league of this guy in terms of pure cowardess. At least the others had a backbone and stuck with their decisions, instead of trying to get the home crowd on his side.

Anyway, enough of moaning about someone who can't do their job properly and onto us. The only disappointing thing during the whole day was that after they scored their second goal, we didn't create anything at all and didn't look like getting back into the game. Maybe it was the wet surface or maybe it just wasn't our lucky day, but either way this has to change as our inability to grind out draws when losing could cost us that promotion we deserve.

As for the opposition. Macclesfield created little through-out the game and rarely looked like scoring. Their defence looked quite unstable and their keeper showed exactly why he was released by Man Utd. Macclesfield will probably survive, simply because of the "We Love Macclesfield" vibe that's going around the world at the minute, and if they ever get that ref again, there will be no point in the opposition turning up.