Hoskins made a mistake and got punished for it, the tactic we use leaves this scenario as a possibility, but all tactics are ultimately trying to play the percentages just like we do here. Outside of this one occasion we haven't been punished for it, during this season at least. McWilliams was usually the lone man staying back at corners last season and I can't recall being punished for it then either. If the ball had been rolled back to the keeper and he had plenty of time and options and ended up kicking it against the attacker, costing a goal, does that make passing the ball back to the keeper a poor tactic?
As to the comments by the Mansfield manager, they are some of the most bizarre I can remember from any manager post match. We have a few players who are notable for their 'antics' and gamesmanship in Goode, McCormack and Turnbull (and Smith as well, now he's back) but generally I believe we are an honest team and squad.
The behaviour from the Mansfield players from the first minute was disgraceful however. We could have had multiple penalties in the first 10-15 minutes alone as I lost count of the amount of times the player marking Morton looked like he was trying to tear his shirt off, in full view of the ref who happily let gave them free-rein to do what they wanted. As to the 'throwing themselves to the ground' comment, I struggle to remember a worse side than Mansfield for throwing themselves to the ground and pretending to be injured at every opportunity. The amount of attacks we had cut short because one of their players mysteriously went down holding their head was beyond belief. We should have had 10 minutes injury time at the end of the second half for these stoppages alone, at a bare minimum. Their managers comments are clearly projection and/or deflection away from the fact that they were the ones who turned the game into a rugby match and to a man were obviously under clear instructions to do so.
I'm astounded though at the lack of sportsmanship and class by managers in post-match interviews in general. Being gracious in victory or defeat is basic sportsmanship, or so I thought! Klopp and his 'we play 'proper' football' comments last night being a perfect example. Curle's handling of these situations is always commendable, how anyone can criticise him for that god only knows.
Agree with all of that. Absolutely fuming coming out of Sixfields on Saturday...and more so with the utter hypocritical comments made by Coughlan.
Bizarre is a rather polite word to describe his s***e!
