United’s last gasp equaliser on Saturday afternoon brought with it a caution from referee Rebecca Welch for manager Chris Beech as the fourth official called the official over just before the final whistle was blown.
“I’ve just been to see the referee,” manager Chris Beech said after the game. “I think I was upset at five minutes added, I asked for seven or eight minutes.
“I’ve seen a lot of games going into 10-12-15 minutes of added time, and quite right. It’s tactics, Scunthorpe are in a great position, they’re going to stay down on the floor, get cramp, take time on goal kicks, it’s part of the game.
“So when we scored I celebrated in front of the fourth official. I was just showing a bit of tension relief really in the fact that we’ve equalised, and we’ve done it in the five minutes even though I wanted seven.
“It’s all part of the game, it’s no discredit to Scunthorpe, they’re two up in an away fixture, they’re going to take time on every goal kick, injuries, those situations, that’s what teams do, and quite rightly so.
“I was hopeful of being supported with more minutes being added on. When we managed to score within the five I shared that with the fourth official. I wanted extra time, we didn’t get it, but there you go.”
Speaking more about the game as a whole, he told us: “It’s so difficult to put your finger on why a slow start to a game can happen.
“We don’t prepare that way. We prepare to be on our front-foot, pass it, and we wanted people making angles. I don’t know if you noticed, we had a lot of players slipping, there was a lot of our mistakes causing corners, whereas they weren’t under too much pressure.
“We had unforced errors from things that are very avoidable and that was really poor. The ball was coming back too easily from Scunthorpe putting our back four and especially our centre-halves under pressure.
“I thought Corey and Rod excelled throughout the 95 minutes, because they were left in the second half on the edge of a cliff. We’ve gone all in to get a goal, and get another goal, and there were a lot of one against one situations.
“Even when Corey slipped he came out with the football, and every credit to him. We don’t want to put ourselves in that lack of control trying to get three points, but sometimes you do take more risks.”
“There’s always things to learn from every game,” he added. “We all know, without doubt, the first half was unacceptable. We can’t hide that fact, or shy away from people’s opinions of that, it wasn’t good enough, I totally agree.
“But I am more pleased with the second half. The players stepped up to the plate, didn’t hide from the fact that the next goal was vital, and we got it. They could easily have hidden themselves, and that could have been a real bad day at the office, but they turned it around.”
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