Joey Barton was left blaming familiar problems after 10-man Bristol Rovers were pushed to the brink of relegation by Lincoln City at the Mem on Saturday.
It was a must-win game for the Pirates, but they fell behind on 16 minutes to Anthony Scully’s composed finish and Ed Upson’s red card shortly before half time dented their hopes of a recovery.
The Gas battled hard without much effect, and the 1-0 defeat leaves Rovers four points from safety with just four games to play.
Upson was given his marching orders after a melee with Brennan Johnson and Tayo Edun. The Rovers midfielder had Johnson pinned to the floor after a foul, and the referee deemed his arm made contact with the Imps man’s face. Edun and Johnson received bookings for their involvement in the fracas.
“I didn’t expect a red card if I’m honest, I thought it was handbags and if there was going to be a red card then I expected it to be their number seven (Edun), who threw two punches.
“The linesman on my side is telling the referee that it’s only a yellow card and the referee says that Ed’s is a red card and I can’t see it.
“I spoke to Ed in there and you all know he’s not that type of boy and I didn’t see enough to give a red card, but we’ve come out the bad side of that decision again.”
Barton has been left furious by refereeing performance often throughout his two-month tenure at the Mem, but he has been equally annoyed by Rovers’ knack of committing defensive mistakes and lack of cutting edge in the final third.
Scully’s goal was avoidable, stemming from a blocked Cian Harries clearance after he was played into trouble by Luke McCormick.
Despite Rovers’ committed efforts, they lacked the quality in attack to overturn the deficit and are staring down the barrel of relegation.
“We’ve got to take decisions out of the referee’s hands and be better than that and more clinical than that,” Barton continued.
“At that point we were still 1-0 down so it obviously gave us a mountain to climb, but we’ve got to be more effective.
“We were a bit unlucky early on in the game, Alfie’s effort hitting the crossbar and we looked like the side in the ascendancy but then all of a sudden they came up the other end and the problems we’ve had for the last 42 games continued.
“We’ve got a great keeper in goal who kept us in the game in key moments, but you’ve got to try and make him do as little work as possible.
“Certainly, if you’re under pressure against good sides then I get it, but there are going to be moments when the teams at the top of the league have you under pressure.
“There was a moment though, where we were in control of the game and we’ve not defended properly or defended our lines properly and we found ourselves 1-0 down in the game and the sending off compounds the problem.
“The sooner we can stop these silly moments, the better.”
