Kazim-Richards on Crawley Town's defeat to Bristol Rovers: We have to do better – but so do refs
Crawley Town manager Colin Kazim-Richards took responsibility for his side’s 2-0 defeat to Bristol Rovers – but feels refereeing standards need to be better.
Goals from Tom James and Bobby Kamwa gave the Pirates the lead at half-time, but it could have been a little bit different had referee Leigh Doughty pointed to the penalty spot when Pemi Aderoju was fouled by Kofi Bamber just inside the area.
Speaking club media, Kazim-Richards said “Firstly, I just want to apologise to everyone that came to watch the game. It wasn’t the type of game that we prepared for in terms of our output, in terms of us. It wasn’t the type of game expected ourselves to have, that we planned to do.
“And I think that’s all down to us, to be honest. They did everything that we knew that they would do. I take responsibility for that. That’s on me. You know, I’ll protect my guys in here. But we can’t have another game like that. We can’t.
"We can sit here and talk about the big moments, which I’ve got. I’ve just had a conversation with the ref. There’s a lot of mistakes in terms of how it was reffed. But at the same time, we have to be so much better.”
On the penalty incident in the first half, which plenty in the stadium thought was a penalty, Kazim-Richards had this to say “I believe he didn’t give it because he didn’t want to give a red card. Hands down, that’s the only reason why.
"I’ve watched it like 25 times already before this meeting. Just so I’m not wrong. At the same time, I will say this, so everyone understands, we can’t be relying on penalty shouts.”
Kazim-Richards had more to say on how the game was refereed in the ‘big moments’.
He said “Refs need to do better in the big moments. A couple of offsides wrong, that amounts to nothing – it’s part of the game. People will say ‘should there be a VAR, shouldn’t there be a VAR? But the big moments…for example, their man’s down on the floor in our goal. The ball hits him and it’s offside, but they get another chance to put the ball into the box. Like those big moments.
“Like the lead-up to their goal. Yes, we should have done better from the free kick, and obviously Vito will be looking at that back and speaking with Nicholas. But the action before it, it’s a foul on Ade. It’s a foul. And it’s not a small foul, it’s a shirt tug, right?
“When you have these managers’ meetings with the EFL and the refs and a shirt pull is 100% a foul, no matter what, no matter where. And it leads to a goal. Ade does foul him in return. It is a foul from Ade, but there’s a foul before. Again, because I know what it’s like, we’re just making excuses. Again, we need to do better.
"It’s for 88 minutes, all these big moments lead up to two minutes, maybe. For 88 minutes, we need to be better, 100%. And I will take responsibility for that. It’s just tough when you have one, two, three, four, five big moments, decisions that don’t go your way. You can get blinded by that. But still for 88 minutes, we need to be better. Simple as that.”
New signing Dylan Morgan came on for his debut at the start of the second half, replacing for Klaudio Krasniqi, and he made a big difference to the way Crawley played.
Kazim-Richards said: “Dylan did well in spells. Tough for him to come on in a game like that, with you’re 2-0 down. He’s just come in on Thursday. But I thought that the game needed someone that would be brave and has not much to lose.
"He’s just come and it will just be a free one for him in terms of ‘go and be you and be brave and try and take him on’. And he did that in moments.”
Kazim-Richards, as well as a majority of the stadium, thought Morgan should also have won a penalty.
The boss said: “Pemi gets into the area, and it’s like six of one, and half a dozen of the other. But it’s a penalty, regardless. And then on Dylan, his leg comes across Dylan, he checks him. It’s a penalty, you know. Might be soft. If you want to say it’s soft, but a foul is a foul, a penalty is a penalty, right? If you want to say that from the ref, then have your defenders defend better.
“Simple as that. Big moments do change games, but at the same time, we had so much of the ball and weren’t able to do what we wanted to do with it.”