Body blow: Halifax manager says Chesterfield’s controversial late winner should not have stood
Chris Millington, the manager of Halifax, questioned a few of the officials’ rulings during his team’s dramatic 3-2 loss to Chesterfield.
Paul Cook, the manager of the Spireites, and player Tom Naylor were both dismissed, along with Adam Senior of the Shaymen.
Jackson’s performance, particularly in the second half, when he completely lost control of the game, gave rise to ire from both camps.
Millington believes Jackson got the decision to award his team a penalty correct, which Blues coach Danny Webb agreed with, but the Halifax boss had doubts about some of his other decisions, feeling they should have been given another spot-kick and that Joe Quigley’s 91st minute winner should have been ruled out, calling it a ‘real body blow’.
Millington told the Halifax Courier, “I felt we were denied a penalty in the first half when Milli Alli went past his man, got the wrong side of him, and received a shoulder in the back.
“Milli Alli is not going to go down in the box when he has the ball at his feet and is driving at goal unless someone brings him down, and it was clearly a shoulder in the back that brought him down,” the referee said. I therefore believed that we ought to have ended the game at 2-2.
Despite being the third time this season that Quigley has scored the game-winning goal off the bench, Millington argued that it shouldn’t have counted.
“I don’t underestimate the challenge of refereeing a game like that where both teams were absolutely fully committed, the atmosphere was electric, both sets of supporters were right on their toes, they were fantastic,” he said.
“However, I also think that Jo Cummings was fouled in the lead-up to Chesterfield’s winning goal; the players are certain of it, and it appeared to me to be a clean foul.
“It feels like a real body blow that the referee didn’t call that at such a crucial time in such a crucial area of the field when it’s a foul on our last man.”
Additionally, Millington questioned whether Senior ought to have been dismissed for challenging James Berry.
“Adam’s committed to try and win the ball back, but he hasn’t,” he said. Do you get a red card? I’m not sure, but according to the players, there was a discrepancy between the officials since the linesman called it a yellow but the ref quickly called it a red.
“I’ll have to see that back to be absolutely clear, but look, we’ve got beat, we’ve got to take our medicine, and we’ve got to learn our lessons because there are definitely things we need to do better.”
Millington characterized the contest as a whole as a “good advertisement for the National League.”
“I thought we were good for a draw tonight and we had a really good chance of winning,” he continued.
“Clearly we’re at a place where there’s a very good group of players, a crowd who are really up because of where the team is in the division, and the way they’re playing because they play an exciting brand of football and every game seems to be a 3-2 or a 4-3.
“So we knew we were going to have to be prepared to deal with some of their threats, the threat in the wide area is definitely something you have to deal with when you come to Chesterfield, and also set-pieces, they’ve scored more goals off set-pieces this season so far than they’ve scored using any other method.
“We’d prepared thoroughly for those two threats but we knew some of their vulnerabilities – the high line, we knew that’d be an opportunity for us and we felt, as the game went on and their pressing dropped in intensity, we’d have the opportunity to dominate possession a bit more and I think that’s how it worked out.”
He added: “Clearly it’s frustrating to go 1-0 down and I couldn’t see the goal very clearly because it was on the far side, so I’m not exactly sure on the passage of play and how they unpicked us, but it looked from my side like a really slick move, ball goes across the box and a fairly simple finish for a very good footballer.
“So that was frustrating to concede so early, and then conceding off a set-piece when we know what a threat they carry off set-pieces, and we’d prepared to the best of our ability to deal with them. Their lad was just more committed to winning the first contact than ours.”
