Buchanan on Penalty Decision
Monday 20th September 2010
In an afternoon of ultimate bitter disappointment there was much to be frustrated about on Saturday. Frustration in the main over the fact that 75 minutes of good work had been undone by two goals that frankly few, if any, in the crowd had seen coming. Thistle had been solid and comfortable as the minutes ticked by towards what would have been a most welcome three points.
Of course a one goal lead is always a precarious one and on Saturday we never enjoyed the comfort that a second goal would have brought. Which brings us round to another frustrating, and contentious, moment. It’s naturally impossible to know how the game would have gone but the decision not to give Thistle a penalty after 17 minutes was an important one all the same.
Liam Buchanan was the man to denied a penalty and when he spoke to www.ptfc.co.uk he was adamant that he had been fouled.
“I don’t understand why the referee would think that I would go down if I hadn’t been clipped. I was trying to get the ball out from under my feet and Ryan Conroy has come across and clipped my heel. At the time I didn’t know what the referee was going to do because he looked at his linesman for a right good while. So if they were unsure I don’t know how they can come to the conclusion that I dived. A striker isn’t going to go down when he has an opportunity to shoot.”
Moving away from that controversial incident Liam was dismayed that the performance didn’t produce the result that it deserved.
“I know that is a hard thing to say when we have been beaten 2-1 but I thought that we were excellent on Saturday. I thought that the game plan that we set out with was working. As a team I thought that we defended well and really pressed them when they had the ball and it wasn’t just one player that was doing that. It was every player and it was all over the park. There were countless times when they had to go back the way with the ball and get it all the way back to their goalkeeper.”
“You could tell that they were getting frustrated and so was the home crowd who were getting on their players backs and I thought that we were the only team that looked like winning the game. Then Allan Johnston has scored with a really sweet strike. We’ve then gone up the park, been caught in possession and they have scored another good goal. It’s hard at the moment and the boys are naturally down but we just need to pick ourselves up.”
“I know that it is another disappointing result and another defeat in the league but I think that there are positives to take from the game. Losing the game was hard for us to take and it would be a hard one for the fans to take as well. I thought they were excellent on Saturday and I don’t think they stopped singing at all. I think that helped to push us on a little bit. It’s just a shame that they went away at the end of the game just as disappointed as we were to have lost the game.”
