Soccer
Tony Mowbray says Tom Atcheson second yellow ‘soft’ as Blackburn draw at Lincoln
Blackburn boss Tony Mowbray labelled Tom Atcheson’s second yellow card “soft” after his side showed their resilient side to leave Lincoln with a goalless draw.
Atcheson was shown red for a second bookable offence for a challenge on Rob Street with 21 minutes to go.
And asked if he had any complaints with the sending off, Mowbray said: “I think the second yellow card is soft if I’m honest.
“He’s just wrapping his leg around the back of the boy to poke it as the ball’s coming into his body.
“It happens every time the ball goes into a big guy up front, your centre-half has to wrap his leg round to try and disrupt the first contact.
“He went over with a big scream, the referee went over with his card. I don’t think it’s a bad tackle, he’s not pulled back a guy who’s running away from him.
“He’s 19 years old, a young boy learning his trade and hopefully he will learn from that.
“Sometimes when you’re on a booking, maybe let the guy have it because he might lose it with his first touch anyway.”
Blackburn had started to create more chances in the second half until Atcheson’s red card.
And Mowbray reflected: “I’m frustrated, but also relieved with how we’ve come through that 20 minutes at the end.
“I’m a bit frustrated because at the start of the second half we started to open them up a little bit.
“We got behind them a few times, but didn’t quite finish it. My hope was the longer the game went on the more openings there might have been for us.
“We’ll take a point, it’s a tough place to come. I think a lot of teams will find it tough here unless they can score first.”
Lincoln’s joint head coach Chris Cohen felt his side deserved more than a point, but admitted they lacked a cutting edge up front.
He said: “We were as frustrated in the first 60-65 minutes than we were after the sending off where it becomes difficult to break them down.
“They were really resilient and they’ve had a couple of players really step up for them at the end there.
“We didn’t have many glaring chances, but if we play that game 10 times I think we win it a lot of them. You can’t be too disappointed with a point in the Championship.
“It became a bit snatchy, especially at the end. They’re down to 10 men and we’re trying to win the game. It’s [not scoring] never through a lack of effort, if someone takes one it could possibly be a much easier evening.
“As I’ve said, you can’t be too frustrated with a draw in the Championship. It’s an ex-Premier League team coming to Sincil Bank and I thought we were the most threatening team throughout.
“We were incredibly solid in defence. It was a cat and mouse game. I think most fans will go home from that frustrated, you felt we’d score in those last 20 minutes, but the efforts and application can’t be faulted.”
