Schoolboy error or Referee "assist"

I've changed my mind.

When I saw the 2nd goal I thought that we only had ourselves to blame. Fabianski should never have picked up the ball. Once he did, he should never have let go of it until we had all our defenders back.

However...... He didnt give the ball to the Porto player, he gave it to the ref. The ref then stepped in front of Campbell and dropped the ball for the Porto player, who promptly passed it to Falcao who scored.

I don't blame Porto, Fabregas himself said that he would have done the same. But why should the ref make it so easy? And impede our player. If he is taking the ball of our keeper, then he should not just give it to the opposition in that way. There's playing the advantage and there's playing the advantage. For me its an 'assist' from the Referee.

It seems disproportionately unfair. The referee gave them something more likely to result in a goal than a penalty, yet all we did to deserve it was a back-pass, and a mistaken one at that.

It was definitely a schoolboy error for the first goal. It has been said many times that we cannot blame lack of experience for our flaws any more - as our team is young but very experienced. However the one area where we are wet behind the ears is the keeper. Fabianski is talented and can pull off excellent reaction saves but he revealed how raw he is with his decision making and some terrible errors, that I hope won't be too costly.

Dare I say that I "called" the Campbell headed goal? I never put money on my own team, just seems to tempt fate. However, I do think we have enough to finish them off at home in 3 weeks time. We got the away goal and the last 2 home games against Porto have been 2-0 and 4-0 so if I were a betting man, I'd put money on us progressing.

I'm looking forward to it, I think it might be quite a "spicey" affair. Shame it's 3 weeks (damn those money grabbing advertisers).

Until next time, '98