27 August 2022

Ben Garner criticises referee after Charlton draw at Wycombe

27 August 2022

Charlton boss Ben Garner criticised the performance of referee David Rock following his side’s 1-1 draw at Wycombe.

The Addicks equalised through Jesurun Rak-Sakyi less than a minute after The Chairboys took the lead through Anis Mehmeti.

Following a frantic first 30 minutes, Garner was shown a yellow card for dissent when he felt Rock had missed a kick to the head of Charlton midfielder George Dobson.

Both sides also had penalty claims waved away during an exciting contest at Adams Park.

“I thought the game was spoilt by one person in the middle, for both sides,” said Garner.

“I thought Wycombe did what they do really well, and I thought we also played well, but there were some weird and wonderful decisions out there that affected the game.

“The key decisions were wrong again. When Scott Fraser had his shot blocked, Jayden Stockley is the wrong side of the defender, and the defender just trips him up.

“It is a penalty, it has been missed, and it has gone against us, but I don’t want it to detract from the players.

“I just felt the end of the (first) half allowed them to build momentum because he missed so many fouls.

“They were coming through the back of us constantly. They then get the ball in our box, but we managed that better in the second half, and we were a lot better with the ball.

“I think our fans really helped the team, and I’m getting a nice feeling of unity between the group and the away supporters. That is something we want to grow.”

Both sides pushed for a winner and Wycombe boss Gareth Ainsworth argued that his disappointment at a 1-1 draw with Charlton showed how far the club have come.

He said: “It was a great game. The Charlton fans were fantastic and got behind their team really well.

“You are always going to have that with Charlton. They’re a huge club and historically a 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic is a fantastic result for Wycombe Wanderers, and it shows how far we have come to be unlucky not to win the game.

“It was very basketballish, but I felt we defended really well and I don’t think Max (Stryjek) has had a shot to save all second half.

“The first half is where it was all won and lost and if we had just stayed solid after the goal then I think we probably would have won the game 1-0.

“I would have liked to have scored more goals, but there are plenty of positives to take on to the next game.

“I just would have liked to have put it to bed in the first half, that would have been nice, and we really did dominate that first 45 minutes.”

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