David Artell frustrated by missed sitters and refereeing decisions in Grimsby’s defeat to Newport

David Artell was left frustrated by missed sitters and refereeing decisions in Grimsby’s 2-1 defeat to Newport on Saturday afternoon.

Grimsby’s unbeaten start in League Two was ended by goals from Christian Doidge (57′) and Shaquille Gwengwe (69′).

Newport’s Jordan Wright (83′) scored an own goal, but the hosts held on for their second league victory of the season.

The result sees Grimsby 6th in the table, with 13 points from their opening 8 games, while Newport are up to 17th with 9 points from their 8 games.

David Artell said: “We didn’t deserve to lose, that’s for sure, if you don’t take your chances, and I’m talking big chances, and the officials don’t do their jobs, then, you know, you’re going to you’re going to leave yourself wide open to a result that’s transpired.”

Interviewer: “Is that the most frustrating thing from today is that the amount of chances big chances that we’ve had and and have not put the ball in back of the net?”

Artell: “We’ve had two tap-ins in the first half, Ryley in the second at the end there. We haven’t took either of them, you know, we can’t be relying on referees to give an offside call and give us a penalty. You can’t rely on them. We had it in the week where the lad’s offside, you know, don’t rely on them. Don’t rely on the officials. Put the ball in the goal. So, we can be as disappointed with them as we want to be. It shouldn’t have even come down to that.”

Interviewer: “Do you think it’s a case of on another day both of those goals and we’re still having a different conversation?”

Artell: “The tap-ins we’ve dominated the We’ve dominated the game really. We’ve dominated the game. I don’t know what the stats were. I think Christy has made a real good double save after it’s gone 2-0. Other than that, I can’t remember them even getting in our box really. I can’t. Long throws and corners, we’ve had numerous chances, numerous chances. And that’s disappointing thing, yeah, that’s the real disappointing thing. It should it should never have been anywhere close. I’d have been disappointed with a draw if I’m being honest with you, so to not even get a point is is extremely disappointing.”

Interviewer: “You and I spoke on on Thursday, didn’t we, about how they’ve got like low possession stats and they’ve I think they’ve got the lowest possession stats on average in in the league, haven’t they? That was obviously something that we knew we were going to have a lot of the ball today.

Artell: “Yeah. Yeah. I thought we did well with it. I thought we created quite a few chances. Thought first half were the fact that it was 0-0 at half time was disappointing. We should have been ahead. We should definitely have been ahead. We’ve had numerous chances but we weren’t. And then you come out second half and yeah, we literally give them two goals. Switch off a set piece, get dispossessed in the middle of the pitch, not with good shape behind the ball and the punishers and that’s not on them, that’s on us, that that’s that’s the disappointing thing.”

Interviewer: “It does end our unbeaten start to to the league campaign, but it is worth remembering that this is our best start to a league season since 1982-83. So, you know, we’ve said many times before, it’s not not time to be throwing the baby out the pram, is it?”

Artell: “No, no, it’s certainly not that, the fans could see that at the end. I thought they were magnificent. fans. I don’t know how many there was, but I think you can see that we’ve dominated the game of football. And if you if you play like that, it’s about taking your chances. And yeah, you’re not going to you’re not going to lose too many games if you play like that that’s the disappointing thing is we did lose it. So was it’s sort of unfathomable really and like I said, if you’re not ruthless in front of goal, you hope the officials do their job cuz it should have been 2-1 just with a penalty for Greeny and an offside goal. So, but you don’t rely on them.”

Interviewer: “We’ll come on to the the penalty sort of non-decision in in a moment, but what do you what do you say to the players in the changing room after, you know, a difficult defeat like that?”

Artell: “You’ve got to be more ruthless. You’ve got to be more ruthless. You know, it’s a big thing for us. We create lots of chances and we’ve got to keep creating lots of chances and if we do then we’ll win games of football. Today we haven’t taken them. It’s the first time we haven’t scored two goals in six games. So, it’s not like again not throwing the baby out with bath water, but they weren’t difficult chances either. So, well, we got to put it all into perspective and pick them up and keep working hard to to create more chances and score more goals.”

Interviewer: “I don’t want to dwell on it too much because you’re not going to be able to say a great deal, but you know, the penalty call or not non-penalty call on Green, what’s your take on that?”

Artell: “I think the the the general rule of thumb with referees now is that there’s a higher threshold for a penalty which basically means you’ve got to get assaulted. That’s the truth because it’s already… prior to this season there was a higher threshold by default cuz it’s such a key decision than compared to the rest of the pitch. Now it’s gone up another notch so they just don’t want to give penalties. And like I say, I’m… Yeah, I’m not going to say anymore. We’ve we’ve we’ve played two games this week and we’ve had two offside goals not given and an absolute stone wall penalty, but that’s it.”

Here’s how fans reacted with David Artell frustrated by missed sitters and refereeing decisions in Grimsby’s defeat to Newport…

@lawrence_gtfc: So many problems in this team that have just been exposed. Flat shite

@AshleySpink: Completely deserved by Newport. Far far the better team. Not sure of our ambition now watching that. Because we definitely were not interested in 3 points.

@JamesVI58047415: Another great opportunity missed for Grimsby, never gonna do it at this rate

@jaseives: Got what we deserved tbf, bad performance. That said still had chances. Fair few not at the races. Positive was Reece when he came on, tbf Newport battled and were better 2nd half. That 1st half miss costly.

@RikkiSmith93: No complaints from me. No overreaction. Newport stayed in the game 1st half made it difficult & 2nd half got a deserved win. Subs made us weaker imo. PS you can’t miss chances like that. Onto the next ⚫️⚪️

@MattSmith08: Really poor today too many players just didn’t turn up #GTFC

@TheAndrewBlake: Don’t wanna hear DA bang on about being ruthless. We’ve missed 2 absolute sitters from 3 yards. Zero excuse! Stonewaller at 0-0 but expect nothing less from Lg2 officials. Town need to get them performances ironed out if going to be serious top 3 contenders. #gtfc

@MikeyMcMahon: Two big calls: a stonewall penalty not given and offside for their second not given. Doesn’t excuse the sloppiness for the first or the shit defending for the second but the standard of refereeing in this division is abysmal. We were off it by someway today. Frustrating #gtfc

@KeironHarris1: #gtfc Yes the referee was extremely poor and we should have had a penalty, but that’s not the reason we lost this game. Same problems as last season not being clinical against poor sides with two open goals missed, and a few very poor individual performances today