6:00am Thursday 11th March 2010
By Marc Iles
OWEN Coyle reckons Wanderers must “take their medicine” and bounce back stronger from Tuesday night’s horror show at Sunderland.
Fraizer Campbell registered the Premier League’s fastest goal of the season after just 41 seconds at the Stadium of Light — and things didn’t get much better for the Whites on a miserable night on Wearside.
England striker Darren Bent went on to complete a hat-trick in the second half in which Sam Ricketts was also sent off for a second bookable offence.
And while Coyle admitted his side had made a shocking start — he reckoned the scoreline had flattered his opponents.
“We could very easily have won that game — and that might sound daft being that we lost 4-0,” he said.
“But if you saw the circumstances; we were down to 10 men for 20 minutes and had all sorts of things conspiring against us, it’s just the kind of slap you get in football when you think you have turned a corner.
“We need to pick ourselves up again and the only way we can do that is by winning the game on Saturday.”
Ricketts was sent off for a trip on Bent, although Coyle believes the contact had been made outside the area.
“It wasn’t a penalty — there might have been contact but it was outside the box,” he fumed. “Worse case scenario it would have been a free kick, and it might still have resulted in a red for Sam because of the rules.”
The Scot has now seen two of his players sent off in the last two games, following on from Tamir Cohen’s red at Upton Park on Saturday.
But he maintains that Sunderland were lucky to keep 11 men on the pitch after a particularly heavy challenge from Albania international Lorik Cana on Vladimir Weiss just before the Black Cats’ second goal.
“If you look at it, they are both very unfortunate,” he said of Ricketts and Cohen. “If there has been a bad tackle between them, I haven’t really seen it.
“I accept they were fouls but there was certainly no malice.
“The worst tackle tonight went unpunished. Cana had already been booked when he put in what I thought was a really bad challenge on Vladimir Weiss.
“There’s no doubt that I thought they should have been down to 10 men, and it was 1-0 at the time, but it wasn’t the case.”
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