Frustrated boss rues another lost lead

PAUL Dickov cut a frustrated figure as Athletic lost a two-goal advantage to draw a game they controlled.

The point at least took the club up to fifth in npower League One, ahead of an attractive home double-bill against Hartlepool and Dagenham this week.

But having led 2-0 thanks to strikes from Aidan White and Chris Taylor with less than a quarter-hour remaining at Brunton Park, Dickov wanted a better reward.

“I thought in the first half especially, we played some great stuff,” he said. “We scored two really good goals and could possibly have had more.

“When you come to places like this, you are not going to get 90 minutes where you don’t come under pressure.

“They did that and scored their first goal, which we are disappointed about from our point of view.

“Then they chucked everything at us, but I still thought we coped very well with it.

“And then a decision that was out of our hands cost us two points.”

Dickov was clearly unhappy with the award of a home added-time penalty for a challenge by Paul Black on Francois Zoko.

Contact was minimal and Dickov initially felt the incident occurred outside the penalty area – a viewpoint later proven incorrect by television replays.

“The referee made an honest decision,” Dickov added. “He said he couldn’t see it, so he took the word of his linesman.

“We were standing 40 yards away from where it happened and we felt it was outside the box.

“I asked the linesman, could he not have thought about it a little bit more? Because his flag went up very, very quickly.

“Whether it was a foul or not, I don’t know. Paul Black went to clear the ball, their player came on the blind side where he couldn’t see him and as he swung back he caught the boy’s leg.

“Yet again we were ahead, but got pegged back. I thought we played ever so well for long periods in the game. From (goalkeeper) Ben Amos all the way through, we were comfortable.

“We had a good shape about us and until they scored their first, Ben didn’t have any saves of note to make.”

Athletic were by far the more potent side for the majority of the game and Dickov was pleased with the way his front four – including returning loan Leeds winger and goal scorer Aidan White – fared against an at-times jittery Carlisle rearguard.

“We could have had more goals,” Dickov said. “Our attacking play was excellent and our front four of Aidan White, Chris Taylor, Oumare Tounkara and Filipe Morais meant they couldn’t handle us at times and didn’t know what to do with us.

“I know Oumare is a centre forward but with Aidan, Chris and Filipe they can interchange and play in different position to cause all sorts of problems.”

Andy Todd, signed from Perth Glory, came into midfield late on, while while fellow new man Reuben Reid replaced Tounkara as the clock ticked down.

“With Andy Todd’s experience we had him go into midfield to shore it up a little bit,” added Dickov.

“We wanted to get Reuben some time on the pitch. Oumare was a handful and they couldn’t handle Filipe Morais at times.

“Maybe we would have liked to have got Reuben on a bit earlier, but the other two were doing ever so well.

“Aidan White tired as it was his first game since Rochdale (on January 3) and he hasn’t trained a lot since then. We just wanted to get fresh legs on.”