Hard done by!

Dean Furman: saw ball cross the line

Furman bemoans Latics ‘goal’ that never was
DEAN Furman was full of praise for the way Athletic rolled up their sleeves to overcome a huge sense of injustice at Bournemouth.

Athletic’s captain was in a prime position to see that Robbie Simpson’s first-half shot had crossed the goal-line before Cherries defender Steve Cook was able to hack clear.

Despite referee Andy D’Urso not awarding the visitors the goal, Furman and his men maintained their composure to bring away a useful point from Dean Court.

“The referee said to me that the linesman’s view was obstructed and that he can’t guess from where he was,” explained Furman, who was waiting for a pull-back from Simpson.

“We are disappointed. In football, you can always gauge by the players’ reaction and we were running about like we had scored.

“Obviously, the referee can’t guess and he has to be 100-per-cent sure with a decision like that.

“It didn’t go our way, but over the course of a season these decisions will swing your way. Hopefully next time, we will get it.

“The difficulty for the linesman on the other side was that there were at least two players — the goalkeeper and the defender — lying on the floor obstructing his view.

“We feel a little bit hard done by having the goal not given, but credit to the lads that we didn't let it affect our performance and really took the game to them in the second half.”

Furman felt that the solid performance on the day owed plenty to the work done on maintaining a rigid team shape without the ball.

“Lee Duxbury (first-team coach) was watching from up in the stand and he said we got it spot-on in terms of our positional play,” he added.

“We can build on that. When we don’t score, it is important we are keeping clean sheets and we managed to do that.”

Knock-out clashes against Southend, in the second round of the FA Cup, and Bradford, in the Northern Area semi-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, are next up for Athletic.

“It is a little bit of respite from the league and the feeling among the lads is that we are excited for the cup games,” Furman said.

“We want to progress into the third round of the FA Cup and hopefully come up against a big team.

“But first we have got a tricky tie against Southend, who are doing really well in League Two.

“Then there is the game against Bradford, in a competition in which we have a big chance of getting to Wembley.”