The Tigers were held to a 2-2 draw in South Yorkshire
Matt Crooks admits some of referee Stephen Martin’s decisions left him confused on Boxing Day, but says his Hull City side made life difficult for themselves as attention turns to Middlesbrough.
City twice fought back from a goal down at Hillsborough to earn a 2-2 draw, with Crooks scoring the second equaliser after Mo Belloumi had pulled the Tigers level.
Referee Martin made a host of bizarre decisions, including one to disallow Liam Millar’s goal on the stroke of half-time, which would have put City in front for the first time.
“There were a couple of times where I was a bit confused,” Crooks told Hull Live. “I’m not sure, I don’t know if you’ve all seen it back, but the goal at the end of the first half with Liam (Millar).
“He (Martin) said that Liam made the foul, but Liam scored the goal, so I mean, I don’t know, and then the one on Oli, when he ran through, I thought there were a couple of pulls there that he didn’t really blow for. He made some decisions for us as well, which I thought were the wrong decision. He doesn’t go on the pitch to make mistakes, the ref, none of us are perfect (at Hillsborough), neither was he.”
On the performance itself, Crooks felt like City made life harder than it needed to be, though he praised the response in fighting back twice to get a positive result and avoid defeat in what he predicted would be a proper game.
“I think we made it difficult for ourselves with the first goal for them. The crowd got right up for it, which made for a good atmosphere, but made it difficult for us. Goals, flashpoints, loads of cards, I guess it was a proper game, yeah,” he continued.
“There were parts of the game where we were just lackadaisical, sloppy, just not completely switched on. I mean, the gaffer’s obviously referring to Christmas, but sometimes I feel like that can happen. We take the positives from it, came back a couple of times and got the point.
“It’s the Championship, anything that can happen,” Crooks continued. “I’ve been in teams down there myself where you’re kind of at the bottom of the table, and you don’t turn up to games wanting to get beaten or expecting to get beaten. You feel like you’re gonna give it a good go, and they did that.
“We gave them a chance to get the crowd involved twice. I felt like we were in control of the game at 1-1, and then they scored the second. It’s just frustrating, making it hard for ourselves. We know we can play better than that, and we’ve just got to move forward now up to Middlesbrough.”
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