Grimsby Town boss criticises referee ‘we didn’t help ourselves’ in Barrow defeat

Artell was incensed over the referee’s performance once more, but he was unable to deny that his team’s performance had been inadequate.

“We didn’t help ourselves in the first half in any way, shape, or form because we gave them two goals,” he said on BBC Radio Humberside. You’re in for a long afternoon if you gift a squad like them two goals ahead of schedule.

“Overall, I don’t think there was much separating the two teams, and we ended up scoring a perfectly good goal that I thought was appropriate. It’s challenging because today’s full-time referee’s behaviour was abhorrent, and at Sutton, we were denied a victory due to the actions of a part-time official.

We are competitive to some extent because this is a challenging place to be. When you look at the performance, you cannot take away goals that change games. We had additional opportunities to score in the second half.

In spite of a glaring lack of service, Obikwu worked relentlessly up top for the Mariners, earning his third goal in his last five games for the team. Artell considered him as one of the few bright spots in his squad at Barrow.

“We were okay in some aspects, but we weren’t so good in others, and that’s why we ended up losing the game,” the Grimsby manager continued. I thought Justin Obikwu was fantastic; even though he was kicked from one end of the pitch to the other, he ran the entire game and earned his goal.

We could have won the game, let alone drawn it, if everyone had played to their potential today, but we didn’t. We don’t act brutally in one situation, and We need to improve because we now don’t keep them out of the other.