Boro boss couldn’t see why Chris Holroyd had his effort chalked off in Stanley defeat

Boro boss Graham Westley said he couldn’t see why Chris Holroyd had a goal chalked off in the defeat to Accrington Stanley on Saturday.

Holroyd poked home a Chris Beardsley assist just after the hour mark only to see his effort ruled out by the match officials, and to add insult to injury Stanley then went up the other end and scored the winner within 30 seconds of the restart.

Speaking after the game, Westley said: “I didn’t like the way we started at all. I thought in the first 20 minutes they were bright, they were breezy. They were the home side, had the home crowd right behind them. They brought the game to us and we had to weather an early storm but we worked our way into the game and going into half time we had some very good chances to open the scoring.

“The second half I thought we came out on the front foot, we dominated possession, we dominated the play and certainly had some good moments. “(I’m) really disappointed that Holroyd’s goal was disallowed. You can’t see it with the header Holroyd knocked down, the foot Beardsley got to the ball and the finish from Holroyd, I can’t really see why that one was taken away.

“There was no offside flag and we were really disappointed with that and within 30 seconds they countered and they’ve managed to get themselves 1-0 in front with a sloppy piece of defending it has to be said.

“We cleared the ball, we haven’t squeezed our line, they’ve managed to nick in between players and of course it was largely one-way traffic afterwards as we pressed for the equaliser which just didn’t come.”

Westley made five changes to the starting line-up from the team which beat MK Dons in the FA Cup midweek, and Westley added: “The lads put in a sterling night’s work over at MK Dons on Tuesday; it was very, very late by the time they got to bed.

“They put in a lot of work and their energy levels were bound to be drained by that and by the long trip up here today. We believe that freshness would be important for us today and we freshened it up, although obviously Ash (Jon Ashton) was suspended.”