Hill refuses to sugar-coat Josh Lillis’ mistake after Rochdale lose to Plymouth

Posted Sunday, December 16, 2018 by PA

Rochdale boss Keith Hill refused to sugar-coat Josh Lillis’ decisive mistake in their 2-1 defeat against Plymouth.

The home side had just cancelled out Joel Grant’s 73rd-minute opener via a Brad Inman finish when, after 80 minutes, Lillis allowed David Perkins’ tame backpass to trickle beneath his foot and into the net.

The howler gifted Argyle all three points and while Hill said he would forgive Lillis, the Dale chief was in no doubt the goalkeeper was at fault.

“Sympathy? You may as well phone the vicar!” he said. “There’s no sympathy in football, the result will stand and I think, personally – and I am not trying to hit Josh with a hard stick – but it’s a goalkeeping mistake.

“Football is tough, it’s a reflection of society at times. We controlled the game and I know the data will show they had two shots on target and one of them was of our own making.

“I’m disappointed with the result but I’m not too disappointed with the way we played, the way we controlled the game and defended, the way we attacked and got possession into the final third where I felt we were loose and made wrong decisions.”

Plymouth started well, with Graham Carey and Gary Sawyer both going close in the opening exchanges. The first half grew scrappy as the conditions deteriorated but after the interval the home side looked more likely to break the deadlock.

However, against the run of play in the 73rd minute Antoni Sarcevic’s run into the Dale penalty area ended with him shooting wide of Lillis, with Joel Grant on hand to apply the finishing touch from point-blank range.

Inman levelled things up three minutes later when he slipped a neat finish beneath Matt Macey.

There seemed little danger when Perkins stroked a routine backpass to his goalkeeper ten minutes from time. But Lillis’ attempt to punt the ball upfield ended in embarrassment as it ran under his boot into the net.

“We haven’t had much fortune this season and there’s no doubt a good number of time we should have had more points than we got from games,” said Plymouth boss Derek Adams.

“Our bus broke down on the way here yesterday and we had to wait an hour to fix it – that’s something that goes against you, but we have a group of players that are very positive and want to do well. They dug in deep today because conditions for both teams were awful.

“We started the game very well and took the game to them, had four or five attempts on goal early in the game and probably should have gone ahead. Rochdale had their chances after half time and it was a tough encounter in difficult conditions.

“It was always going to be a difficult afternoon with the rain and the wind but we’ve come through it and won it.”