‘Had a howler!’ Wade Elliott fumes at Bristol Rovers goal in Cheltenham defeat

The former Bristol City midfielder was furious that Josh Coburn’s goal wasn’t ruled out
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Cheltenham Town manager Wade Elliott believes Josh Coburn’s goal was offside. The Robins fell to a 2-1 defeat with Aaron Collins on the score sheet before Coburn doubled the Gas lead.

Alfie May scored three minutes into the second half as James Connolly cheaply gave away the ball and the error was punished, as Rovers failed to keep a clean sheet for the fifth game in a row.

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There were complaints however from the visiting boss over whether Rovers’ second goal should have stood. Collins in the middle of the park threaded a pass in between Sean Long and Ben Williams. None of the Cheltenham defenders appealed on initial glance, as Coburn ran through and tucked it underneath Luke Southwood.

Speaking to GloucestershireLive, Elliott said: “The first goal was a bit of quality from one of the top players in the league, who is on fire at the minute. The second goal was about six yards offside.

“It’s six yards offside. It’s not even a close one or a marginal one you can understand the linesman getting wrong. It’s six yards. If the linesman’s job isn’t to look across the line and get offsides. But that was my view on the second goal.”

Despite registering less possession and fewer passes, Cheltenham had more opportunities, but could only huff and puff in their pursuit of a second goal. They had 20 shots, and four of those were on target. Rovers had 10 opportunities, with three shots on target and two of them ended up being their goals.

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Elliott, who was a promotion-winning captain at Rovers’ rivals Bristol City, believed his side were deserving of something from the game despite their slow start. The decision to award the second goal however was still in the mind of the 44-year-old, who claimed they had a ‘howler’.

He added: "I have just said to them, as I have had to before, we can be victims, mope and moan about it, the officials have had a howler, but there is nothing we can do about it now.

"They are not going to go back. We might not even get the decency of an apology, but if we do, it won’t give us a point back is it.”

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