Officially riled
ACCRINGTON Stanley manager John Coleman believes refereeing decisions throughout the season have played a big part in his side missing out on the play-offs.
The Reds have come up short in their hopes of finishing in the top seven despite a good run of form in recent months.
Their ambitions ended on Saturday when they were beaten 4-1 at home to Luton Town.
Coleman was extremely frustrated with the officials in that game, and thinks it’s been evident throughout the year.
“We were on the end of two ludicrous decisions once again. We haven’t had a penalty since we started our unbeaten run 16 games ago,” he told the club’s official website.
“In those 16 games we’ve probably had about 10 clear shouts for penalties, and against Luton the decisions were embarrassing.
“We should have had a penalty and everybody in the ground knows it’s a penalty, but the referee plays on for 20 seconds while their goalkeeper stays down.
“The referee then realises the keeper is down so he stops the game and invents a foul. You can’t invent a foul, the only foul that was committed was by the keeper on our player.”
Coleman also believes his team haven’t had the same fortunes as some other sides in the division.
“Yet again I see soft penalties awarded to teams in League Two every single week, but we don’t get them. We get them against us but not for us, it’s outrageous,” he said.
“In the Luton game the referee also made a howler of a decision to give us a corner when it’s not a corner as our player clearly put the ball out for a goal kick.
“Nevertheless, we score from the corner and he disallows it as he invents a foul again. You can say that we shouldn’t have had the corner so we shouldn’t have a goal, but it wasn’t our fault he gave us a corner.
“You can’t then invent a foul as that’s cost us the game and those two decisions have a massive impact.
“We’ve had bad luck. We scored an own goal against Luton which Omar Beckles didn’t mean to do but it’s down to concentration and unfortunately that’s plagued us all season.
“Their goalkeeper has made seven or eight good saves and the goals we conceded we know we can do better with, so it’s hard to be critical as for 70 minutes we were comfortably the better team against Luton.”
Stanley end the season with a trip to Stevenage this weekend.
‘We get penalties against us but not for us, it’s outrageous’