It’s reffin’ hell for Harris & Warnock MANAGERS’ FURY OVER WHISTLER
REFEREE Steve Martin finished with enough verbal bruising to alert ringside doctors up the road at the Principality Stadium for the Anthony Joshua fight after both bosses waded in.
In a perfect combination, Neil Harris took a swipe at him for not awarding Millwall a penalty.
Then Neil Warnock pulled no punches in claiming the official was guilty of falling for “theatricals” from the Lions and missing a “horrendous” tackle on Cardiff ’s Junior Hoilett.
But while Martin may have had an off day, he was no worse than any of the strikers on show, whose goal threat was distinctly flyweight.
Cardiff have suddenly become shot shy and paid the price for just one goal in their last four Championship matches by dropping out of the automatic promotion places. Millwall were aggressively determined and in Jordan Archer have a goalkeeper who excelled early on to deny Hoilett and Danny Ward. Harris (below) felt they deserved more and should have been rewarded with a spot-kick when Bluebirds skipper Sean Morrison appeared to trip Lee Gregory in the opening minute of the second half. “When you have 20,000 people in the stadium and only one person thinks it’s not a penalty, then something has to be wrong,” said Harris. “Unfortunately, he got it completely wrong today. It was a foul and it changed the game because we should have had a penalty and they would have been down to 10 men.
“Steve is a good guy, but that wasn’t one of his better performances. Officiating is a team job and clearly today, the four of them weren’t up to it.
“It was ugly at times, but I think we’ve got a foothold in this division. We are competing in every game, but we need to become more ruthless.”
If Warnock had hoped a week of close proximity to Joshua might have inspired his forwards with hunger for ruthless destruction, then he was sadly mistaken.
When it came to landing a decent punch, the City strikers were less AJ and more AWOL as the game wore on.
But he also had harsh words for Martin, and took issue with him for failing to act over Shaun Hutchinson’s challenge on Hoilett.
“I thought he was consistent throughout – consistently poor,” said Warnock. “Throughout the game, he was giving decisions for things that were theatrical.
“I also thought the tackle on Hoilett was horrendous. You can’t tell me that wasn’t dangerous.
“But it’s our own fault. We had to take our chances and we didn’t. We lacked that clinical finish in the final third.
“Their goalkeeper made three great saves. If we had scored it would have been a different game then and all their time-wasting tactics go out the window.”
Cardiff’s best chance fell to Hoilett just before the break, but after chesting down the ball he was thwarted by a superb save from Archer. Possession 57% 43% Shots On Target 4 2 Shots Off Target 7 4 Blocked Shots 2 1 Corners 5 6 Fouls Conceded 12 10 Offsides 0 1 Yellow Cards 2 1 Red Cards 0 0