FRANK SEES RED!
Boss says ref was ‘like a whippet with his card’
NOW Frank Lampard knows what he is up against in the Championship. The former England midfielder said referee Peter Bankes ‘was like a whippet with his card’ in sending him to the stands as Derby County combusted in the wake of a series of debatable officiating decisions as Ryan Manning’s penalty earned Rotherham United a rumbustious victory.
Tom Lawrence was sent off for scything down Richie Towell in the 58th minute as tensions built. Then Bankes was not going to give Rotherham a penalty until his assistant flagged for an apparent push by Fikayo Tomori on Richard Wood five minutes later.
Manning had been nominated as Rotherham’s new penalty taker on the eve of the game, and dispatched the spot-kick.
When Lampard then stepped out of his technical area to castigate the other assistant referee for a ‘ culmination’ of inconsistencies, Bankes could not get his red card out quickly enough.
‘To get the red card for that…,’ the Derby manager said. ‘If those are the rules, then every manager will get sent off every game.’
Rotherham deserved their triumph, Lampard acknowledging his team played poorly as they missed out on a fifth consecutive victory. For Derby to gain promotion this season, it’s no longer a question of whether they can do it on a rainy Tuesday night in Stoke, but also whether they can cope on a raucous Saturday afternoon in Rotherham.
Derby were rattled for all but the first half-hour of this game and their chances of promotion may depend on how they and their young manager respond to smaller clubs out to claim big scalps through playing an effective long-ball game on a dry and slow pitch.
Lampard also had a point that Rotherham captain Wood, already on a caution, was not sent off for subsequently tripping Martyn Waghorn. So he was not surprised when Lawrence was dismissed. ‘It could have gone either way, like all the decisions,’ Lampard said. ‘But I had a feeling it was coming, because everything else was going against us.
‘Wood had just deserved a second yellow and didn’t get it. So I had a feeling it was one of those games, their players all run over to start a melee. Once that’s started, you kind of read the script.’
Paul Warne’s Rotherham have made an impressive start to life back in the Championship, but most in the ground were nonplussed when an assistant waved for their breakthrough opportunity. ‘It wasn’t a penalty,’ Lampard said. ‘They get a soft one, we don’t; but that’s as much as I should say. It’s one of those days.’
Rotherham played with a growing passion that could have given them a first-half lead but for Scott Carson’s brilliant save from Towell’s shot. The game felt like a cup tie between a lower-division side and wealthy opponents. Did this add to the referee’s decision-making? ‘It shouldn’t be that way,’ Lampard said. ‘It should be on merit: red cards, yellow cards, decisions. To constantly get it wrong in the game… but then we got a lot wrong too.’