Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi says that his side were denied a “clear penalty” against Leicester City on Saturday afternoon. In his post-match comments De Zerbi did not argue with the match official’s decision to book him for his sideline behaviour. But he took serious issue with the failure to award the Sussex outfit a penalty.
Roberto De Zerbi said: “Today, I want to speak for the referee because there was another clear penalty and I don’t know the referee. They were able to give me the yellow card, which was right, but one penalty incident was so clear.”
The Italian doubled down on his complaints in his press conference, adding that he prefers not to “cry” over refereeing decisions, but evidently made an exception on this occasions.
Roberto De Zerbi said: “It was a clear penalty for us. I am not able to understand what the referee was watching. I don’t know, if you want you can help me because I don’t understand. There is VAR. But I don’t know if it was working or not. I don’t like to speak about referees so much and to cry after the game. The people who cry for the referee I don’t like. But today it was a clear penalty. The referee had a bad day, a very bad day.”
De Zerbi said that Brighton were “incredible” on the day and should have beaten City, who he said were devoid of any attacking threat.
Roberto De Zerbi added: “I think we deserved to win. We almost lost the game because the football is like this, but I think we played well. I saw the stats and it’s incredible for us. I am sorry for the result because Leicester have never been dangerous. They found the first goal and we didn’t wait at that moment. It’s a downfall of our set-pieces. One mistake for us, but I think there was a corner before the corner of the Leicester goal.”
