Do you feel you deserved more from the game?
I thought so, yes. I thought that we’d done a lot of good things in the game and I thought we stuck at it, got our noses in front. I thought we deserved more.
What can you say about your late disallowed goal?
Have you seen it? The goalkeeper comes to take it and actually fumbles it out of his hands. It actually comes out about five or six yards, so he could never recover it, then he acts as if he’s got a shoulder injury. We took it, we picked it up. I am amazed that VAR sent the referee to see it. I thought, because I had a quick glimpse at the side, once I saw it I thought even if he goes to the TV, there’s no way he’s overturning this because this is a goal. It was a ridiculously bad decision.
Is there an issue that when a referee goes to a pitchside monitor, the decision is usually overturned?
I think I’d question VAR today as much as the referee. He should have stuck to his own guns and been big enough to do what he said.
How is the referee able to tell what happened having only seen slow motion replays?
Actually, I’ve had a chance to look at it from three or four angles, as they have. There is no excuse for VAR. Today, there is no excuse for that not to be a goal, none whatsoever. The sad thing is, this is the level of our elite level refereeing at the moment. I think the worst thing is, we were told there would be more contact. That sounds as if there is no contact with any goalies, we didn’t get told that. Actually, the goalkeeper tried to do the same on the first goal, the goalkeeper tried to fake an injury on the first goal as well. He did the same on the second goal.
Who do you get clarification from about that decision?
I don’t know. They’ve got new people in charge and they are trying to do something. I’ve lost faith in them after that today. I’ve lost faith in the people putting it up for VAR. After watching it, I can’t see how the goal wasn’t given.
Did you get any explanation when you went to the referee’s room?
I didn’t want an explanation from him because it would have been a tough one for him to give, wouldn’t it? Trying to justify that? My goodness, I don’t think anybody could justify that. Even the referee couldn’t.
Will you get clarification in the coming days from the referee’s panel?
I’ll not be the only manager who gets bad decisions, I’ve had a bad decision today. I don’t think there would be many in the room who would actually say for any reason it wasn’t a goal. I think the room would have to say it’s a goal, it would be hard not to. There will be bad decisions all season with a 50/50 and yes, there may be people on a panel but at the end of the day, it’s not going to do anything different. All you are going to say is I’ve lost four games, not going to say that we should have had a really good result today. It affects you and it affects us but I thought in the main, the team did a pretty good job. Maybe not at our most fluent best, but we are trying to piece things together and find our way forward at the moment, but we are certainly back to being resilient, hard to beat, well organised and all of those things are really important.
What did Jarrod Bowen say to you while the decision was being made?
Jarrod said that he never touched the goalkeeper at all and if you look at it, he jumps and he straddles him and if there was anything, it might have been a slight trailing foot, if it was anything at all. The goalkeeper had already mishandled the ball and dropped the ball and it came off him four/five/six yards, but he couldn’t recover it.
Was it professionalism from Edouard Mendy or something darker than that?
If you ask me, he faked a shoulder injury. It didn’t affect him playing the last 15 minutes or whatever it was after that.
Do you mind if your players do stuff like that?
I actually think that’s an insulting question to me a wee bit because I don’t put my team out to do that. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I certainly don’t set up my team like that. I find that a wee bit insulting because if you know me, I wouldn’t do that. I’m sure you didn’t mean it (disrespectfully), I’m just answering the question. We all get a decision somewhere where maybe someone goes down easy, so I will accept that will happen to me somewhere on the journey and I’ll be saying ‘great, it’s a penalty kick’ or whatever decision it goes. Ultimately, the football we play in this country is unique. It’s unique because of the level of the challenges, it’s why everybody watches it. The speed of the game today, it’s why the ball in play time is one of the biggest now. I managed in Spain, there were more people diving, more people went down, more people faked injury. The ball in play time was something like 48 minutes, for all the style they have. The difference in the Premier League is we have a really good product, exciting, fast, the teams are trying to play, we are bringing in all the other players from overseas and we’re bringing in all the managers from overseas, it’s fantastic. But they have to work in our environment, they have to work how our culture is. Today, the referee said they were changing soft decisions. If there was any decision today, that was unbelievably soft.
Do you always feel at risk of punishment when commenting on a referee in any way?
Yes, that’s why I’m trying to be careful with my words here. I am a whinging manager, that’s another way to look at it. You’re either one or the other. I’m having to stand up for my players who at the moment, we’ve had this week, away at Aston Villa, Tottenham at home, Chelsea today and we get done at the end. It was our fault for conceding two goals but we’d just done enough to get ourselves back into it and it was taken away for absolutely no reason.
Does something have to change in order for the system to get better?
I make loads of mistakes so referees can make mistakes but I would hope that if the referee had made a mistake it would be corrected by VAR. If you’re saying today that VAR has corrected a referee’s mistake, I’m saying I do not see that in a million years. I’m actually more embarrassed for the guy on VAR than for the referee. That’s telling me someone who doesn’t understand football and probably shouldn’t be anywhere near it if that’s enough to send the referee to the screen.
