Gary O’Neil has revealed what referee Robert Jones told him, after he went to see him following the penalty he gave to Sheffield United against Wolves.
Many Wanderers fans are still fuming today, after yet another big decision went against the club.
Wolves lost 2-1 at Bramall Lane, with a very late penalty the team’s undoing. Cameron Archer had given United the lead, but Jean Ricner-Bellegarde equalised late on.
But right at the death, Jones awarded a penalty to the hosts, adjudging Fabio Silva to have fouled George Baldock in the area. Replays showed Baldock was already going to ground.
The award of the penalty has been widely slammed. Gary Lineker called it a ‘stinking decision’, and Match of the Day pundits Martin Keown and Danny Murphy were both left baffled.
It’s hard to understand how the decision was allowed to stand. O’Neil felt that too, and after the game he went to see Jones for an explanation, and the Wolves head coach has now shared what he was told…
Gary O’Neil shares what referee Robert Jones told him about Wolves penalty decision
O’Neil said yesterday that he did go and speak to Jones to find out the reasons for the penalty.
He said (via Wolves official): “It’s not a penalty. I spoke to the referee, and I told him why it wasn’t a penalty. He says there’s contact – Fabio’s shinpad probably grazes Baldock’s calf.
“I’ve watched it loads of times and there’s minimal contact and if we’re giving fouls for that, there would have been a million fouls in that football match.
“The referee is so quick to want to give it, but it’s never a clear penalty. He needs to wait, be calm and if you’ve made a big error VAR will tell you. I’ve given up on penalties. I’m honestly lost, I don’t know where to go with it. I’m told to go in and have a sensible conversation, but he still watched it telling me it’s a penalty, which tells me we’re in a crazy place.”
O’Neil also stated that he thinks the game is currently in ‘a really bad spot’ regarding the standards of officiating. He believes his side could well be as many as six points better off.
Contact is irrelevant if a player is already going down
It is absolutely extraordinary that Jones genuinely seems to believe that was a penalty.
You can clearly see looking at the replays that Baldock is falling before the very minimal contact happens from Silva.
Baldock should have been booked for diving, as Murphy suggested on Match of the Day.
It is a worrying state of affairs that a team of officials, with the benefits of having VAR, can get such a decision wrong. And it is the second such incident in consecutive games, which is inexplicable.
O’Neil’s side need to be much better going forwards, there is no doubt about that. But the same goes for the Premier League officiating standards.