McDermott fuming with refereeing decisions

Reading boss Brian McDermott has slated the officials for allowing Gareth Barry’s winning goal to stand in his side’s game with Manchester City.

The Royals put in an extremely effective play against the Premier League champions and restricted them to very few clear-cut opportunities at the Eithad Stadium. However, Gareth Barry scored the winner in injury time, despite appearing to impede Nicky Shorey. Referee Mike Dean also denied Reading a penalty in the match, when Jay Tabb was blocked off by Rekik.

Speaking to the Official Reading FC website, McDermott said: ‘It is just plain wrong and poor. I spoke to the referee and he said Barry hung in the air. Well you can hang in the air all day if you’re on someone’s back. I simply cannot get my head around why that is not given as a foul, it’s ridiculous. He’s a referee with a real experience.’

‘I put no blame to Nicky, what can he do? When someone is on your back, how can you get off the ground? It’s a massive error from the referee, it’s a joke. It was also a certain penalty on Jay Tabb earlier on in the game, I’ve seen it back and he’s knocked him out of the way. He didn’t look at the ball and he didn’t play the ball, it’s a penalty.’

It isn’t the first time this season that we have been on the end of the wrong refereeing decision and like pundit Charlie Nicholas said, had we have been at home, it may have gone our way. Nonetheless, we can’t be making excuses. We can take massive heart from this game and as McDermott says, move onto the next one against Swansea on Boxing Day.