Peterborough United manager insists a poor refereeing decision denied his side a valuable point at Charlton
Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson could not look past a second half refereeing decision as the turning point in defeat at Charlton Athletic on Tuesday night.
Posh were beaten 2-1 at The Valley after a controversial second half, which first saw Posh fall behind to a Matty Godden penalty and then lose defender Emmanuel Fernandez to a straight red card.
Posh were then awarded a penalty, scored by Malik Mothersille, after Ricky-Jade Jones was brought down just inside the box but the culprit, Kayne Ramsey was only shown a yellow card. Ferguson strongly disagreed with referee Lee Swabey’s decision arguing Ramsey should have been sent off, describing it as the turning point of the match. Ferguson was booked for his protests and will now serve his second touchline ban of the season.
And just to rub it in, Posh were beaten in the final minute of normal time by a Macaulay Gillesphey header.
The defeat, along with victory for Crawley over Stevenage and a draw for Shrewsbury at Reading, saw Posh slip to just three points above the relegation zone.
Ferguson said: “I’m disappointed; really, really gutted for the players. They didn’t deserve that, they put everything into the game. I can’t ask for anymore in terms of their effort and endeavour. The resilience they showed, especially when we went down to 10 men, meant we should have got a point.
“The turning point is the referee’s decision for our penalty as it’s a blatant red card. Everyone in the stadium says it’s a red card, but he (Swabey) is the only guy that didn’t think so. He says he’s made an attempt to win the ball but no, he’s taken him clean out. There’s no attempt to win the ball.
“He couldn’t wait to send Fernandez off, but then we’ve got a player clean through and he gives a yellow. It’s a big turning point, especially in a game like this.
“Even when we were down to 10 and equalised, they didn’t trouble us too many times. They were just banging balls forward and we seemed do deal with it fine. Jed Steer was very good in goal. Our shape was goodm but we’ve been undone by a set-piece again. It’s proving a huge achilles heel for us this season.
“We have to capitalise on our chances too. We’ve had four when we’ve broken through and we don’t even get hardly a shot at goal. These are really important moments where we have to be more ruthless.
“We started the game really bright and we had Ricky Jade-Jones and Gustav LIndgren getting in behind. Gustav gets a great ball off Mo, squares the boy up and loses the ball. These are big moments in games. We have to be more ruthless.
“Malik, who was very close to starting, gave them a different sort of problem when he came on and he looked a threat. Whereas, in the fist half, we couldn’t make it stick.
“A lot of the stuff I’ve seen tonight, we’re going to have to repeat again, especially away from home because we do have to start picking up some points otherwise we are going to put so much pressure on our home form.
“There is certain ways to lose a game of football and tonight was one of those, it was different to Lincoln and Bristol. We were more resilient.”
Posh play the second of three consecutive away league games on Saturday at Stevenage. Alex Revell’s side were beaten 3-1 away by relegation-threatened Crawley on Tuesday night.