Steve Cooper has claimed Swansea City’s promotion progress is being undermined by poor officiating.
For the second successive week, the Swans manager has claimed mistakes by referees have cost his team, although they remain second in the Championship table after their 1-1 draw at home to Reading on Saturday.
A week ago, Cooper suggested there were errors which counted against his side in their goalless draw at Bristol City and it was a familiar theme against the Royals.
Cooper criticised referee Keith Stroud for failing to send off Reading’s Lucas Boye. The Argentine striker was lucky to stay on the pitch on the stroke of half-time after man-handling Matt Grimes following an early booking for a late challenge on Connor Roberts.
“They should definitely have been down to 10 men,” said Cooper. “We are definitely on the end of some poor decisions at the moment.
“I was pleased we had an experienced referee today for the first time, as we seem to be getting the ones who are maybe a bit new to it. But we still got the same luck.
“He is going to have his excuses and his reasons, but I could tell he and the fourth official knew they probably were not at their best.
“Maybe it has an impact, for them they know they got away with one. I don’t want to dwell on it too much. It was a clear second yellow card and the referee has made awful decision.”
“We are obviously frustrated. When you concede late on it is always tough to take.
“We obviously had a great start, we scored a great goal and we needed to capitalise. We had a number of chances to go 2-0 and we didn’t take them.”
Not surprisingly, Reading boss Jose Gomes saw the Boye incident differently, although he did substitute the player at the start of the second half.
Gomes said: “I think the referee followed the same criteria because a few minutes before a Swansea player caught my player by his shirt and shorts and he didn’t show a yellow card. So he followed the same criteria.
“Lucas Boye is a fighter, he is really physical and he uses his body. He adapted really well to the Championship and I thought it was better not to expose him to the chance he might get a yellow card so I took him off.
“I’m happy because from the bench I watched my team playing very positive football. Both teams were playing open football and were trying to win.
“For the way we controlled the ball in the offensive half we should have scored more goals. It would have been so unfair if we went back to Reading with no points.
“It’s a very important point, if we couldn’t win at least we got a point and in the way we played.”
Reading defender Andy Yiadom struck late to deny Swansea victory after Borja Baston’s opener.
The Swans would have gone back to the top of the table if they had clung on to Borja’s graceful headed opener in the third minute, but they failed to make their dominance pay.
It’s a careless habit that has left them without a win in their last three league games.
