Stockport boss Dave Challinor left north Wales fuming at the officials’ performance in their 1-0 defeat at Wrexham.
The hosts moved to second in League One as Jay Rodriguez scored at the second time of asking after referee Simon Mather awarded a controversial first-half penalty.
A late second yellow card for defender Brad Hills did little to improve the Stockport manager’s mood but it was the penalty decision – eventually given for handball against Ibou Touray, after a lengthy discussion with the linesman – that had Challinor fuming.
“I’m not going to get myself in trouble by saying what I truly believe,” said Challinor.
“My argument will be ‘what have you seen? If you believe there’s a foul, wave your flag’. I’ve been told that they’re not supposed to do that anymore, you should talk to each other on comms.
“Regardless of that, it’s never a penalty. For the linesman to get involved on the far side of the pitch and do nothing else in the game has cost us.
“It’s not cost us three points because we weren’t good enough to score, but it’s cost us a point.
“It’s another really poor decision in my eyes where we’re not talking about two teams that are playing football. We’re talking about a third team, and it will continue, and we might get another apology around decisions.
“Unfortunately, promotion and relegation – and people’s jobs – will be decided by people in black outfits.
“It completely changed the momentum of the game. We were totally on top in the first half, although we didn’t create lots of opportunities.
“But these games are always tight and they’re normally separated by a moment of quality, or a mistake or a decision, and that has been the case today.”
County midfielder Callum Camps left the ground on crutches after his first-half injury while Wrexham’s James McClean was reportedly involved in a half-time altercation with a visiting supporter.
Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson was delighted with the performance of his match-winner, who hit his first goal for the club. The January signing kept his cool to squeeze in the rebound after County keeper Corey Addai had saved his spot-kick.
“Jay has had a long period of coming off the bench at Burnley,” he said. “He’s getting fitter and stronger all the time but when you go from being a sub to playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday it’s tough.
“But he gives us a lot. With this week’s training I felt he was looking really sharp and he was ready.
“That’s five clean sheets in the last six games for us. Clean sheets come from a lot of factors. It’s the structure of the team and a buy-in from the group to work out of possession, right from the front.
“We’ve restricted Stockport to very little over the game, and it was always going to be a match of few chances because they’re well organised. Dave’s got a great team there and they’re very hard to break down.
“We’ve got eight games to go. There’s a lot of football to be played, but this has helped us on our way.”
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