Head coach Steve Cooper was left “biting his tongue” over the referee’s performance in Nottingham Forest’s 1-0 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
A Ruben Neves penalty proved to be the difference between the two sides at Molineux. It was given after referee Thomas Bramall went to his pitchside monitor after a lengthy VAR check, penalising Harry Toffolo for a handball.
A similar incident in the first half, however, saw nothing given when a Neco Williams shot was blocked. But the Reds did have the opportunity to equalise late on, when Matheus Nunes was punished for a foul on Ryan Yates.
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There was another considerable stoppage for a VAR check, with the spot-kick eventually given. However, Brennan Johnson saw his effort saved by Jose Sa, leaving Cooper’s side to slip back to the bottom of the table.
“We know the referee well from last season. We had him in the Championship,” the Forest boss said. “We know the differences of what you can get with him. So we knew that was part of what we had to deal with today.
“I haven’t looked at them back absolutely clearly. The fact of the matter is they’ve had one (penalty) and scored, and we’ve had one and missed.
“My focus really is on the performance. We were decent enough without the ball in the first half, but we were nowhere near good enough with the ball - turned it over too easily and didn’t make enough passes when there was a real opportunity to do that against how Wolves set up.
“That’s where my real annoyance is, in terms of today. We talked about it at half-time, about how defensively we looked solid enough. I know they had territory and possession, but we talked about if they were going to break through it was going to be down the sides, so we had to deal with the crosses - I thought we did that well, which was part of the plan.
“What we didn’t do was look after the ball well enough, be brave enough and be creative enough when we got it. The message at half-time was to keep going with the defending but improve with the ball. Unfortunately, it’s taken us going 1-0 down for us to start playing, to start getting up the pitch and start looking like we could threaten on their goal.
“We had decent moments with set-pieces, and with the penalty and Yatesy’s header, but we’ve not managed to take them. The result is the frustrating bit and the most disappointing bit, but I try to analyse the performance as well - and some of the first half in-possession stuff wasn’t what it should be.”
Asked if he felt the visitors should have had a penalty from Williams’ effort, Cooper said: “We know the ref well from last year, particularly when you get him at home. I better leave that there.”
And he added about the length of time it took for the referee to make a decision: “The first one, I think, especially. That’s why I’m biting my tongue, really, on how I feel about it, because if it’s taking that long and it’s not given in the first place, then it tells you something. But then there’s obviously influence and surroundings, and all that sort of stuff. As soon as that happened, because we knew who was there today, then I knew we were in trouble in that moment.”
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