Sheffield United coach discusses referee's 'response' after Blades robbed of victory at Blackpool
Sheffield United’s coaching staff and players alike were incensed after two seemingly-legitimate goals were chalked off in their goalless draw at Blackpool on Wednesday night.
An early header from Sander Berge was chalked off after the Norwegian midfielder was flagged offside, despite him appearing to be onside, before Ollie Norwood’s later strike was also disallowed by a late flag.
That goal took a nick off Jack Robinson on the way in, but the defender was comfortably onside and revealed afterwards that the referee Geoff Eltringham didn’t know who the ball had deflected off, but disallowed the goal anyway.
Paul Heckingbottom said after the game that he was hoping to see Eltringham to discuss his decisions.
And asked ahead of tomorrow’s derby against Barnsley at Bramall Lane whether he had received any answers, United coach Jack Lester said: “We went to find them, and they’d already gone.
“And it was probably good that they had. It was really disappointing, I must say.
“With the games we’ve had, we’ve asked the players to go again and again and again, Blackpool had scored in 14 consecutive games and we kept them to nil and then it was a case of, can we grab one?
“We did, and it didn’t count. It’s not making excuses but that was poor for us on the night.”
Victory would have seen United go back into the top six, but they instead dropped to ninth after Nottingham Forest beat play-off rivals QPR.
United can go up to fourth again tomorrow with victory in the early-kick off against Barnsley.