Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Conor Coady has criticised the standard of Premier League referees after Raul Jimenez was controversially sent off against Leeds United on Friday night.
With Wolves leading 2-0, Jimenez was fractionally late in a challenge with goalkeeper Illan Meslier, who had left his penalty area to try to claim the ball.
The subsequent collision led to Meslier being forced off through injury, with referee Kevin Friend taking the decision to hand the Mexico international a second yellow card.
Leeds came back to win 3-2 at Molineux, scoring the decisive goal in added-on time, and Coady admitted after the game that he had been left infuriated with the judgment call from the official, who was unable to be assisted by VAR due to the challenge not being worthy of a red card.
The Wolves captain is quoted by BBC Sport as saying: "I don't know where he's meant to go – he's not invisible, he can't go through the keeper. I don't know where he's meant to go or what he's meant to do.
"For me this is happening every single game for one team or another – it's happening to different teams – where these sort of decisions are happening and killing teams, and that's what it has done for us.
"We still created the odd chance on the counter-attack but the red card plays a massive part in it [the result] – if somebody tells me it doesn't, they are lying. It was a fantastic game of football and, again we are talking about referees and it should never be the case in this league."
While Wolves remain eighth, missing out on the chance to move into sixth, Leeds are now seven points clear of the relegation zone.
Darren Plant
