stoke city football club - QPR v Stoke City 28NOV23 SKYBET Championship game at the 2023/24 - © phil greig 2023 - created by phil greig greigphoto.com for stokecityfc.com
Loftus Road reacts after 10-man Stoke City lose to Queens Park Rangers under questionable circumstances.
Alex Neil was extremely dissatisfied with referee James Linington’s performance as 10-man Stoke City lost to Queens Park Rangers. In a fiery post-match press conference at Loftus Road, he outlined three major grievances, which you can read in full here.
I think the place to start is the fact that I thought it was two horrific decisions that changed the complexion of the game. The first one, if you’re seen the penalty back, it’s as soft a penalty as you’re likely to get, says Alex Neil
I thought in the second half, one on Ciaran Clark was far, far worse. He gets the wrong side of their lad, the ball comes in but he doesn’t get a penalty for that at 2-1. If we get the penalty for that it changes the complexion of the game again.
Then there’s the really, really soft send-off. Very soft. Both decisions struck me as quite awful.
The issue you have is that some officials want to be the center of attention rather than allowing the game to play out and simply manage it.
The number of bookings given out in this game this evening was astonishing. I don’t believe there was a bad tackle in the game; I can’t recall any. I thought both teams competed, that they tried, and that it wasn’t a bad game by any means. I can’t think of any horrible tackles. And how many bookings were there? It’s crazy for a game when there isn’t a single bad tackle.
Neil expressed frustration, especially given the number of penalties Stoke has been denied this season. He mentioned, “Seven is the number of penalties (PGMOL reviews say) we should have had. That will be eight tonight.” He criticized the referee’s decision on the second yellow, describing it as “soft as anything” and questioned the overall fairness of decisions throughout the game. Despite feeling the world was against them, Neil highlighted Stoke’s strong performance, even with 10 men, and lamented the costly mistakes that led to goals.
