Leicester City manager Steve Cooper believes the standard of refereeing in the Premier League is ‘behind the curve’ of the standard of football.
Cooper, who appeared to be booked by referee David Coote as his side fell to a 2-1 home defeat to Aston Villa in a game that saw nine players also shown a yellow card, as well as his assistant Alan Tate for remonstrating with Coote at half-time, says he goes into every game with his fingers crossed that his side will not fall foul of decisions.
Coote approached the Leicester technical area in the second half and brandished a yellow towards Cooper after Leicester had a penalty appeal rightly waved away after a Youri Tielemans’ challenge on Jamie Vardy inside the Villa penalty area as Leicester chased an equaliser, but Tielemans’ challenge kicked the ball into touch, only for Coote to award Villa the throw-in. Harry Winks was also booked for dissent.
“I think everybody in this stadium would have got booked if he (Coote) could have got round to it,” Cooper said afterward.
“I’ve just accepted that the refereeing is where it is. I’ve done it before, I’ve said things and ended up being jumped on and getting fined and all of that sort of stuff in front of the panels. But I’m not going to do that.
“What I do know is you just keep your fingers crossed because of where refereeing is. You keep your fingers crossed every week that it doesn’t go against you on a given day or given game day.
“I sort of realised that more last season when I was away from the game. When I’m looking at games more neutrally in terms of analysing and you see clearly that it’s definitely behind the curve of the Premier League, which is the best in the world without any shadow of a doubt in terms of domestic football.
“But the refereeing for a number of years has been trying to catch up with that.
“So, you sort of just accept that this is how it is. This is part of our modern game and it’s a little bit out of your control.
“But you have to keep your fingers crossed that, you know, week in week out that it doesn’t doesn’t affect you.”
Aston Villa’s opening goal came from a well-worked and inventive free kick routine, which was finished by Amadou Onana midway through the first half, but Cooper disputed the award of the free kick for a robust challenge by Oliver Skipp, who appeared to get the ball..
“I won’t lak about individual decisions but I will talk about the manager’s meeting that we had in the preseason,” he added.
“About the club visits that you have from Referees Association, the FA, LMA, Premier League – everyone else that’s involved, and the clear message to the players and to the staff was that the threshold of tackles and duals, the threshold of this beautiful English game that we love, that’s on intensity and competitiveness, I remember it clearly now him saying the threshold of tackles and duals was going to be raised?
“And then we get that (9 yellow cards). Then I go back to, ‘well, OK,’ it’s just another reminder of where we are with refereeing.”
GO DEEPER
Why Leicester have spent big on Bilal El Khannouss
(Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
