There was little to separate Spurs and Villarreal on Tuesday night, and manager Marcelino thinks his side were on the wrong end of a couple of referee decisions.
Spurs scraped a 1-0 win in their Champions League opener, courtesy of a fourth-minute own goal by the Spanish side.
The teams were evenly matched for the remainder of the game, but the Villarreal manager thinks certain important decisions should have gone their way.
After the game, he wasn’t shy about pointing out the specific instances.
Marcelino not happy with referee over Xavi Simons and Micky van de Ven decisions
Before Tuesday’s clash, Marcelino praised Spurs for their intensity and aggression, but over the course of the 90 minutes, he didn’t appreciate it quite as much.
After the loss, he honed in on two decisions he felt should have gone Villarreal’s way.
As is reported on Villarreal’s official website, he said: “We all saw those cards. The second one (the foul on Mikautadze when he was the last man through on goal) has no explanation. I don’t understand how an international referee, officiating a Champions League match, in such a clear action, cannot show a red card.
“The first one (Simons’ second yellow) is also obvious because he had no chance of playing the ball, but the referee gave it, and we have to accept it.”
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He’s not the only one who thinks so.
Former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg agrees on Simons, claiming the referee made a mistake. But as a yellow card offence, VAR had no recourse to intervene.
Marcelino feels strongly that his team have been hard done by.
On the result, he had this to say: ““When you lose, you are never happy, especially when you look at what happened during the game. The defeat is not fair, but football is about goals and in this case Tottenham scored one more than us.”
Thomas Frank disagrees on van de Ven
Thomas Frank’s view on the van de Ven incident was much different, as he explained after the game.
The incident occurred when Georges Mikautadze was bearing down on goal and the Dutch defender brought him to the ground.
Frank said: “It didn’t look top. I needed a bit of hope. I’ve seen it back; he is clearly outside the box, and he was a little bit ahead.”
As for the Simons incident, Frank may not be so convinced. But the result went the way of Spurs, and the rest has faded in importance.
All focus will now shift to Brighton at the weekend.
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