‘An absolute disgrace’: Portsmouth boss John Mousinho slams refereeing display after Birmingham City controversy
There was plenty of controversy during Pompey’s dead-rubber season finale against Birmingham City on Saturday.
John Mousinho has slammed referee John Brooks after huge controversy during Saturday’s season finale against Birmingham City.
And the head coach felt let down by the official after Adrian Segecic was confronted by a host of Blues players as tempers boiled over at Fratton Park.
After a tame first 80 minutes at PO4, with the scores levelled at 1-1, the final-day contest sprung into life as players from both sides were involved in a mass altercation.
Segecic was quickest to react and latched onto an effort, which curled just over the bar.
What followed was a mass confrontation between both sides, with Osayi-Samuel, Beadle and Phil Neumann appearing to initially shove the 21-year-old before tempers flared involving most of the players on the pitch.
The drama even spilled onto the dugout, with Chris Davies and his staff also infuriated by the Pompey forward’s actions.
Referee Brooks then proceeded to dish out bookings to Segecic and Osayi-Samuel as well as Mousinho and his fellow counterpart.
And the head coach has called the official’s performance ‘an absolute disgrace’ as he felt his players were left exposed by the man in the middle after the mass altercation.
Pompey boss slams ‘poor’ refereeing display in Birmingham draw
Speaking to The News, he said: ‘With the Birmingham player down and we had the ball, there was a lot of noise that it was a head injury, which it wasn’t so the game wasn’t stopped.
‘Possession got turned over, Birmingham then had a counter attack and decided not to put the ball out because they had a dangerous attack, which is fine but could’ve done if they wanted to.
‘Once the game died down, the referee decided to stop it and Birmingham put the ball out.
‘Our instructions to the lads was to throw the ball back to Birmingham, give the ball back and we did exactly that to the right back and it just completely stopped.
‘I’m not entirely sure what Segs is supposed to do, just retreat to the six-yard box?
‘So Osayi-Samuel just stops, Beadle just starts walking so at that point the ball is in play, let's go.
‘I thought Segs was well within his right to do what he did, I thought the response to that was an absolute disgrace and I thought the referee handled it really, really poorly.
‘So there’s five Birmingham players who go for Segs. My understanding of the laws, actually forget the laws, I want my player to be protected and he wasn’t protected at all in the moment.
‘Next thing I turn around and Birmingham’s entire bench is in my technical area. I didn’t think that was allowed but apparently we can do what we want.
‘I got booked for some reason, I don’t know what I was supposed to do, just keep retreating? And Segs gets booked as well.
‘I spoke to the referee after the game and he completely disagreed with me but I thought it was a really poor moment.’
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