John Askey has major concerns about the officiating at Conference level after Macclesfield dropped two points at Nuneaton.
He lays much of the blame at the feet of the match officials, who missed a challenge that left Chris Holroyd grounded, his absence allowing Adam Dawson to snatch an injury-time equaliser.
While he was scratching his head in disbelief at the red card shown to Alex Grant in the cup replay at Wrexham, the Silkmen boss was visibly furious at Nuneaton when a nasty gash to the shin saw Holroyd unable to track back with his man, who put the ball in Rhys Taylor’s goal.
“The standard of refereeing is really poor,” he said. “The standard at Wrexham was awful, as is proved by the DVD and today, you need to see the state of Chris’s leg.
“If that’s not a foul I don’t know what is.
“They’ve booted one out for a corner and he gave a goal kick at one stage!
“And we’ve had three players booked for nothing and I don’t know how many fouls Nuneaton gave away but I think they’ve had one booking, there’s something not quite right, it’s just incompetence.”
But there were positive points for Askey, who watched his players dominate their hosts, inspired in part by the return of Danny Whitaker (above).
“Danny has done great, considering he’s only had a week in training, full credit to him for looking after himself and to the physio who’s got him back. To do 90 minutes in his first game and never look to flag is great credit to him, he looked as though he’d never been away.
“The positive we have to take is that that’s as well as we’ve done going forward all season, apart from putting the ball in the back of the net.”
