Steve Cooper frustrated by Andrew Madley causing Chelsea defeat: ‘We’ve had a tough season with this referee’

Leicester City manager Steve Cooper has criticized the standard of refereeing in the Premier League after his side suffered a controversial 2-1 home defeat to Chelsea.

Cooper was angry when Leicester were denied a penalty in the second half when former Leicester defender Wesley Fofana collided with substitute Stephy Mavididi in the penalty area.

Referee Andrew Madley waved away Leicester’s appeals and VAR checked the challenge but ruled there was no foul without giving Madley a chance to view the incident on the pitch monitor.

The incident was shown on the big screen at the King Power Stadium and prompted an angry reaction from Cooper, who was later shown a yellow card for criticizing the substitute linesman over a number of decisions and for initially offsides substitute Bobby DeCordova-Reid had stated before being tripped by Benoit. Badiashile in the area.

This time VAR intervened and correctly ruled that DeCordova-Reid was onside.

“You need moments to go for you when you play against teams like Chelsea, when you’re a team like us,” Cooper said.

“It’s about taking our moments and hoping that moments like referees’ decisions (go your way) and games are refereed the right way.

“Even the penalty that is given is given when he is half a meter away. With this referee we have had a tough season this year.

“I saw it on the screen (in the stadium). It was the first thing I was asked about (after the game), bad decisions.

“There’s nothing we can do about it now other than maybe officially talking to whoever we need to talk to and hoping that things in general can get to the level we all want them to be to help the game.”

Cooper speculated that his booking may have been in response to the way the officials performed.

“I think this was probably a bit of self-protection for the officials about how they were doing at the time, rather than actually for what I could have said because I didn’t know,” he said.

Cooper also expressed bafflement as to why Madley was not asked to review the Fofana challenge.

“I think that will probably be as big a talking point as the poor decision, how inconsistent that seems to be, as well as the things on the pitch, and the whole VAR debate goes on and on,” he said.

“They don’t half cause problems for themselves and everyone wants to help them too, to help them get better. But when you’re on the wrong side, it’s so frustrating.”

Cooper said he sympathized with Howard Webb, the technical director of the Professional Match Officials’ Board, following the controversy surrounding referee David Coote and the publication of a video in which he spoke derogatorily about former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

“I don’t just want to talk about the decisions. I’ll give you an honest analysis of the game, but at the same time this was the last thing the PGMOL needed this weekend, not only a game with such performance, but also the first game.

“So I feel bad for Howard this weekend, you know, with everything they just needed a really clean week. I hope today isn’t the start of the rest of the weekend. I’m sure it won’t be that bad.

“I don’t want to get into one specific thing. It (Coote) has certainly been topical, and referees this season. Everyone wants it to be at the level it should be.

“I think international breaks give you a chance to talk about other things and that has been referees. Unfortunately, that will also be the case when they talk about this game.”

Leicester, 16th in the table after Saturday’s defeat, return to action at Brentford next Saturday.

GO DEEPER

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(Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)