Reading boss Leam Richardson was furious at the controversial decision to rule out Paudie O’Connor’s superb first-half bicycle kick that cost the Royals in a 2-1 Carabao Cup defeat by Brentford.
O’Connor acrobatically directed the ball into the net but referee Tom Nield and the officials disallowed the goal for a high boot, denying the hosts an equaliser after Callum Wilson had fired the opener for the Premier League club.
Fabio Carvalho notched Brentford’s second before O’Connor was on target to set up a nervy final 18 minutes with both sides missing chances.
Richardson said: “I genuinely mean this – I think that is possibly in the top three (wrong) decisions that I’ve seen in my career. And I’ve seen thousands of games and played in hundreds. They’re the easy decisions for me.
“And then the handball at the bottom end. I’m not saying we win the game and I never really come out and criticise officials, but when it starts happening too regularly, you start getting really concerned.
“The lads worked too hard through the week and worked too hard on the pitch….we expect them to get their decisions right.”
Brentford are through to the fourth round but boss Keith Andrews admitted it was far from a routine assignment against League One opponents who recovered quickly after falling behind after just 136 seconds.
Andrews said: “It was a cup game. There were some really good bits, some parts we could have done better.
“There’s obviously two teams involved and it was a big night for them. We’re a Premier League team coming to town but it’s never going to be an easy game for us. At times we didn’t make it easy for ourselves.
“You’ve got to earn the right to win games. You’ve got to do the basics of the game. Set-pieces were a problem for us.
“The way they challenged us, we weren’t as physically strong as maybe we normally are.
“Some of that’s probably down to me and the team selection but I felt it was the right team to start.”
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