Brooding Stoke boss Hughes: Why Atkinson working this weekend?!

Published on: 01 December 2017

Stoke City boss Mark Hughes says ref Martin Atkinson should have the weekend off.

Hughes is still angry with Atkinson after failing to send off Simon Mignolet against Stoke on Wednesday.

"It should be recognised that referees make mistakes," Hughes said. "I don't see why he should be refereeing this weekend.

"I thought that was part of the process, but clearly it isn't. If we make wrong decisions, or by our actions we are deemed to have made mistakes, we usually get pulled up by the FA, or the powers that be.

"That doesn't seem to happen on too many occasions with referees.

"I didn't expect him not to have a game this weekend because he is viewed as one of the top referees."

Mignolet even confessed to bringing down the Stoke forward on purpose to aid his team in a post-match interview with the BBC.

Hughes added: "My feelings reflect everybody else's view, the ex-referees who reviewed it, and everybody in the stadium apart from one.

"It was a huge moment for us clearly because at that point we were in the ascendancy and needed a bit of help from the officials and didn't get it.

"Those are the decisions that frustrate me as a manager and other managers.

"Why it wasn't made I don't know. It was a pretty straightforward decision in my view.

"Every man and his dog said he should have been sent off. Just the moral situation demanded that because Mame would have tapped the ball into an empty net: 1-1, game on."

Source: tribalfootball.com

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