Fulham Boss Jean Tigana could not hide the disappointment
he felt after the 74th-minute incident which he felt cost his side at least
a point.
Boro defender Franck Queudrue's lucky escape from what seemed an inevitable
sending-off 15 minutes from time became the pivotal moment of a match that
had been swinging Fulham's way since half-time.
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"The
referee is the same as a player and can make a mistake. "But
I have to disagree with that last action |
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Full back Queudrue, perhaps pumped-up after becoming a father for the first
time at the weekend, had already been booked for bringing down John Collins
when he floored Barry Hayles just outside Boro's area.
Fulham's leading scorer swiftly recovered his feet and prepared to strike
but, to Tigana's astonishment, sympathetic referee Dermot Gallagher stopped
play - only to let the French defender off with a short lecture and no
second card.
Tigana was not so much stunned at Queudrue's good fortune but that Gallagher
had halted play merely to warn his compatriot when Fulham had been poised
to snatch the lead their enterprising second-half play had long threatened
"The referee, the same as a player, can make a mistake. "But I
have to disagree with that last action because I don't understand why he
stopped the game when we had an advantage.
"We had the chance to score, and normally if you stop the game, you
give a yellow card.
'For me, that was a mistake, a very big mistake, because it is a rule. We
had the ball and we could have scored. I'm not able to explain it to my
team.
'If he'd sent the player off, we could have sent another striker on. That
changed the game.
Tigana shepherded his players away from the referee at the end of the game
in an attempt to prevent any of them picking up a red card for arguing their
case, but left with his own questions unanswered.