Millwall manager Alex Neil expressed deep frustration after officials allowed a chain of incidents to unfold that ultimately led to Southampton being awarded a penalty in Millwall’s 3–2 victory.
The spot kick came 10 minutes into the second half when Jake Cooper was judged to have tugged Taylor Harwood-Bellis as Ryan Manning’s corner swung in.
Neil blasted the inconsistency, pointing out that in Sheffield United’s recent match against Derby, officials repeatedly stopped play to prevent players from grappling in the box.
“Anyone who watched Sheffield United vs Derby will know they halted things three times because players were holding each other,” Neil said. “They stepped in to avoid giving a penalty. Today, they didn’t—and to make it worse, their goalkeeper went down twice in the first half.”
Adam Armstrong buried the penalty to give Saints the lead against the flow of the game, but Millwall responded brilliantly, twice coming from behind before Tristan Crama snatched a dramatic late winner.
Neil insisted the contact for the penalty wasn’t severe enough to meet this season’s increased threshold for fouls and referenced other matches to highlight the inconsistency.
“Their player in the middle six fell over twice and won fouls both times. It’s something they do regularly—we saw it in their set-play footage,” he added. “If it’s a penalty, fine, but the tolerance level this season has been much higher.”
“We’ve seen officials pause play to prevent these situations. In one game, the fourth official even told me they were stopping it to avoid giving penalties. Today, they didn’t bother.”
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