Colchester United get feedback from EFL referee chief over key decisions in Chesterfield defeat
Colchester United have been told that the decision to award Chesterfield’s penalty in their 3-0 win in midweek was incorrect.
Will Grigg scored from the spot after Harvey Araujo was penalised for handball after blocking Ryan Stirk’s cross which made it 1-0. Araujo claimed it hit his shoulder, as did manager Danny Cowley after the game, and the EFL’s head of refereeing, Mike Jones, agreed.
Cowley was honest enough to admit that his team were beaten by the better side on the night but felt decisions went against Colchester.
“I got a phone call from Mike Jones on Wednesday morning,” Cowley told the Daily Gazette. “He’s really honest, Mike; he’s really trying to help his referees and it’s not easy for him.
“I don’t want to make too much of it, because I believe you earn your own luck in football and we didn’t do that, so we’re not looking to blame anyone else but ourselves. But he phoned and he said the penalty is never a penalty. It came off his (Harvey Araujo’s) shoulder blade and you can see that from the trajectory of the ball. There’s a great angle front-on that shows that it hits his shoulder.
“The law now with handball is quite ambiguous in that anything below the t-shirt line is deemed handball and this was clearly on the shoulder blade and if you look at the referee’s position, he could not see it so he must have guessed and you can’t guess these big decisions.”
Colchester also felt they should have been awarded a penalty of their own just moments before Chesterfield doubled ther lead.
Cowley continued: “Then the second one is 100 per cent a foul on Kyreece Lisbie. Now, the foul starts outside the area and carries on inside the area. The best referees would play the advantage and then it would lead to the penalty but even if you just give a foul that’s so obvious on the edge of the area then they don’t break and score the second and the game can be very different.
“But like I said, we didn’t earn our luck so we didn’t deserve any and we certainly didn’t get any.”
Chesterfield are back in action on Saturday at home to Shrewsbury Town.