Paul Ince says referee was ‘absolutely total joke’ after Reading lose at Burnley

Paul Ince described referee Jeremy Simpson as “a joke, an absolutely total joke” in a furious outburst after his Reading side suffered a 2-1 Championship defeat at Burnley and had two penalty appeals turned down.

The Royals boss saw his team lose to Anass Zaroury’s winner in the fourth minute of added time after Manuel Benson had cancelled out his son Tom’s opener for the visitors, to make it four defeats from five.

Ince was booked for strongly protesting that Josh Brownhill had handled the ball with the game poised at 1-1.

But he was incandescent that Simpson and his assistant both missed Maatsen’s foul on Tom, in the second minute of added time with the scores still level.

Ince could not contain himself afterwards, saying: “I’m going to have to say it. The referee is a joke, absolute total joke, and that’s why we’ve come away with nothing.

“I don’t have a go at referees because it’s a tough job, but as much as I have to be in front of you guys (the media) and be accountable, they should do the same.

“The penalty on Thomas is a blatant penalty. I can understand the one before that when Brownhill has handballed it as there’s a lot of people there, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

“But when it came to the 92nd minute and Thomas is running in the box and Maatsen fouls him and the AR (assistant referee) is 15 yards from the right-hand side and has a great view of it, and the referee is 20 yards behind him, and they haven’t got the balls to make a decision for us to go on and win a game.

“If we had scored the pen…then they go up and get the winner. That’s what makes me angry.

“They’ll probably say ‘I need to have a look at it and get back to you’ but that’s no good to me because I’ve got to go down the motorway now, five hours feeling like I’ve been robbed by the officials.

“If that had been at the other end he probably couldn’t wait to give it.

“The typing is, the referees don’t get to watch it four, five times like we do with the laptop and we say ‘deffo a pen’ but the fact is that when the AR is there and can see it perfectly and hasn’t got the balls to make the right decision, that makes me angry. I’m angry for the players because it was a great performance and they deserved a lot, lot more.

“Listen, we’ll probably get (a reply), ‘we got it wrong, we got it wrong, we’ve seen it again and it was a penalty’. That’s no bloody good to me, no bloody good to my players, our fans and our club.

“I feel like I’ve been conned by the referees today and that’s what makes me angry.”

The frustration boiled over as Tom Ince’s challenge on Benson brought an angry reaction from the Burnley players after Zaroury’s winner, with Ince and Clarets goalkeeper Aro Muric being booked as players got into a shoving match.

That brought a bad-tempered ending to a match that had been on a slow-burning fuse, finally exploding into life after 56 minutes when Ince capitalised on a Taylor Harwood-Bellis mistake to fire the visitors ahead.

Burnley reacted strongly, and the arrival of Benson as substitute was inspired.

He volleyed in the equaliser from the edge of the area and then, in the fourth of seven added minutes, drove at the defence and clipped a cross to the far post where Zaroury headed in the winner.

Burnley manager Vincent Kompany offered Ince some sympathy after admitting that his side had escaped a penalty for the Maatsen foul.

“Yes, it was a penalty, I can’t offer any more than that,” he said.

“It was a penalty – it doesn’t help him (Ince) for me saying it, but in our situation, in a couple of other games we felt we could have had a penalty, so it evens it up a little bit. That doesn’t comfort him enough.”

The Clarets boss was delighted that his team fought back from a goal down to take the points and make it four wins out five: “It ticks a box for us. The glue of us is coming together.

“We had early-season disappointments of conceding late on and had to come back from that, which means turning up again in the next game.

“Now we have a situation where it didn’t go our way for whatever reason but have got a late win.”

Zaroury’s late winner delighted Kompany after he had given the winger some useful advice: “I keep telling the wingers that they can score winners like he did at Sunderland – in the top corner – and you will get four or five a season.

“But tap-ins in at the back post will get you 15 to 20 a season. It’s good that he scores these goals now because those are the ones that will give him numbers.”