Derby boss Paul Warne feels ‘cheated’ after Bristol Rovers draw

Derby manager Paul Warne said he felt “cheated” after the Rams’ promotion prospects suffered a setback in a 1-1 draw with Bristol Rovers at the Memorial Stadium.

Warne’s team were heading into the play-off zone thanks to David McGoldrick’s early goal until the visitors were denied all three points as Antony Evans equalised with a stoppage-time penalty.

But Warne insisted that referee Ollie Yates was wrong to award a penalty after Harvey White was adjudged to have fouled fellow substitute Evans in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

“For the first time in my career I feel like I’ve been cheated,” Warne said.

“I’m beyond rage and in fairness to the bloke who abused the living daylights out of me when I went to clap the fans, I get his frustration.

“But that decision killed our team. I’m not saying they didn’t deserve a point for how they played but that was definitely not a penalty.

“To get that decision is an absolute disgrace, I’m not a bad loser but that is an absolute stink.

“I’ve just said to the lads, it’s like the world is against you because that decision has kept us out of the play-offs. But we’ve got to use it as motivation.”

Warne added: “I watched the goal back and it’s definitely not a penalty and when I spoke to Joey Barton at the end he agreed with me.

“It’s hugely frustrating to have drawn because of a made-up penalty which just kills me because it feels as though we’ve been cheated of two points.

“We were resolute because Rovers are a very well coached side with plenty of good players and they really came at us.

“We sat in because we’re not here to entertain and we limited them in attack.

“We’ve been on the end of so many horrendous decisions this season I’m losing the will to live.”

Rovers boss Barton insisted that the penalty decision ensured that justice was done.

“I saw two players coming together so I’m not sure about the decision as I only got a split-second view of what happened,” Barton said.

“It might not have been a penalty but I’m not going to say we didn’t deserve it because that would have been a smash and grab raid if Derby had held on.

“They were forced to sit back, and we had them on the ropes for large parts of the game.

“So if we’d lost we wouldn’t have got what we deserved but we made them look distinctly average.

“They were trying to see the game out towards the end and they were time-wasting so I’m actually disappointed that we didn’t win the game.”