Phil Hay has claimed that Stuart Attwell’s refereeing display during Leeds United’s draw this weekend was not the reason they failed to win.
A lot has been made of Attwell’s performance at Elland Road on Sunday afternoon as he sent off Luis Sinisterra, while failing to caution Leon Bailey for a similar incident earlier on in the game and address their opponents’ time-wasting, in the eyes of Jesse Marsch.
However, the second yellow card for Sinisterra can’t be argued about as he stopped a free kick after failing to retreat the required distance, and Hay has gone on to defend Attwell, arguing Leeds’ shortcomings were in spite of the referee’s performance.
Hay was speaking about Attwell on The Phil Hay Show and how his refereeing display wasn’t the reason Leeds should’ve been left frustrated at full-time on Sunday.
He said: “For all that Attwell was influential in a negative way, I didn’t really feel that in the first half, he was restricting a Leeds masterclass. I don’t think that’s what it was shaping up to be and I don’t think that’s what we were going to see.
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“But I do think at half-time, it was pretty well-placed for Leeds to win the game with an improvement after half-time – and the Sinisterra red card just killed that completely.”
TIF Thoughts on Leeds’ latest performance…
Granted, Leeds had to play the majority of the second half with just 10 men, but the Whites hardly troubled Emiliano Martinez in the Villa goal, with just a single shot on target and finished the game with an expected goals total of 0.3 (as per FBref).
This is despite Sinisterra, Rodrigo, Jack Harrison, Brenden Aaronson and Patrick Bamford all being handed minutes – something that will have likely frustrated the suspended Jesse Marsch.
Hay does label Attwell’s performance negative, but instead of heaping all the blame onto the official, he instead directed a lot of it towards Leeds and their players for failing to put in a good enough performance of their own accord.