Coyle anger after being denied victory (From Leigh Journal)

Coyle anger after being denied victory

7:20am Monday 8th February 2010 in

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OWEN Coyle could not hide his frustration after being controversially denied victory against Fulham.

Kevin Davies looked to have sealed three valuable points when he headed home in the last minute in his 500th career appearance.

But referee Mark Clattenburg mysteriously adjudged the Wanderers skipper to have pushed defender Brede Hangeland and disallowed the ‘goal’.

It was a decision which left Coyle –— and everyone else who saw it apart from the official and Cottagers boss Roy Hodgson — baffled.

“We scored a very good goal in the game,” said a stunned Bolton manager. “Everybody in the stadium knew it was a good goal bar one man.

“That’s hard to take and leaves a bad taste in the mouth because it’s clearly a terrific goal.

“I went to see the referee and he told me he’d clearly seen Kevin Davies pushing with two hands.

“I’ve seen the replay and there’s no two hands that I’ve seen.

“The referee has seen something which clearly didn’t happen and that’s resulted in us getting one point instead of three.

“I think sometimes Kevin’s reputation goes against him.”

Clattenburg’s blunder aside, Coyle was happy with his side’s efforts. He added: “The first half was quite even without being pleasing on the eye, although we had a couple of chances and hit the bar.

“But we really raised the pace second half and had numerous opportunities. Johan Elmander had a terrific chance and so did Chung-Yong Lee.

“There’s a lot of positives to take, including another clean sheet, but it’s just galling because it should have been three points.”

Hodgson, unsurprisingly, felt Clattenburg had made the correct call in the game’s decisive moment.

“I congratulate the referee on the strength of his decision,” he said.

“Having watched the video I think he was right and having spoken to Brede who, in his opinion, was just about to head the ball away when he felt the push and was knocked over.

“Of course you wouldn’t expect me to say anything other than it was a good decision and I won’t be expecting Owen Coyle to say anything other than ‘we were robbed’.”

The Fulham chief was delighted with a point at the Reebok after his injury-hit side rarely mustered an attempt on goal all afternoon.

He added: “We had seven players missing and some of those seven players are our most talented players.

“It was a barrage of projectiles flying in and around the penalty area, so we needed people to stand up and for the shape of the team to be right.

“Bolton put us to the test and I’m delighted we rode our luck a little bit. I thought they had far and away the better goal chances in the game but we’ve got a very good goalkeeper and a determined and resilient team.”