Nottingham Forest have expressed their anger over three decisions which went against them during Sunday afternoon’s 2-0 Premier League defeat at Everton.
A rare goal from Idrissa Gueye was followed by a similar long-range strike from Dwight McNeil on his 200th Premier League appearance to secure a second-successive home win for the Toffees – sandwiching Monday’s 6-0 debacle at Chelsea – and lift Sean Dyche’s side five points clear of the bottom three in the Premier League table.
But Toffees defender Ashley Young lived a charmed life after appearing somewhat fortunate to escape three penalty claims against him, which the visitors felt were all more than justified.
Match referee Anthony Taylor waved away their appeals and was backed by VAR Stuart Attwell, leading to an extraordinary statement from the club on social media.
A post on the club’s official X account read: “Three extremely poor decisions – three penalties not given – which we simply cannot accept.
“We warned the PGMOL that the VAR is a Luton fan before the game, but they didn’t change him. Our patience has been tested multiple times.
“NFFC will now consider its options.”
Forest now sit just one point above the relegation zone with four games of the Premier League season remaining.
Nuno: Not for the first time
Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo told Sky Sports afterwards: “We’ve tried to ignore it but so many times it’s repeating – bad decisions against us...not given.
“It’s very difficult to control the players and ask them to be focused and me myself to be composed, because it’s been very hard. The situation we are in doesn’t help. We have some stress and fear but that is not an excuse.
“It’s been clear what has been happening to us, not only in this game. I saw the images, It’s hard to take, the players see the images. It’s a penalty on Gio Reyna, it’s a kick. It’s a handball, the incident with Callum (Hudson-Odoi).
“It’s understandable we react like this as a club because we want to get things right.
“We don’t want bad referees. We want good decisions. OK (if) the game we lost and there were no incidents we’d take it (and say) we didn’t play well enough but we did things right in the right moments and we’ve been disappointed by bad decisions.”
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