Parkinson: Referee was influenced by crowd and Holloway
Bolton manager Phil Parkinson labelled the officials “weak” following his team’s 2-0 defeat against QPR at Loftus Road, where Mark Little was sent off.
Wanderers defender Little was shown a straight red card by referee Scott Duncan following a challenge on Massimo Luongo nine minutes into the second half.
The visitors battled hard but Joel Lynch nodded in from close range on 72 minutes and Matt Smith’s injury-time header sealed Rangers’ win.
Parkinson felt Duncan had been influenced by the home crowd and QPR manager Ian Holloway.
“Mark’s left the ground and he’s given the ref a decision to make,” Parkinson said.
“Away from home, when you’ve got the weak officials we had today, it was always going to end up in a red.
“I can see why he’s given that one, but I thought the all-round performance of all four officials was very poor.
“Loftus Road is a tight ground, the crowd are on top of you and Ian Holloway’s jumping up and down appealing for everything and having a go at the ref at half-time.
“At half-time, Ian was waiting for the ref. I said to the ref: ‘Don’t get influenced by that’ and I thought he was.
“You need strong officials and we didn’t have them today. I think if that had been a QPR player it would have been a yellow card.
“Sometimes you say a ref’s a ‘homer’ and every decision goes for the home team. It certainly was that today.”
Holloway, whose team are now 11 points clear of the relegation zone, insisted: “We were all screaming and shouting at the referee today. They were, we were.
“It’s not easy being a ref. I’m glad I’m not one. I tried it in training the other week and I was absolutely useless. You’ve got to run with whatever they do.”
