 Swansea boss Roberto Martinez says there was too much foul play |
Swansea boss Roberto Martinez says referee Stuart Attwell did not protect his players in a fiery FA Cup 1-1 draw with Havant & Waterlooville. Havant's Brett Poate was sent-off for a lunge on Andrea Orlandi that leaves the left-back facing time out injured.
In the mass scuffle following that 79th minute incident, Swansea centre-back Alan Tate was also red-carded.
"Football is a game of emotions and you need a referee with a cool head who should control things," Martinez said.
"But that didn't happen, some of the incidents should have been stopped in the first minute.
"It's the second time we've had that referee here this season, he failed to control the game that time and again it was a very unfortunate performance.
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"We end up losing the centre-half (Tate), we end up with an injury of our left-back (Orlandi) and those are the last things you want in a football match.
"There was a brawl, if you like, but no punches were thrown among the pushes and shoving and there wasn't anything different that Alan Tate did from the other players.
"If the referee feels that was a sending-off then there should have been another five or six players sent-off."
The game saw a number of robust challenges, not all of them coming from non-League Havant.
But before the Orlandi foul, Swansea had been incensed when Havant right-back Justin Gregory appeared to stamp on Marcos Painter after a tackle.
But the referee opted to take no action against Gregory, who had already been booked.
The hope is that there will be no repercussions when the two sides meet in the replay on Wednesday 16 January, after Havant's Rocky Baptiste scored three minutes from time to cancel out Andy Robinson's goal for Swansea.
"We hit the woodwork three times and scored a very good goal, but we couldn't keep a clean sheet," Martinez added.
"But that's the magic of the Cup, those things happen but now we can still look forward to the draw on Monday."
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