Hughes rues ref's decision

Rovers manager left frustrated after failing to beat Spurs

Last updated: 5th April 2008

Mark Hughes Blackburn

Hughes: Frustration

Related links

Teams

Also see

Blackburn boss Mark Hughes believes his side were denied a win against Tottenham following a 'cast-iron' penalty shout.

Blackburn had to come from behind to earn a draw at Ewood Park as Dimitar Berbatov gave Spurs an early lead, but good work from David Bentley gave Morten Gamst Pedersen the chance to equalise after half an hour.

From then on, the game could have gone either way and, although Hughes admits the game was finely balanced, he feels his side were disadvantaged by referee Peter Walton's decision to wave away the penalty shout.

"I thought it was a decent Premier League game," he told Sky Sports. "I thought it was two evenly matched teams, which does us great credit given the amount of finance being thrown at Spurs.

"We started a little bit slowly and they caused us a few problems in the opening part of the game, but they scored the goal and that really stirred us into action.

"We got back on level terms with a well worked goal and in the second half we continued to cause them a number of problems.

Penalty

"We didn't make a great deal of chances in open play, but we had a cast-iron penalty not given from our point of view, but that's the referee's decision and we have to abide by it."

The incident happened in the last 10 minutes of the game as Bentley appeared to be blocked off by Spurs substitute Gilberto, and Hughes is adamant that his side deserved a spot-kick.

"If you look at it, the guy actually makes a movement and lifts his leg up to impede David Bentley.

"The least it is is obstruction. We felt it should have been given as a clear penalty because his intention was to take David out, but the referee didn't see it as such and we ended up with a throw-in."