Furious Casey Stoney let rip at 'atrocious' referee Amy Fearn and admitted she was willing to get hit with a fine after Manchester United Women suffered a hammer blow to their Champions League hopes at Arsenal Women.
Millie Turner’s early own goal and Lotte Wubben-Moy’s second-half strike guided the Gunners to victory to take a top three finish out of United’s hands.
But Stoney was fuming with Fearn at Meadow Park for allegedly failing to protect striker Lauren James’ ‘safety’.
The United boss blasted the officials and believes more needs to be done to look after her players after a damaging defeat in Borehamwood.
Stoney, 38, complained: “I’m probably going to get fined anyway so I’ll tell you.
“If you can kick an 18-year-old [sic - James is 19] time and time and time and time again and then I get a response of ‘it’s not the same player so I can’t do it’.
“It’s your job to do something. Player safety surely has to be your priority in the game – it’s so poor. I thought the referee was atrocious at best.
“Obviously we’re very disappointed. It’s taken it out of our hands now in terms of Champions League qualification, which is what we didn’t want.”
Turner’s own goal in just the third minute got the hosts off to a flyer before Wubben-Moy inflicted a massive blow to United’s hopes just after the break.
Arsenal finished the game with just ten players after Beth Mead received a second yellow card but United were unable to haul themselves back.
Stoney’s side still sit third in the FA WSL but have played a game more than Arsenal, who cut the gap on the European places to just three points.
Stoney slammed her players’ slow start and admits her team were second best on a night to forget in Hertfordshire.
“We started in the worst possible way which didn’t help us, conceding so early from our own possession, which is, again, disappointing,” she added.
“I’m bitterly disappointed, but there’s still five games to go until the end of the season.
“They were clinical in both boxes, we weren’t in ours. We conceded a poor goal and then set pieces again have undone us.
“Goals change games and I think we had two really good chances in the first half and we didn’t take them.”
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