Garry Monk has launched a scathing attack in which he has accused Michael Oliver, the Premier League referee, of “cheating” Swansea City and claimed that Victor Moses was guilty of a dive that he “should be ashamed of” after the Stoke City winger was awarded a highly contentious first-half penalty.
The Swansea City manager also rounded on Mike Riley, the general manager of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, whom he accused of “poor leadership” after failing to make any contact with the Welsh club following a number of controversial refereeing decisions in recent weeks.
Monk revealed that Swansea have now gone above Riley’s head and sent a letter of complaint, complete with DVD footage, to John Williams, the chairman of the PGMOL, highlighting perceived injustices. There is likely to be another in the post after this defeat. Monk, who was absolutely furious, described Oliver’s decision to point to the spot when Moses tumbled under minimal contact from Angel Rangel as “disgraceful” and “disgusting”.
Swansea were 1-0 up at the time, after Oliver had given a more straightforward penalty at the other end, when Ryan Shawcross was penalised for wrestling Wilfried Bony to the ground. Bony duly converted from the spot and Charlie Adam did likewise for Stoke two minutes before the interval. Jonathan Walters then antagonised Swansea’s feelings further with a headed winner, from Oussama Assaidi’s cross, to condemn Monk’s team to a fifth league game without a win.
Monk made no attempt to conceal his anger afterwards, in particular with the circumstances surrounding Stoke’s penalty. “It’s obviously a massive game-changing moment,” the Swansea manager said. “For me, it’s a disgusting decision. How he can’t see that’s a blatant dive is beyond me. Moses has cheated the ref, and then the ref’s cheated us in terms of giving a decision that never was. The player should be ashamed of himself. I wouldn’t be able to go home to my family and show my face.”
For Monk, it has become a familiar story this season, prompting Swansea to present a case to the PGMOL before this match. “The problem I have with it now is that in a lot of the games, match-changing decisions are going against us constantly, and I don’t see anything being done about it. I’ve spoken to the referees and the association about it, and I don’t hear anything coming back to me from Mike Riley at all which I find poor leadership. The whole thing is mounting up now, which is becoming a very worrying situation.
“We’ve sent a letter to the chairman of [the PGMOL], Mr John Williams, with a DVD, just asking questions. We just want to know why the consistency isn’t there. We’ve shown some decisions [to PGMOL] against us, wanting to explain how that is a yellow card, and other big decisions which have changed games for us. We just want an explanation.”
Monk’s outburst will almost certainly result in him facing a Football Association disciplinary charge – something that Mark Hughes alluded to after the game, when the Stoke manager said there are times when “you just have to be careful what you say because you can get yourself into trouble”.
Hughes argued with just about everything that Monk said, including the accusation levelled at Moses. “I don’t think he dived. I think he felt contact, I think he was running at pace between two defenders and the onus is on the defender not to go anywhere near him because if you put an arm across a player running at pace, then the likelihood is he’ll be knocked out of his stride and will go down,” he said. “It’s a soft one and you can argue about it as much as you like. He gave it and that’s the end of it.”
As for Oliver’s decision to penalise Shawcross earlier in the game, when the Stoke captain was grappling with Bony before Gylfi Sigurdsson’s corner kick had got anywhere near the pair of them, Hughes expressed concern that “people are trying to highlight Ryan, over most defenders, in terms of him being more adept at holding people in the box, which is pure nonsense”. In other news, Stoke moved up to 10th place.
Man of the match Charlie Adam (Stoke)
