Steve Cooper was once again left to reflect on a controversial refereeing performance as 10-man Nottingham Forest drew 0-0 with Luton Town at the City Ground.
The Reds had Jack Colback sent off for a second yellow card on the hour, with Brice Samba then coming to his team’s rescue to thwart Elijah Adebayo’s penalty.
Forest, though, felt their opponents should not have been awarded the corner which led to the red card incident in the first place.
And they argued they should have had a spot-kick of their own when Philip Zinckernagel was felled, only for referee Jeremy Simpson to deem the offence took place outside of the area.
“First of all, I don’t think it’s a corner. And if he’s going to give a penalty for that, okay, we’ll take it, but he’s going to have to give a lot of penalties this year,” Cooper said of the Colback call.
“He (Simpson) is high on his stats for yellows and reds anyway. We let the players know that. He was true to form.
“And yeah, everyone has seen it (the Zinckernagel penalty claim).
“Jack was frustrated because he’s a really experienced player and he’s been in great shape for us.
“He’s filled in at a different position today (at left-back), and he’s more than competent at doing that.
“We wanted him to get a little bit higher than he was doing in the first half, and he was doing that. He played in Joe (Lolley) a couple of times.
“He’s gutted, because he knows he was in a really good moment.
“But two yellows, it’s only one game, so he’ll be back soon.”
The Reds edged a first half which was low on clearcut chances for either side. But they needed Samba to help them keep a clean-sheet in the second half, with the shot-stopper making another brilliant save right at the death.
“First half, we dominated possession and I thought we were tactically superior,” said Cooper.
“We were ready to step it up a notch at the start of the second half. Lyle (Taylor) had a chance, Phil was getting into some good areas, and we were ready to really go to work in the last half hour.
“Obviously that opportunity was taken away from us. And then we had to show the other side of our game. A group of lads have shown that it matters, that this football club matters. They’ve given everything to make sure they kept the ball out of the net - from unbelievable individual moments from our goalkeeper, to good tactical composure in defending the box, to showing heart and soul.
“I expect that. But at the same time, when you see it, you have to give credit when it’s due.”
