Chris Wilder questioned the decision to send off Hamza Choudhury as Sheffield United lost 3-2 to Portsmouth in the Championship on Thursday, despite fighting back from two goals down to level the match.
Choudhury received a second yellow card in the 44th minute after referee Oliver Langford judged him to have fouled Ryan Kavuma-McQueen. Wilder argued that his midfielder had little room to avoid contact after the Portsmouth forward took the ball through his legs and went down.
Portsmouth had taken the lead through Zak Swanson in the 41st minute and doubled their advantage through Adrian Segecic nine minutes into the second half. Sheffield United responded with goals from Japhet Tanganga and Tom Cannon, but Ebou Adams struck in the 89th minute to secure the hosts a 3-2 victory.
Wilder said Langford had initially indicated that he would not dismiss Choudhury before changing his mind and showing the second yellow card.
“Where can Hamza go?” the Sheffield United manager said after the match. “I just don’t know where Hamza’s meant to go.”
The manager also pointed to a late penalty appeal involving a Sheffield United player who he said had been pulled by his shirt inside the box.
“Even at the last minute of the game, one of our boys gets tugged in the area and you can see the shirt coming off his back,” Wilder said.
He compared the incident with a penalty awarded to West Ham against Queens Park Rangers the previous week. Wilder said the fourth official had acknowledged that a shirt pull occurred in that match, prompting him to question how officials judged the severity of such contact.
“But that was just one of a number of decisions that incredibly frustrated me,” he added.
Wilder acknowledged that he needed to choose his words carefully when discussing the officials, but made clear that he felt Sheffield United had been treated harshly.
The defeat denied the Blades a chance to take a point from a match in which they had recovered from a two-goal deficit despite playing most of the contest with 10 men. Adams’ late strike left them empty-handed after their second-half fightback.
