Schumacher: “I thought it was a ridiculous decision at the time”

Steven Schumacher wants his side to keep their heads up with relegation fears remaining very real for them after they lost 3-0 at the Swansea.com Stadium yesterday evening.

But the Stoke boss also reflected back on two key refereeing decisions – one to disallow a goal from Niall Ennis after the ball came loose from Carl Rushworth with the second being the award of a penalty to the Swans for what he believes was a foul outside of the box.

Neither were decisions that Schumacher could line up behind as he looked back on the game as he told the Stoke official website “I thought it was a ridiculous decision at the time,” Schumacher said of City’s disallowed goal.

“I had a good view of it and it looked to me like the goalkeeper tried to take a quick throw-in, he has collided with Niall, who isn’t aware he is even there, and has then tapped the loose ball in.

“I felt it was a poor decision at the time and when our analyst has shown me the replay, I can see it’s definitely not a foul.

“It is disappointing, we didn’t play great in the first half, but it should have been 1-1.

“The decision for the penalty for the second goal also looks like the challenge is outside of the box so that is two big calls, in a game that wasn’t going the way we wanted it to, we needed to go for us and they didn’t.”

Stoke now face a massive match against relegation rivals Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday and he was clear as to what he expected from his team  “Sheffield Wednesday will be a physical game, they are going to put balls into our box, they are going to have a lot of set-pieces – that is how they got their goals last night – so we will have to defend those situations better than how we did tonight.

“The message is no sulking, get our heads up and go again because it is another huge game at the weekend.”