Rival boss Michael Carrick's penalty anger as Rotherham United see off Middlesbrough

The Teessiders arrived at AESSEAL New York Stadium only three points off the top six but suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of the bottom-placed Millers who won for the first time under new head coach Leam Richardson.

Carrick claimed that Boro were denied a certain second-half penalty when Alex Bangura tumbled in the area while under pressure from Hakeem Odoffin.

"I’m just baffled, to be honest," he said. "I don’t like criticising referees, and they obviously have a tough job, but that’s not even a tussle or a slight trip.

"It’s blatant, he just takes him out. Alex has got all the momentum going past him. For the life of me, I just can’t understand how that’s not given. It’s a massive moment and the less I say about it the better probably."

In real time, it looked like a spot-kick, but replays showed there was much less contact than at first thought and that referee Andrew Kitchen might have been correct in waving away Boro appeals.

The contest was still goalless at the time.

Richardson said in his after-match press conference around 20 minutes after the final whistle: "I have not seen it back so I wouldn’t comment.

"What I would say is we’ve had our fair bit of bad luck with sendings-off and penalties, so it’s a nice turn in fortune."

Despite his anger, Carrick wasn't planning on talking to ref Kitchen about the incident.

"It’s pointless really," he said. "What’s he going to say? His reasons, I’m not going to agree with them. We call all see how clear as day it was."

Rotherham triumphed through Cohen Bramall's freak goal when the wing-back's attempted cross in the 72nd minute flew over the head of visiting keeper Tom Glover's head into the roof of the net.

Carrick added: "Listen, I can’t blame that (the penalty verdict) on the result because we didn’t score in the end and we created more than enough to score. We limited them (Rotherham) to next to nothing; controlled it."

"When you don’t get a decision as obvious as that, though, it’s just crazy."