What Rotherham United boss Steve Evans made of his yellow card and Bolton Wanderers keeping 11 men on the pitch
ROTHERHAM United manager Steve Evans has admitted the referee was right to book him for taking a touchline protest too far during the Millers' victory over Bolton Wanderers yesterday.
In a rare act of contrition towards officialdom from a boss who regularly lands himself in hot water in his technical area, he said: “My reaction wasn't appropriate so it's a yellow card I deserved.”
The flashpoint came late on in the home side's 3-1 League One triumph at AESSEAL New York Stadium when Evans let his emotions get the better of him over what he felt was a handball by Dion Charles in the build-up to the visitors' consolation goal scored by John McAtee.
Play was allowed to continue and the manager compared it to an incident early in the contest when Rotherham midfielder Shaun McWilliams handled and a foul was given.
“Charles does that for their goal,” he said. “It's certainly handball. I was disappointed.”
Evans was in good spirits after watching his side deliver their best performance of the season to climb to 13th place in the table and extend their unbeaten run to four matches.
He was able to find some humour in the situation, adding: “The one where Shaun dragged the ball with his arm ... we had a chuckle on the bench.
“We said, he's almost caught it and run away with it like a schoolkid in the playground.”
The Millers dominated against the Trotters, taking the lead through a penalty converted by Mallik Wilks and adding to their advantage through Reece James and Sam Nombe.
Ref Alan Young – who later suffered an injury and had to be replaced by the man who booked Evans, fourth official Paul Cooper – had a long discussion with one of his assistants and chose not to send off Bolton's Ricardo Almeida Santos for bringing down Wilks in the 34th-minute spot-kick incident.
The official settled for a caution, deciding that the Wanderers centre-half had made a genuine attempt to play the ball.
Evans disagreed with that verdict and thought his team should have played the rest of the game against ten men.
“There's no doubt, for me, it's a red card,” he said. “Big Rico has got no chance of getting to the ball – absolutely zero chance – and he takes the man. Yes, he gets a connection with the ball but he takes the man first.
“Listen, if it's my centre-half doing that away to Bolton, I'm expecting him to be having an early shower.”