Millwall boss left bemused by some of referee’s decisions in Championship defeat at Middlesbrough

Gary Rowett has talked about the lack of consistency shown by the officials in Millwall’s 1-0 defeat at Middlesbrough on Saturday.

Goalkeeper George Long and centre-back Jake Cooper were both cautioned by referee Matt Donohue. The flashpoint came when Long held on to the ball after the home side had won a corner – a move which angered Boro striker Chuba Akpom.

Rowett – asked about the incident – told the South London Press: “Pretty ridiculous but pretty standard for things at the minute. Longy picks the ball up and the lad shoves him three times. Coops comes across and the lad shoves him twice.

“I’m not saying we’re completely blameless. Okay, maybe you have stopped them taking a corner but there is nobody within 50 metres of Akpom.

“Later on in the game the ref blows his whistle and [Riley] McGree takes a big touch to basically pretend he hasn’t heard – to take the ball away. He then takes another touch, Sav (George Saville) goes to push him – to get the ball – and then Sav gets booked.

“It’s just the consistency. At the start of the season we got told things were acceptable contact and we lost a couple of goals from that, but on Saturday whenever anybody went down it was blown up for a foul.

“Longy gets booked straight away. For the McGree incident, Sav gets booked and nothing for McGree. Early on Longy gets warned for time-wasting after about 20 minutes at 0-0 and their keeper, at 1-0, takes 45 seconds to take a kick and not a thing is said to him.

“I’m not necessarily whinging about those things in terms of the result, but there is some frustrating situations in games. I don’t really know the answer to it.

“Sometimes you can’t help feeling our reputation as a club goes against us, which I’d like to think doesn’t. It feels a bit like that at times.”