Three games in a row that Championship teams allowed to manhandle Millwall’s Jake Cooper

Millwall manager Gary Rowett says he is “bored” of the discussions he has with fourth officials over the penalty box fouls on Jake Cooper which keep going unpunished.

The big Lions centre-back looked to be clearly impeded from jumping properly from deadball situations in Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Hull City.

One of those came very early in the contest and led to Rowett and assistant boss Adam Barrett both heading straight for fourth official Craig Hicks.

“I’m bored saying it, I said about it to the fourth official,” said Rowett. “The fourth official said the referee is aware of it. I don’t know how aware of it you need to be.

“Look, the opposition are going to do whatever they are going to do to stop our main man at set-pieces. To have both arms around Coops – literally – from the time he steps up to take the free-kick and the time he is about to head it, for me at some point you have to punish that.

“If we’ve done the same it should equally be punishable. There was one late on where Coops grabs the lad’s shirt in the box and you can have the same argument.

“I ask the referees and officials all the time and they say: ‘Oh, they are both doing it’. So Coops, trying to score, is allegedly trying to hold the lad at the same time that he’s jumping which seems a little bit stupid and strange to me.

“I can’t blame the officials today for us not winning the game. We need to show more quality.

“But that is three games now where teams have literally nullified Coops on set-pieces by fouling him every time. You need an official who is a little bit braver and has a bit more commonsense to give a decision.”