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Steve Evans claims he sent warning to the EFL in furious rant after defeat to Birmingham

Rotherham boss Steve Evans claims he sent warning to the EFL in furious rant after defeat to Birmingham City on Saturday afternoon.

The 62 year old took issue with Farai Hallam being appointed for the game, and criticised the referee’s decision to award Birmingham’s match-winning penalty scored by Jay Stansfield in the 81st minute after Hakeem Odoffin brought down Taylor Gardner-Hickman inside the box.

Evans spoke about it in his interview while also revealing his asked the EFL to appoint an ‘experienced, strong referee’ who could handle the atmosphere at St Andrew’s.

The Rotherham boss said, per Birmingham Mail: “It’s not a penalty is it? Haks has pulled out of the challenge, the boy runs into the back of Haks and is playing for it. I understand the player goes down and tries to get a penalty in that situation.

“Before the game, before I’d even seen the officials, I requested an experienced, strong referee who can handle this when they are going for promotion. It’s a fervent atmosphere here, so you need a strong referee that is going to stand strong, particularly when they are attacking the home end. That’s the end where they get the penalty. There’s probably 15,000 up there screaming ‘Penalty’ and it’s human nature.

“I was expecting any challenge in the box to go to the spot. People say is that questioning the integrity of the referee? No, it’s human nature. Try and be the referee in World Cup finals in the fervent atmospheres they’ve got there, but I tell you St Andrew’s is more partisan with 29,000 home fans screaming at the same time. It’s very difficult to say ‘I don’t see contact’. I’ve been in and seen the referee and he says he sees contact. That’s his decision.

“There’s lots of little things about his performance that make us disappointed but principally we’ve lost the game because we were comfortable, they’d run out of ideas and made three substitutions to try and get back in the game, and we gave a sloppy ball out of defence.”

Birmingham boss Chris Davies said: “From my point of view it was a good test.

“I said to the players at half-time that this is about how you respond to adversity now. It was important to stay calm and recognise that we’d been the better team.

“It was a test we don’t always have, especially at home and I said to them (the players) that it’s something we must remember and use in the future because there’s going to be games where you aren’t always going to get into the lead. That was the big plus for me, the response to adversity.

“We probably could have played a bit quicker and with a bit more urgency in the first half. Outside of that I liked our positions, we tried to find the right spaces and attack the right spaces, and we are good in the first half.

“But staying calm is very important. That’s sport, that’s football, you’re going to have ups and downs and setbacks. And it’s important to stay emotionally calm and clear headed and focused on what you need to do.

“I thought the crowd were brilliant.

We all want to win, we are all Birmingham fans, and we want the team to win, but there was a trust in the team that we could grow back into it.

“They supported the boys really well, they weren’t putting too much pressure on them, it was a case of supporting and encouraging and it really helped the players.”

A few days later Birmingham took the piss as they confirmed to have exercised an option to make Taylor Gardner-Hickman’s move from Bristol City permanent at the end of the season.

Twitter users reacted as Steve Evans claims he sent warning to the EFL in a furious rant after defeat to Birmingham…

@BcfcPrinceton: He has a point. That referee was proper bad. Out of all the penalty possibilities, that was the weakest one to give away. The one previous was definately a penalty. I dont think this was one.

@Paulwhite19801: What a fucking clown. If that was the case, why didn’t he give the other 2 especially the one in keshi! Oh sorry not allowed to make subs to freshen up and try and win a game now either. Fucking fat bag of custard shouldn’t be allowed to manage 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️😂😂😂

@DeanWSmith79: Errr… We should have had a penalty when Anderson went down. What about all the time wasting from the goalie, SE pretending to stop the ball to hand it back and instead faking picking it up, the subs holding onto the ball. He wants to look at himself first.

@Darren081273: I don’t mind Steve Evans, but he’s so far from the truth in this that he’s on another planet. Rotherham had 7 shots and 30% possession, versus about 25 shots and 70% possession. In what reality were they comfortable? Their keeper kept them in it for large parts.

@TomHeath27: The only people who looked like they couldn’t handle the occasion of an away day at St. Andrew’s were the Rotherham coaching staff, Steve Evans included. FWIW, he would do well to remember he’s a football manager, not a rugby coach, and coach his side accordingly.

@antbcfc4812: It was the softest of the 3 penalties we should have been given but was still blatant 😂

@ChrisCOB_OB: We ran out of ideas FC 😂

@kaiserblue81: It was a soft penalty but the ref knew he’d messed up when he didn’t award one for the challenge on Keshi. Was probably looking for an opportunity to even it up.

@Bilybond: he’s gonna cry in a minute , he’s gonna cry in a minute

@JoshBCFC_: Ref was poor for both sides and we had it in the neck worse! Should’ve had another penalty.

@SteveyLou: Err, it totally was a penalty. He may have pulled out of the challenge but he still put his leg across in front of TGH and tripped him 🤷‍♂️

@jamesajh1st: Another team who parked the bus time wasted and had very few touches in our box feeling hard done by. What about the blatant pen that wasn’t given? Or the corner retake that led to your goal? Not moaning about those?

@lukea248: Except there was one where the whole tilton screamed penalty and he didn’t give it…… so what he said is categorically wrong 🤷🏻‍♂️

@_PeterBCFC: Fucking hell what a load of shite 😂 was a stone wall pen. The ref waved away another one. Rotherham were literally never comfortable and we were well on top by the time we made the three subs. Daft prick #bcfc

@RobPlaister: “I requested” go fuck yourself Steve.

@Tilton191274: Steve Evans forgets to mention the blatant penalty on Keshi, the constant time wasting, the constant fouls not given to Laird and TGH…..oh and the disappearing ball in their dug out ……..

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