Watford assistant boss Zigor Aranalde said the referee had made a clear mistake in the build-up to Wrexham’s added-time equaliser.
It resulted in a red card being shown to head coach Javi Gracia, furious that Watford weren’t given a free kick before the corner that led to the goal.
Watford had come back from 1-0 down to take the lead thanks to goals by Mamadou Doumbia and Othmane Maamma. But Ollie Rathbone’s 92nd-minute goal prevented The Hornets from coming away with three points.
Yup! pic.twitter.com/EQcu1oJKaP
— OllyW (@OWeingarten) December 13, 2025
Zigor Aranalde said, per Watford Observer: “Everyone could see it’s a free-kick that the referee didn’t give leading to the second goal.
“It was a clear foul from where we were and he [Gracia] got mad for a couple of minutes and the referee decided to send him off.
“It’s one of the clearest I’ve seen this season and neither the lino nor the referee gave anything. For me it’s a big mistake and he’s lucky there’s no VAR because otherwise that decision would be dropped, for sure.
“It’s embarrassing. He’s grabbing, pulling him. It’s a shocking decision and it’s the difference today between the two teams.
“We all make mistakes but for sure that was a mistake from the referee.”
On the incident and Rathbone’s shot hitting the corner of the net, he didn’t blame the players: “You can always do something to prevent it happening but there were many legs when he shot.
“It went in, so nothing to say. It’s difficult to stop that one.”
He told BBC Three Counties Radio on the incident: “Everyone could see the free-kick the referee didn’t give leading to the second goal. It was a clear foul and he [Gracia] got mad for a couple of minutes and he decided to send him off.
“For me, it was a clear mistake and he is lucky there was no VAR or that decision would have been dropped for sure. Grabbing, pulling, it was a shocking decision and it was the difference today.
“Credit to the lads, they never gave up, in a difficult situation we managed to come back in the second half.
“We had the game more or less under control until those last five minutes. That’s life, we have to carry on.”
Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson said to BBC Radio Wales: “I thought we deserved at least a point today. The first 30 minutes we were excellent.
“We had a nice balance to our play and I thought the goal typified that.
“We had other good chances, the only criticism was that we weren’t clinical in those moments.
“They scored a goal out of nothing and we’ve got to look at it ourselves because we over-committed on this left-hand side and we were vulnerable to the counter, and it was a deflection.
“I felt the goal probably knocked us a bit and the second half we were a little bit slow for the first five minutes.
“But after that we played really well and just needed the quality to get us back in the game and it finally came from Ollie Rathbone.”
Parkinson, per Sky Sports:
“I’m so pleased for the owners, who lift the whole place when they are here and I spoke to them briefly before the game.
“There is a lot of positivity in the area with the new investment being announced and we’ve got to keep building on that and the spirit of the team was there for all to see today.
“I’m so pleased for Ollie Rathbone. He’s had to wait to get his chance but he typifies everything we want here at Wrexham. His attitude is fantastic and he deserved that moment today.
“Ollie has played Championship football before and gave us the moment of calmness that we needed.
“We’d had a lot of good play and should have scored after the first goal, as we had some really good moments.
“But it was the split second of composure that Ollie has shown time-and-time-again that got us back in the game.
“The first goal knocked us, but we came out in the second half and responded well.
“When we were chasing the game like we were late on I thought we worked our way back into the game in a very controlled way.”
Here’s how fans reacted after the Watford assistant says the referee made a ‘clear mistake’ in the build-up to Wrexham’s late equaliser…
@sjjarrettHR: Focus on defending 😡 always concede 1st goal!!! Never man for man mark when defending / never shut down the man with the ball! Wrong side when defending 😡 and never cleanly clear our lines – i’d rather see the ball in row z on half way line than pinging around our penalty box
@Jessaroo1881: The ref was awful, we should have had a free kick and he gave nothing. Fair play to Javi for showing emotion. Btw, we know he doesn’t pick the squad.
@JordanWiemer: In many ways that was a better performance. We had more control in possession, spacing was better offensively. Pollock and Kyprianou both contributed well defensively, Kayemebe with a solid performance also. But.. we’re still seeing too many errors. Also, our game management for the final 30 was really poor. We gave up the initiative far too easily. It’s a natural reaction for the player, the coach has to be the one to manage that. Not just with instruction but use of the bench too. We’ve walked away with 2 points from a VERY possible 6.
@craigyjones17: As an honest Wrexham fan, I thought Gracia’s game management was terrible. No need at all to sit back against us – believe me. You get the 3rd and the game is over. We were crap but you let us just make shit chances, and one was going to pay off. Anyway, a point apiece it is!
@watfordfan07: pathetic and embarrassing. our game management is fucking awful.
@watford1985: Wrexham are dog shit. We should have won that. Ball was like a bomb at the end, couldn’t keep it.
@FilipRozwalka: horrible game management again form javi sitting back from 55 minute 🤮🤮
@HarryP_2028: One loss in 9 and we are debating on sacking my gaffer. Absolutely Bonkers! Everyone should praise the team for the performance and back the manger. COYH 🐝
@Paulfleming__: That second half was an embarrassment each one of them should be ashamed
@LuisTexeira23: Fought hard battled well but couldn’t hang on. Can’t fault the effort. Gutting not to hold on. Gained a point late on in the week but dropped 2 today
@HornetBoy1881: I don’t think changing managers again will help anything tbh but I’ve been really disappointed with Javi recently. Obviously love the guy but he’s making a lot of costly mistakes. Gotta manage the game better today and can’t sit back so early. But not Javi out yet… #WatfordFC
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