Mellon: Referee 'bottled' Tranmere penalty shouts in Accrington Stanley stalemate

The Rovers boss has hit out at the officials after Saturday's 1-1 draw

Micky Mellon slammed the performance of referee Tony Harrington in Tranmere’s 1-1 draw with Accrington Stanley on Saturday afternoon, claiming the EFL official ‘bottled’ key decisions in the contest. 

Rovers fell behind in the match when Accrington captain Sean McConville prodded past Scott Davies from close range in the first-half, before Kieron Morris levelled the scoring before half-time.

The Whites were the far superior side after the interval, and were denied what looked to be two very strong appeals for penalty kicks.

Corey Blackett-Taylor was pulled to the ground inside the area by defender Harvey Rodgers shortly after the restart, while Neil Danns had an appeal waved away with the game approaching its climax.

Speaking after the game, Mellon was left perplexed by Harrington’s decision-making as he made a case for the two incidents.

“I don’t get it. I think he has bottled it, to be honest with you,” said the Rovers’ boss.

“I think he has decided that he’s not going to make a decision on the one with Corey. Then, the other one with Danns, he’s about to hit the ball, so why is he going to dive? Common sense would tell me that his next strike is a clear shot on goal.

“Danns was going to turn to shoot; I don’t know why he would dive there. And the same with Corey Blackett-Taylor, why is he going to go down when he’s about to square it across the face of goal?”

It was not only Mellon who voiced his frustrations at the performance of Harrington, however, with Accrington boss John Coleman labelling the lack of fouls awarded in favour of striker Dion Charles as a ‘disgrace’.

Coleman’s complaints came as no surprise to the Tranmere manager, with the pair crossing paths many times in the past.

“Every free-kick that goes against John, he wants it for him. Every one, he contests for himself. I’ve known John a long time, and I don’t think I’ve really come away from any game and John has not complained about what’s happened. That’s just John. I love him to bits, but I could have told you before the game that John would say something like that. It’s just the way it is and that’s the way we are. We want to win games of football, we’re really competitive,” said Mellon.

“We should have had maybe two penalties, does John say that? I bet he has not mentioned that. There were a lot of decisions for the referee to make, a lot of contact and a lot of challenges. I’m not going to complain about that. We should have had two penalties, we haven’t got them, so I can’t cry about that. We have to just all move on.”

Tranmere now face a period of uncertainty, with captain and goalkeeper Scott Davies out with a calf injury.

Luke Pilling was introduced in the 30th minute of play after Davies pulled up with an injury, though Mellon was encouraged with the performance of the 22-year-old shot-stopper.

 “You can’t prepare for that, but young Luke has come on and done terrifically. He made a right good save when they could have made it 2-0—it was a terrific save to keep us in the game. We knew it may hit that tempo fairly early on and, for some reason, we didn’t meet it until we had lost a goal which spiked us into getting going.

He continued: “Luke is really blossoming. He looks a lot more comfortable now. We’ve tried to get him developed as much as possible, with as much game-time as possible. I was pleased with him.

“We think Scott has got a calf problem. He has felt his calf, so we will assess that over the next 24 hours and see if it settles down or not.  For him to come off, it was definitely too much for him to carry on.”

Rovers’ unwanted record of conceding first goals in matches was further extended on Saturday afternoon. Mellon’s side have now been trailing in 15 of their 18 league matches this season, striking first on only three occasions. 

Eager to shake off this habit, though, the Tranmere boss admitted that ‘it’s up to the players’ to now bring about change. 

“I don’t think it’s a regular thing,” expressed Mellon. 

“We speak to the players before games about the asks of each match, but let’s stick to the positives. 

“We understand that we didn’t start the game as well as Accrington, but we came roaring back and finished the game on top. We will speak to them again and will say ‘you need to start games better, your mentality has to be good and you have to meet the asks of the game early on’. It’s up to the players to then deliver on that.”