Wrexham have moved level on points with Wycombe Wanderers after beating Rotherham United on Saturday afternoon.
Phil Parkinson will have celebrated Wrexham’s 1-0 win at Huddersfield Town but his attention quickly turned to another Yorkshire club.
Rotherham United made the trip to the STōK Cae Ras on Saturday afternoon and Wrexham were always going to be in for a battle.
Games against Steve Evans teams are never easy but Wrexham again managed to get the job done.
Wrexham’s January signing Sam Smith grabbed the only goal, latching onto Jay Rodriguez’s flick-on to score.
Wycombe Wanderers salvaged a point against Peterborough United but Wrexham have now moved level on points with the Chairboys in the race for promotion.
Steve Evans complains about refereeing in Wrexham win
Wrexham will now move on with a big week ahead.
The eyes may be drawn towards next weekend’s enormous clash with Wycombe but Wrexham travel to face Reading in midweek.
Parkinson will be busy preparing for those games now, but there are – yet again – complaints around refereeing in Wrexham games.
Michael Duff criticised Wrexham’s winner against Huddersfield Town in midweek, suggesting that Steven Fletcher was offside and there was a foul in the build-up.
Duff received an apology from the EFL, who have seemingly agreed with the Terriers boss.
Now it’s Evans’ turn with the Rotherham chief telling the Rotherham Advertiser that he was unhappy with referee Jeremy Simpson on Saturday.
Evans suggested that 50:50 decisions seemed to only go in Wrexham’s favour, much to his frustration.
The Rotherham boss even claims that the fourth official shared his ‘sympathy’ for the Rotherham boss over receiving so few decisions.
“Seven or eight 50:50 decisions go in one direction,” said Evans.
“The fourth official told me that he had sympathy,” he added.
Deja vu for Wrexham fans
Wrexham fans certainly won’t have any sympathy for Evans and will just be delighted with another three points in the League One promotion race.
Evans’ latest comments are though incredibly similar to those he made after losing 1-0 to Wrexham back in October too.
Evans branded referee Ben Atkinson ‘simply awful’ as he felt Wrexham were given too many 50:50 decisions – just as he did on Saturday too.
“I’m not going to talk about referees because, when you lose, referees can sometimes be the brunt of it, but let’s hope I don’t see him again. I think his performance was simply awful,” said Evans.
“There were a number of factors. If it’s not a penalty on Joe Powell, I don’t know why it wouldn’t be a free kick on the edge of the box. There’s numerous holdings and pullings from set plays that when we’ve briefly looked at them back, because obviously we’ve got the opportunity to be able to look them back quickly, there’s a lot of 50-50 decisions that you think ‘you can’t be giving them all one way’.
“I’m not questioning the referee’s honesty or integrity, I’m just saying he had a bad game,” he added.
Opposing fans are always going to point towards the Hollywood ownership and cook up theories about favouritism to help the Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds project.
Evans certainly didn’t go that far but Wrexham fans are so used to hearing complaints about perceivably ‘favourable’ refereeing decisions that these latest comments will just be brushed off ahead of a big game at Reading.