Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson has suggested that referee Matt Corlett left ball boys ‘nervous’ against Harrogate Town on Tuesday.
Wrexham were back at the Racecourse on Tuesday night, looking to build on a 3-1 win away at Morecambe on Saturday afternoon.
A home cash against Harrogate Town was always going to be a tricky affair and that’s how it proved.
Wrexham couldn’t find the moment of quality to unlock Harrogate and had to settle for a frustrating 0-0 draw.
Phil Parkinson’s side have moved into second place but Stockport County have two games in hand, meaning the race for promotion is really heating up.
Phil Parkinson on Wrexham v Harrogate Town referee
Few Wrexham fans will claim that they were robbed on Tuesday night.
Wrexham just didn’t have the cutting edge to break through and a disappointing team display is the reason for the 0-0 draw.
However, referee Matt Corlett has also received some criticism following the stalemate.
Adding on only four minutes at the end of the game was a strange call and boss Parkinson has offered his view.
Parkinson has told Wrexham’s official YouTube channel that there were ‘several things’ he didn’t particularly like from the officials on Tuesday night.
The first was the added time as Corlett suggested that Wrexham were time-wasting in the first half, a claim Parkinson simply couldn’t believe.
Parkinson added that Corlett also tried to stop Wrexham using a multi-ball approach and left ball boys ‘nervous’ because he kept trying to stop them throwing the ball back to Wrexham players.
Parkinson noted that Corlett’s approach was ‘quite bizarre’, but does still believe that Wrexham only have themselves to blame for not winning.
“Several things tonight with the officials… if we look at the four minutes, there’s probably four minutes of wasting time irrespective of the substitutions. I’ve asked him briefly and he said that our goalkeeper was wasting just as much in the first half, that’s why he didn’t register that added time. So what, we were trying to slow the game down?! We’re trying to win the game!’
“Secondly, he was not happy with the ball boys. Multi-ball has been implemented because Howard Webb had this hope at the start of the season to get the ball in play for more minutes, so allowed multi-ball, it’s been evolved a bit as the season has gone on, but he made our ball boys nervous because he kept telling them that they couldn’t throw the ball back to the players – quite bizarre. It’s not the ref’s fault that we didn’t produce a moment of real quality to have won the game, but I think with the four minutes at the end when we’re really pinning them in, it should have been seven minutes at the very least,” he added.
Given that we have seen certain managers suggesting that Wrexham receive favourable decisions, we can only laugh at that idea at this point.
Attempting to stop multi-ball seems very odd and Wrexham will just have to move on and hope that ball boys aren’t left feeling on edge moving forward.