Saturday 25 April 2015 21:12, UK
Alan Pardew has blamed key refereeing decisions not going Crystal Palace's way for their 2-0 loss at home to Hull.
Two second half goals from Dame N’Doye secured a rare away win for Hull, but Pardew was left bemoaning a string of key moments that he feels cost his side victory.
The Palace boss believed Robbie Brady handled the ball in the build up to the opening goal, as well as being left convinced Yaya Sanogo’s late header should have stood.
Although Pardew resisted directly criticising referee Mark Clattenburg for the decision, he did claim the official should have added far more than the four minutes added time allocated.
"I thought it was handball for the first goal," Pardew said. You can’t control the ball at that pace and it comes up and hits his hand.
"We had a penalty with Wilf (Zaha), I think we had a penalty when Glenn (Murray) should have scored in the first half. And then our goal, I think that's a tough call.
"You know if you're a centre-half, you've got a bit of jostling going on. Their defender knows he’s going to get beat and falls to the ground because they’ve had a bit of tussling beforehand and most refs wouldn’t have given that one.
"Key decisions, that's his (Clattenburg's) job, and he's a good referee. What I did have a problem with was the amount of time added on we had. The substitutes alone were four minutes coming off the pitch, let alone everything else.”
Back-to-back losses for the first time since Boxing Day left Palace missing the chance to move in to the Premier League's top half, with goalkeeper Julian Speroni now urging his side to respond in next week's Super Sunday clash with Chelsea and end their season strongly.
"Everybody’s disappointed with it," Speroni told Sky Sports. "Sometimes these things happen and that shows you how tough the Premier League is. There are no easy games.
"We need to make sure that we prove that next week playing against a fantastic Chelsea team and we need to make sure we put in a good performance.
"I think we need to face every game with the same attitude, same commitment and when you play those games they’re special occasions, but we need to work this week to put the last two results right."
Watch Chelsea v Crystal Palace as part of Super Sunday on Sunday May 3 live on Sky Sports 1.
