Swansea City manager Paul Clement has claimed that the decision to disallow Wilfried Bony’s goal was “soft”.
The Ivorian scored just before half time during the 0-0 draw with Bournemouth, but the referee made the call that Jordan Ayew fouled Nathan Ake in the buildup to the goal.
The decision also angered the players, and had to be dragged away from Stuart Atwell as the referee blew the whistle seconds later to end the half.
Soft
Speaking to the gathered press after the game, Clement said: “I thought at the time it was a soft foul to give, I think if that was in between the two boxes, the game would have carried on.
“That’s what I saw real time,” the 45-year-old said, “and I made that point clear to the referee at half time, that it was a soft decision.”
Explaining his view on the decision, Clement said: “I looked at it back on the video, and I stand by my first opinion. I think you’ve got a situation when Jordan [Ayew] and Nathan Ake fighting for the position as the ball’s come in and I saw Jordan and Ake come together and Ake fall over.
“I don’t think he’s dived though,” the former Bayern Munich assistant said, “I think Jordan was just too strong for him. So he’s outmuscled him in the position, ball’s come down to Bony, good finish. Should be 1-0 up.”
Poor game from the referee
Atwell’s performance angered the fans at the Liberty Stadium for the entire game, and was subjected to several boos at half time.
Clement said: “I thought he had a really poor game and wasn’t up to speed. There was another incident right in front of us where a trailing arm of the Bournemouth player has caught Roque Mesa in the head, split his head open. That wasn’t even given as a foul.”
Away from the controversial decisions, Swansea did put a much improved performance in against Bournemouth especially in the second half.
On the performance, Clement said: “I was pleased with our spirit today, our determination, our enthusiasm. We’ve not won the game so I’m not really, really happy but I was happy with a lot of the things that I saw. I saw a team committed, I saw a team giving everything to get the result. I actually thought some of our footballing spells was really positive as well.”
Despite the better performance, Swansea were unable to break down the Cherries’ defence and walked away with just one point instead of the three they were hoping for.
The result keeps the Swans 19th in the table, and go to Chelsea in midweek next without Tammy Abraham, who is unable to play against his parent club.