Nottingham Forest midfielder Ryan Yates believes they must do more to prevent poor refereeing decisions from having an impact on the game.
The Reds have recently been denied victories at West Brom and Preston due to controversial decisions from match officials. However, Yates believes that they need to create more chances and score more goals to make sure that these decisions don’t decide the outcome of games.
He told the Nottingham Post: “We need to do more. We need to create more chances and get us into a position where decisions like this don’t matter.
“Against West Brom we could have put the game to bed, because we had a few other chances, including one for (Lewis) Grabban, where we could have extended our lead.
“We need to get into a position where decisions like that do not matter. We need to make sure that the result does not depend on whether the referee gives a decision for or against us.”
Harsh decision
The 21-year-old midfielder was involved in the key moment of the game against Preston. He was penalised for a supposed foul on Declan Rudd just before Joe Lolley tapped home into an empty net. There’s no doubt that it was an extremely harsh decision which cost Martin O’Neill’s side an extra two points.
Yates said: “Looking back, in the heat of the moment, I did think ‘no way’. I look back at it now and maybe I have made contact with him, but he has also caught me.
“Sometimes you get those decisions and sometimes you don’t. We are just not getting the rub of the green at the moment. It was disappointing not to take three points – and in the game before that as well, if I am honest.
“We should have had at least one win out of the two games, because you would hope to see at least one decision go your way.”
O’Neill will be hoping that his side’s luck will swing in this fixture. It was announced during the week that Robert Jones would be overseeing the latest East Midlands Derby. Considering his performance in Forest’s recent win over Brentford, it seems a good appointment.
If the Reds can secure a similar result against the Rams, it would give a huge boost to their play-off chances.
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