Referee Lee Mason is seen as the reason Wolverhampton Wanderers suffered a 2-1 defeat in the hands of Burnley on Monday in a Premier League match. Wolves’ coach Nuno Espirito Santo who is very bitter about the defeat said the referee is not good enough to officiate a Premier League match.
Referee Lee Mason was at the center of the game between Wolves and struggling Burnley. Though he didn’t award a red card to either team and didn’t award a penalty against Wolves, coach Nuno Espirito Santo said he does not want to see the referee in any match involving Wolves again.
The Portuguese coach said the 49-year-old English referee who has been officiating in the Premier League since 2006, did not have control over Monday’s league game because the players on both sides could not accept most of his decisions.
Coach Nuno said Referee Lee Mason was as bad as he was in a different match involving Wolves which the referee officiated. He insisted that the Premier League is deemed the best league in the world and does not deserve to have a referee as unqualified as Mason.
In the match which saw Wolves struggled to take their chances despite having 15 shots, Referee Lee Mason awarded Wolves a penalty which Fábio Silva scored in the 89th minute. The major decision he made against Wolves was the yellow card he gave Wolves’ Owen Otasowie in the first half of the match.
Burnley was more on the bad side of the referee as they were given two yellow cards and then a penalty was awarded against them in the 88th minute.
Despite all these, Wolves’ coach believes that the referee was not good enough to officiate a match involving the 11th placed Premier League club.
“This is a problem that we knew. We already had Lee Mason before. It is not about the crucial mistakes or the decisions, it is about the way that he handles the game”, Nuno Espirito Santo said.
“The players get nervous. Too many voices. He whistles by the voices when some players shout. He does not have [it]. We are talking about the best competition and clearly, he does not have the quality to whistle the game.
“I am very disappointed to say this, really disappointed to say it, but I would not feel right if I did not say it. It happened before…
“I just don’t want to see him more. That is what I told him. I hope that he does not whistle a game of ours again because all of the games that we have with Lee Mason are the same.
“He does not control the players. The players are constantly arguing with both teams. With all the other referees, the game flows, the decisions are accepted, there is dialogue. He does not do it.”
🗣 "The referee doesn't have the quality to referee a game in the Premier League"
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) December 21, 2020
Nuno Espírito Santo's post-match rant about referee Lee Mason 🤬 pic.twitter.com/8gStoX1dfE
On the other hand, Burnley coach, Sean Dyche, did not have anything bad to say against the match but appreciated the fact that it was Burnley’s night.
“It was a fantastic Burnley night,” he said. “Rain pouring, wind swirling, cold, all the rest of it.
“It was a very good performance and a deserved win. At both ends of the pitch, we operated well. We created quality chances. We rarely create 25 or 40 but we created a good number today.
“If we’re being hypercritical we could’ve controlled the game earlier if we had taken them but on the other hand we saw the game through well and deserved the win.”
