30 October 2021

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink unhappy with red card call in Burton’s defeat at Wigan

30 October 2021

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was choking on a sense of injustice after his Burton side were made to play for 75 minutes with 10 men in their 2-0 Sky Bet League One defeat at Wigan

The home side had already taken the lead through James McClean’s brilliant volley when Jonny Smith was shown a straight red for poleaxing Wigan’s Curtis Tilt with a dangerous high foot.

After that, it was only really about damage limitation, with Burton unable to lay a glove on their opponents, who are now up to second place in the table.

To rub salt into Burton wounds, the win was secured six minutes after the restart, when on-loan Rotherham centre-back Tilt lashed home an absolute beauty from 25 yards.

Hasselbaink, though, felt the game was lost as soon as his side were reduced to 10 men.

“The red card…they say – and I spoke to the officials – it’s endangering an opponent…how?” he said.

“Endangering means to put someone in significant danger.

“He didn’t catch him in the face, he barely caught him in the chest.

“Their player got straight up, he didn’t require any medical staff to attend to him.

“The referee had already made up his mind to show a red card.

“Everyone was shouting, this is a big stadium, with big noise, it’s a big occasion.

“He needed to calm down, assess the situation, wait…and then act.

“But he gave a red card and, after that, the game was done.

“Jonny does not have a bad bone in his body.

“It is a yellow card at the most.”

Hasselbaink also felt the nature of the Wigan goals summed up how tough his side are doing it at the moment.

“They scored two great goals,” he added.

“And when their centre-half scores a goal like that… he was very surprised.

“He could hit another million shots and he would never get another one like that… because it’s not in his DNA.

“But we are being hit by these things and we need to pick ourselves up.”

For Wigan boss Leam Richardson, it was a welcome return to winning ways after Lincoln’s surprise midweek victory at the DW prevented the Latics from going top of the table.

“I have to give credit to the staff this week as well as the players,” he said.

“We were up against a very tough, well-drilled Burton team that started the game ever so well.

“But we gave a very good account of ourselves and it was a very good win for us.

“The two goals were worthy of any level of football, they were that good.

“We know what James is capable of, and Curtis’ is an absolute worldie, isn’t it?

“But credit to Curtis, and also to Jason Kerr, who’ve had to wait and bide their time to get a chance.

“They’ve trained so well, they’ve shown what good professionals they are, and it’s no real surprise when they come in and play like that.”

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