Leeds United's Pontus Jansson hits out at referee 'robbery' after Brentford draw - but then apologises for swearing

Jansson scored on 88 minutes to save United from a second defeat of the season but he tore into Simpson at full-time, describing his mood as “s**t”.

Simpson awarded Brentford a controversial 62nd-minute penalty after Ollie Watkins went down under a challenge from Leeds goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell.

Replays showed contact to be minimal but Neal Maupay converted the spot-kick to put Brentford on course for a valuable victory.

Simpson’s performance riled the crowd all afternoon and more controversy followed as Moses Odubajo avoided a second yellow card for a foul on Jack Clarke before United right-back Luke Ayling was sent off for a tackle in injury-time.

The Football Association is likely to be alerted to other incidents after Brentford’s players were pelted with missiles thrown from Elland Road’s South Stand after Maupay’s goal and video footage appeared to show Sergi Canos aiming a headbutt as Leeds’ Gjanni Alioski during a scuffle in Brentford’s dug-out.

Jansson could himself be in trouble over his comments about Simpson but the Sweden international was unapologetic, telling Sky Sports: “It (the result) is s**t to be fair.”

Jansson was asked by the interviewer to temper his language but said: “I don't care. This was a robbery from the referee so it feels bad. Do you think it should be happy? No chance.”

But in a post on Twitter a few hours later, Jansson said: “Sorry for bad words in TV after the game, was a lot to take in and couldn’t control myself.”

Leeds moved a point clear at top of the Championship at full-time but were overtaken by Sheffield United and West Bromwich Albion after both clubs recorded victories later in the day.

United head coach Marcelo Bielsa refused to criticise Simpson, saying: “When you have the possibility to look at the video and make your own opinion, my opinion becomes not important. We can't play football thinking the referee will never make any mistakes.

“The most important thing for me is to know if my team played well or didn’t play well. I never say the referee is responsible for our performance.

“I think it's a fair result. We could have lost the game and won the game but it wouldn't be fair to say that we were close to winning the game. That was not the case.”

Brentford manager Dean Smith defended Watkins afterwards, saying Simpson had got the penalty decision right.

“I thought it was a penalty,” Smith said. “I didn’t know there were any doubts about that.

“Ollie goes through and it’s not his job to get out of the goalkeeper’s way. From where I was, it looked a penalty.”

Asked about the scuffle between Canos and Alioski, which took place after Alioski tried to retrieve the ball from Brentford’s dug-out, Smith said: “I know there was an incident because I saw Alioski standing in our dug-out when he should have been on the pitch.

“I don’t know what happened but I’ll certainly look into it.”