Sheffield Wednesday 2 Leeds United 0: Evans slams referee gaffe

United trailed to a Gary Hooper double with 11 minutes left but looked to have pulled a goal back when Alex Mowatt’s quickly taken free-kick was scrambled in by Liam Cooper.

However, referee Taylor then disallowed the goal owing to the fact that Wednesday were in the process of making a substution with Fernando Forestieri having not yet left the field.

Evans also revaled that he went for a toilet break after believing Leeds had scored, only to return to find out the effort had been disallowed.

Evans fumed: “He says in law he’s got it right because it should be disallowed. I’ve never seen that ever.

“He’s a Premier League referee whose stepped down to take charge of a big derby. He should be with the Under-9s on a park pitch in his next game because you cannot make a mistake of that magnitude in a game which means so much.

“The free-kick is given, the referee signals that he’s going to allow a substitution.

“Forestieri got his deckchair out and took four days to come off. The referee in my opinion overruled that and said we’ll restart play.

“He clearly whistled to restart play. I’ve been to see him and he accepts that. He shouts to my players ‘play’. We score, he gives the goal. I go for a leak, a little break, and I come back and he’s chalked it off.”

Assessing his side’s performance, Evans added: “We take a chance and it gets chalked off. But you have to take those chances. You have to go in front. If we’d gone in front today then it’s easy to say how that changes the course of the game. I don’t go away disappointed with the performance, I go away disappointed with individuals in terms of mistakes in both boxes.

“I thought my team had a real energy, a real commitment to passing and moving. At times we were far, far superior. But at this stage of the season it’s about winning games. We’ve lost, they’ve won. Good luck to them.”