JUST IN :Richard Keys makes ‘joke’ Nottingham Forest remark as he takes swipe

Richard Keys has criticized the penalty decision against Nottingham Forest in their defeat to Fulham.

   Nuno’s Reds lost 1-0 to Fulham in the Premier League at the City Ground on Saturday, Raul Jimenez scoring from the penalty spot after Foresta full-back Murillo was controversially adjudged to have brought down Andreas Pereira in the box.    After a VAR review, referee Josh Smith moved to the monitor to review the challenge and pointed to the spot.

   Foresti are said to be angry at the latest controversial decision and have once again questioned the referee’s standard.    Pundit Keys wrote in his blog: “I sympathize with Forest’s belief that the poor standard of refereeing is degrading the game.

   “What a joke that pen award was at The City Ground. What happened to ‘the referee’s call’? Remember? That was point 1 of Howard Webb’s six-point review – more decisions on the pitch and less intervention  VAR. Can’t they help themselves?”

   After the match, Nuno said: “We all want peace and for things to continue well, so that we don’t have to talk about the referees. But it was bad, wasn’t it?

   “We had situations in the Fulham box with T (Taiwo Awoniyi) and Anthony (Elanga). They checked and looked but they don’t have the same opinion as us. We can only hope that next time we don’t talk about the referees.

   “Let’s try to avoid (I’m talking about the officials) and let’s give the referees a break. I think they’re trying to improve, but today wasn’t the best day.

   “We don’t want to talk about it (the referee’s decision). Nobody wants to talk about it. When we come to the game, we don’t think about the referee, we just want to compete and play the game and hope the referee. But he didn’t do a good job today, so hopefully  will improve – because we didn’t play a good game, so we have to improve.”