Challinor questions lack of 'consistency' from referee during Stockport County's defeat to Cobblers

Stockport County boss Dave Challinor questioned the lack of ‘consistency’ from referee Darren Handley during Saturday's 2-1 defeat against Northampton, particularly in the context of Akil Wright’s late red card.

The defender was booked for a poor first-half challenge on Sam Hoskins and then picked up his second yellow card in stoppage-time when hauling down Kieron Bowie.

Challinor did not feel Wright’s offences were worthy of two yellow cards, pointing to a lack of consistency throughout the game. He seemed particularly unhappy that neither Jon Guthrie nor Danny Hylton were further punished for several infringements.

"I don’t think it’s a sending off,” said Challinor. “If you look at the grand scheme of things, potentially you could say it’s a foul and a yellow card but if that’s a yellow card, there should be loads more yellow cards during the game.

"Their number five and Sars (Antoni Sarcevic) are both booked for handbags. Well, the number five (Guthrie) elbows Ben (Hinchliffe) and it’s very clear – you can see it on the video. But he doesn’t get booked for it.

"Their number 10 (Hylton) then comes on and probably makes about seven fouls in the first five minutes and doesn’t get anything.

"With Akil, it’s a foul and had he booked every player for every foul during the game, then fine, be consistent with it. But I don’t think it is.

"But again, we are victims of our own mistakes. We are in comfortable position but then it’s a rubbish pass and Akil gets himself in trouble.”

Challinor also revealed Stockport tweaked their approach and played a more direct style on Saturday to counter Northampton’s press.

"We knew they would probably press against us,” he added. “I would loved us to have more control but we are not going to away from what we are.

"We want to be a team who gets the ball into wide areas and gets crosses and bodies into the box and our counter-press is probably the strongest part of our game.

"Certainly early in the game, against the wind, we knew we could play in their half of the pitch but we need to be better and more composed and use our experience to get a foot on the ball. We don’t want it to be a game that doesn’t suit us but too often we just hoicked balls forward in desperation.”