'I was told scorer was offside but not interfering': Portsmouth boss fumes at officials after Blackpool loss

John Mousinho criticised the match officials after Pompey’s 27-match unbeaten League One was abruptly ended.

The Blues’ head coach was fuming after being told by the near-side linesman that, for Blackpool’s second goal, Jake Beesley was stood in an offside position but not interfering with play.

However, he was interfering - with Karamoko Dembele’s shot clearly striking him to enter the net in the 4-0 defeat.

Then, on 63 minutes, Mousinho is adamant Abu Kamara was denied a ‘stonewall penalty’ after Kenny Dougall’s challenge.

Seconds later, Joe Morrell earned a second yellow card and, from that point, Pompey were looking for damage limitation.

Mousinho told The News: ‘It was an interesting one. I spoke to the linesman during the game and he said he (Beesley) was offside, but wasn't interfering with play.

‘It actually takes a nick off him, so I don’t know how it wasn't interfering.

‘I don't blame the referring unit for the result, but I thought overall it was a really, really poor performance from the referees.

‘It’s beyond me. I wouldn’t have had an issue if they’d have said we didn’t think he was offside, that’s a very, very different thing, but it certainly looked offside to us.

‘I’m not entirely sure they even had the communication between the referee and the linesman because they were very busy booking our players.

‘Whether he touched it or not, he clearly interfered with Will’s line of sight.

‘I don’t want to get too fixated on that, it’s one of those things, but if the explanation was different I think we would have been having a different conversation.

‘That did change things going 2-0 down, although I still felt at that point we would have enough to get back in the game. Once we went to 10-men we obviously didn’t.’

Despite Mousinho’s frustration with the match officials, he had no complaints over Morrell’s sending off.

It means he now misses two matches for his second dismissal of the season.

The Blues head coach added: ‘Abu was a stonewall penalty, I don’t know why he didn’t give it, it’s bizarre.

‘I think that’s why I got booked because I was actually just asking the question about whether the threshold for fouls in the box were higher, which I know it’s not, but for some reason that wasn’t given.

‘Anywhere else on the pitch, we saw it in the first half and second half, soft little fouls were given. Just make sure you are consistent and do it in the penalty box as well.’