After a “confusing” ruling went against him, Everton manager Sean Dyche called the handball regulations “nonsense” and said they should “go back to the old days.”
The Toffees have recently had a run of successful games. They had won four straight league games in early December, suggesting that their 10-point deduction may have spurred them on to a comeback.
A 2-1 loss to Tottenham put an end to that streak. It appeared as though it might have been restarted against heavyweights Manchester City, who trailed Everton 1-0 at the interval before rallying for three goals in the second half.
The one that gave City the lead was surrounded by controversy since Amadou Onana was handed a penalty after the ball struck his arm, when he couldn’t move it out of the way in time.
Dyche feels decision such as the one that changed the game in City’s favour are confusing, and things should go back to being simpler.
“I think last night, everyone’s confused by the handball situation and managers spoke very clearly to the powers that be earlier this season, including myself, that was a really poor one from me,” Dyche told Amazon Prime.
“Like I said afterwards, if that’s a penalty then Onana should be a keeper because he has some reflexes to stop that if it was deliberate. And I know deliberate doesn’t count anymore, it’s all nonsense, it should go back to the old days.
“The other frustration is who’s giving what; after the situation at Tottenham, I asked who’s giving what and the linesman gives this one 50 yards away, the referee is 12 yards away. It’s more the confusion, they’re under enough scrutiny.”
Dyche then picked out other incidents over the course of the season in which he feels his team were hardly done to due to the decisions that were made.
“You don’t want to cry it in, I don’t think any manager wants to by the way, but it’s very hard not to speak about it. Very early season, if you remember the Michael Keane goal, the keeper drops it at the end of the day and it is not turned around,” Dyche added.
“The sending off at Liverpool – not turned around. The one at Spurs; I watched it back and for all Ange [Postecoglou], bless him, said afterwards that it was a definite foul – he didn’t even respond, he’s just like ‘yeah, they’ve scored, end of.’ So in hindsight, he’s really guilty of it.”
