April 21 2007

Julian Speroni

Peter Taylor was fuming after a re-taken penalty condemned Crystal Palace to a 2-0 defeat at Barnsley.

Taylor's side were trailing to Daniel Nardiello's first half goal when the Tykes were awarded a spot-kick for a foul on the former Manchester United trainee.

Julian Speroni saved Nardiello's penalty but a linesman ruled the Eagles keeper had moved off his line before the ball was struck.

Nardiello beat Speroni at the second attempt to leave Palace pointless and frustrated.

"Whether he moved too soon or not I don't know, but what I do know is there are hundreds of instances like that and nothing is done about it," Taylor said. "This guy has ordered a retake when that never really happens. There's no consistency.

"On the whole I thought the referee was superb, but his assistant was not. When the time comes for me to write my reports about referees at the end of the season, I'll do my usual thing of complaining about the assistants.

"If the score had stayed at 1-0 then we had a chance, because we were creating chances, but 2-0 killed us.

"But I don't want to take anything away from Barnsley. They played very well, like we knew they would, and they deserved to win."