Allardyce fumes at ´outrageous´ Benteke decision

Sam Allardyce was seething with what he called an “outrageous” decision not to award Christian Benteke a first-half penalty in Crystal Palace’s 2-1 defeat at home to relegation rivals Swansea City on Tuesday.

Palace looked set to be on course for a 1-1 draw when Wilfried Zaha’s stunner cancelled out Alfie Mawson’s first-half opener at Selhurst Park.

But Angel Rangel secured Swansea three vital points with two minutes remaining to take the Swans off the foot of the Premier League table and just a point adrift of 17th-place Palace.

Allardyce – who has yet to win as Palace boss – was left enraged, blasting his players’ inability to follow instructions and also referee Paul Tierney for not awarding Palace a first-half penalty after Lukasz Fabianski appeared to clip Christian Benteke.

“It was a blatant penalty on Christian Benteke, outrageous that it wasn’t given,” he told BBC Sport. “That would have been a great lift.

“It’s difficult to take. We have all the science we have, we know the fatigue levels and the high intensity runs the players make and we knew they wouldn’t be able to make them tonight. 

“And they couldn’t. Perhaps I picked the wrong side; I should have changed four or five.

“Whether you’re tired or not you have to play and I told them that at half time.

“I was baffled with our first-half display; we were lumping the ball to Christian Benteke and who told them to do that? They were confused.”