Pulis laments refereeing decisions in Bournemouth reverse

Tony Pulis was critical of referee Mike Dean as nine-man West Brom fell to a 2-1 home loss against AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League. 

Charlie Daniels scored a penalty with three minutes to go to settle the contest after Darren Fletcher had fouled Dan Gosling, but Pulis felt the contact was outside the area. 

The Baggies boss also questioned the decision-making in the build up to James McClean’s first-half dismissal, while Salomon Rondon was the second home player to be given his marching orders late on for a headbutt on Gosling.

Speaking about the spot-kick call, Pulis said: “I think everybody can see that it’s outside the box.

“The real disappointing thing with that is you can’t be giving big decisions like that unless you’re 100 per cent sure. He’s an experienced referee and it’s very disappointing.”

Addressing the the first red card, he added: “Obviously it’s a reckless challenge from McClean.

“The disappointing thing for me is that 30 seconds before that, Smith actually goes over the top of the ball and catches McClean on his ankle and McClean has not let that go, he’s gone after him with the next challenge unfortunately and you can’t condone that.

“If Mike Dean gives a free-kick then that doesn’t happen and it just seemed to be one of those afternoons where things like that happened.”

Pulis revealed that four or five of his players were suffering from illness, which contributed to his side’s slow start to proceedings.

He said: “They all wanted to play and in the first 20-25 minutes it looked as though we were carrying a sickness bug because we looked very flat, very ponderous and they were by far the better team.”

However, the Welshman offered no defence for Rondon’s actions at the death.

“That’s crazy, absolutely stupid,” he conceded. “But again, the reaction of the players when Mike gives the penalty, they were absolutely distraught. It’s not a penalty.

“He can’t do things like that. We’ve never had any inkling that he’s got anything like that in him since he’s joined us. That’s the first time we’ve seen him react like that.

“I think people get carried away with decisions at times and our lads were a little bit frustrated with some of the decisions.”