Bring Back The Monitors - Coleman

Last updated : 27 August 2008 By Covsupport News Service
Coventry City manager Chris Coleman has called for monitors to be restored to the dug-outs at Football League grounds.

The City boss was in hot water for comments he made during City's 3-0 defeat on Saturday towards the referee Phil Dowd and told the CT: "Every year you go to the league managers and referees meeting and this year is the campaign to respect referees, which I am all for.

"They have taken monitors out of the dugout but if I had seen the replay of the first challenge on the keeper that would have stopped me throwing my toys out of the pram because I would have said, 'Fair enough, I can see why he didn't give it.' A few things happened after that and then the penalty really got me to boiling point."

"I always had a monitor at Fulham and, more often than not, it stopped me confronting the referee because on a second look at it I could see that he has got it right rather than wrong. However, if I see he has got it wrong I am going to try and pull him on it.

"I know how hard it is to be a referee and we are trying to help them, but that doesn't mean covering up for them and hiding their mistakes.

"There are only two or three big decisions in a game, so an eight-second playback is nothing.

"Cricket, rugby, tennis have all got it and yet football is the biggest game in the world so I don't understand why we haven't got it because it is not making it harder for referees, it is making it easier.

"I haven't got a problem with Phil Dowd who is a very capable referee, although I had a problem with him in the first 45 minutes.

"It's a man's game and we have to behave in the right way - in that flashpoint I didn't behave and say the right things.

"It is all right saying resect the referees, but let's help them out by having monitors - more often than not, it will stop managers doing what I did on Saturday."