Southend United manager Steve Tilson unhappy with referee Karl Evans after defeat at Millwall (From Echo)

Southend United manager Steve Tilson unhappy with referee Karl Evans after defeat at Millwall

10:10pm Tuesday 26th January 2010 in

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SOUTHEND United manager Steve Tilson was unhappy with referee Karl Evans after his side's 2-0 defeat at Millwall tonight.

Tilson was furious that the officials allowed Danny Schofield's goal on the stroke of half-time to stand.

And he felt that the controversial effort played a massive part in settling the match in favour of the Lions.

“Things are hard enough for us at the moment without the officials making decisions like that,” fumed Tilson.

“There is just no way that it should have been allowed. To start off with there was a blatant foul on Simon Francis out wide during the build up and the lad who has put it in is offside.

“It was obvious to see and to go in 1-0 down was a massive body blow for us.”

The defeat saw the Shrimpers slip to 16th in the League One standings, just four points above the relegation zone.

And their small squad has now depleted even further by an injury to Francis Laurent who played no part in the match.

“I got a phone call at 12.30 to tell me Francis' hamstring was sore and that he couldn't play – so that didn't help things at all,” said Tilson.

“Osei Sankofa had to come off ill at half-time and now Alan McCormack is out banned for two games after picking up his 10th booking of the season.

“That means we're down to about 15 or 16 players now and things just don't seem to be going our way.

“I again couldn't fault the lads for effort or commitment but the bottom line is we have a lot of boys out there trying to do a man's job.”