Wigan Athletic boss anxious to avoid Royal rumpus

Latics went down to a controversial 3-2 defeat at the Madejski Stadium 11 months ago to leave them deep in the relegation mire.

Amazingly, the Latics boss was told later that week by a referees’ chief all three Reading goals should have been disallowed.

Thankfully, Latics were able to fight their way out of the dogfight to retain their Championship status.

But they suffered more Royal pain earlier this season, at the DW, when a harsh penalty awarded to the visitors helped turn the game on its head.

Ironically, Cook will be returning to the technical area on Wednesday night after serving a one-game touchline ban for being found guilty of two FA charges following the recent draw against Middlesbrough.

“I’m not overly pleased with referees and stuff at the minute - after being done twice last week in a game where the referee’s performance was not good enough,” Cook acknowledged.

“But last year at Reading all three of their goals should not have stood.

“That’s gone now, that’s history, there’s nothing we can do about that.

“And I can’t be afford to be looking back to that - only looking forward to the next game.

“We respect the fact referees are human beings, they will make mistakes and we have to be supportive of that.

“But there also have to be punishments for referees who don’t do well - such as not being given top games after not playing well.”

Cook also doesn’t feel any sense of revenge in the air following Reading’s 3-1 win at the DW in November when, after Chey Dunkley was penalised for handball, a quickfire hat-trick from George Puscas took the game away from his team.

“I don’t think we can necessarily learn anything from that day,” Cook mused.

“The game swung on a massive refereeing decision on 79 minutes, and we’re winning 1-0.

“Three or four minutes later we’re losing 3-1 and the game’s gone.

“We look back on the big decision...was it a penalty? No.

“But we’re having big, major decisions made by referees - even with help from VAR - who are still getting it wrong.

“That’s very worrying for football in general, but you’ve just got to get on with it.”

Cook says he has enough to worry about against Mark Bowen’s side, who have shown they can compete with, and beat, the best this term.

“They’re a good side, I like Reading, they’ve got some really good players,” recognised Cook.

“And I feel Mark’s done a great job since going in there, overseeing certain things he’s had to do.

“On any given day - they beat Fulham away, they gave Leeds a really good game on Saturday at Elland Road - they’re capable of beating any team in the division.

“And we know we’re in for a very difficult game.”