Wigan Athletic boss has to 'live with' refereeing controversy

The Latics boss was left apoplectic with West Midlands whistler Oliver Langford, who failed to send off Boro defender Harold Moukoudi on the hour mark for a clear professional foul on Kieffer Moore, who was in on goal.

To rub salt into the wounds, Langford handed a second yellow card to Latics defender Chey Dunkley within 90 seconds, with Boro scoring from the resulting free-kick and then taking the lead five minutes later.

Latics showed true character to rescue a point thanks to a late own goal from, ironically, Moukoudi, but remain four points adrift of safety with only 14 matches to go.

And Cook says a chat with Alan Wiley, the referee director at PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) has helped him to move on to the challenges ahead.

"With all the respect in the world, I've had long conversations this week with Alan Wiley," Cook told the Wigan Post.

"The best way I can put this, to put all this to bed, is the referee himself was very disappointed with his performance on Tuesday night in relation to the big decisions.

"We don't need to say any more, it's not a witch-hunt as far as we're concerned.

"Even though we've ended up with so many bookings - including managers - on the back of that, we must remain supportive of referees.

"They will get decisions wrong, but when they acknowledge they've got it wrong - and for both sides - that's all you can do.

"We have to support referees, and we hope they get more big decisions right than wrong.

"The reality is he got a big one wrong on Tuesday, with the no red card for the foul on Kieffer Moore, but we have to live with it."

When asked whether he was able to 'live with it', Cook replied: "I've no choice.

"We would have been playing against 10 men for half an hour, winning 1-0.

"Would we have won the game? No-one knows.

"We won at Leeds with 10 men last season, so you can't turn around and say 'the referee has definitely cost us three points'.

"But obviously the percentage chances of us winning would have gone up a lot, because we were quite in control of the game 11 against 11.

"Unfortunately, within 90 seconds, we're down to 10 men ourselves, they go 2-1 up, and we're up against it.

"Football's a funny old game, and that will carry on forever."