Danny fumes after penalty
Feb 2 2009 By The Journal
DANNY Collins was left fuming over the "terrible" penalty decision that robbed Sunderland of the chance to complete their first derby double for more than 40 years, claiming that even Newcastle’s players thought it was a dive.
Leading from a first- half Djibril Cisse strike, Sunderland were pegged back by Shola Ameobi’s penalty mid-way through the second half. But Collins felt that Newcastle defender Steven Taylor fell over rather than being fouled in the box, and claimed Damien Duff had said the same thing after the game.
In the end a draw was a fair result for Sunderland, who have managed to secure the services of Manchester City’s Isreali international centre-back Tal Ben-Haim on loan until the end of the season. But the penalty decision was a crucial turning point in the game, and Collins agreed with boss Ricky Sbragia that referee Howard Webb had got it wrong.
"I saw the penalty decision after the game and it’s a terrible decision to be honest. Steed sort of stumbled over himself, Stevie (Taylor) has gone on another yard and fell over," Collins said last night.
"The linesman is on that side and that is where he needs to help the ref out. He didn’t actually flag – I think he has radioed it into the ref and said it’s a penner.
"I said to the linesman afterwards, "How come you never flagged?" and he said he radioed it to the ref. I accepted it at the time because there’s a lot of bodies there and I couldn’t really see it. But I saw it after the game.
"Duff himself said to me ‘It was a
worse dive than mine’. He actually said that to me.
"Perhaps the fact that it was a few minutes after that Duff incident swayed him a little bit. The ref gave one or two things that were a bit soft in the second half."
Collins was disappointed the Black Cats had not managed to capitalise on their first-half dominance.
"I’m a bit disappointed personally, especially conceding what I think is a poor penalty decision. Especially coming off the back of two clean sheets – I wanted number three," he said. "They had one or two half- chances in the second half but overall I think Marton Fulop was pretty comfortable."
Meanwhile, El-Hadji Diouf (right) has insisted that he has "no regrets" over the furious row with Anton Ferdinand that led to him leaving Sunderland.
Diouf turned on his former team-mate for sticking up for the club during a heated discussion following the victory over Fulham, and the severity of his reaction effectively sealed his departure from the Stadium of Light.
But the fiery winger insists that he has spoken to Ferdinand since and there is no problem between him and the Sunderland defender. "It is gone, it is finished. Anton is my man, he just made me mad for one day – that’s it," he said.
"Me and Anton never had any problems. Its just when I’m mad I had a problem with him. He knows that I don’t like it when someone gives me a headache, everybody knows my character. If there is something wrong with the team then I want to tell everybody.
"But it’s finished, Anton is a good man. I have spoken to him since and I don’t have an issue with him. I don’t regret what I said. I don’t regret anything. It’s just that he told me something while I was talking to the gaffer and it was not the right time."
