Ref bottled it: Jewell

Last updated : 04 January 2004 By Paul Farrington
Jewell said "I thought the referee bottled it. No-one likes to see a player sent off, but Repka deserved a (second) yellow card. I wasn't in the least surprised when Alan Pardew replaced him moments later.

"We deserved to win but we paid the price for not taking our chances. We had all the pressure and I am disappointed with the result but not the performance.

"When you play a team of the quality of West Ham you will get punished if you don't take your chances and that's exactly what happened.

Meanwhile Hammers boss Pardew thought that Repka did not deserve to be sent off, he said: "Tomas has this reputation and it gets the fans going but I thought today he wasn't doing anything untoward.

"I thought the referee might be put under too much pressure so I brought Tomas off to get him out of trouble."

"This was a very good victory today. Wigan is a tough place to come, especially in the FA Cup.

"I really fancied Connolly to score today. He had looked sharp in training and I thought he might score a scrappy goal but the one he got was an absolute cracker."

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