'I was fouled' - Danny Batth says Fulham winner should not have counted

Were Sunderland badly done to by the referee in the FA Cup defeat to Fulham?

Author:
Michael Graham
Publish date:
Feb 8, 2023 8:12 PM EST

Danny Batth does not believe Fulham’s winner against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light should have counted, alleging the referee missed a foul on him.

Sunderland lost 3-2 to the Premier League side in an FA Cup fourth round replay, although there was plenty of positives to take from the performance.

Layvin Kurzawa scored what turned out to be the winner in the game from a corner in the 82^nd minute. However, Batth believes play should have been stopped long before the Frenchman turned the ball into the roof of the net.

“[The match] was tight and it could have gone either way,” Batth told safc.com. “There was a foul, a little nudge on me for the corner. The referee doesn’t give it and a few phases later the ball’s in the back of your net.

“It’s just margins like that. I think the lads will take a lot of experience from today and hopefully that will stand us in good stead.”

Sunderland started the game incredibly poorly and fell behind to an early goal. At that stage, it looked like it was going to be a long night for Tony Mowbray’s men.

However, they continued to fight and grew into the game impressively. What, though, was behind the slow start?

“Fulham have a lot of quality and in the first ten minutes I thought we didn’t really get the press right, which is probably how it felt standoff-ish and the goal sort of resulted from that," Batth explained.

"After that we fixed it and got to the ball better. Against a good team like that you have to show threat and I thought we did that, after the setback.”

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