Gary Neville has taken a swipe at Nottingham Forest, after news emerged that the club has written to PGMOL over Ivan Toney's controversial free kick in their Premier League meeting with Brentford on Saturday.
Upon his return from his eight-month gambling ban, Toney fired in an equaliser to make it 1-1 in an eventual 3-2 win for the home side.
However, as he was preparing to take the free kick, the England international appeared to interfere with the referee's vanishing foam, while moving the ball forward to a more advantageous position.
According to The Athletic, Forest have written to Premier League referees' chief Howard Webb looking for an explanation as to how the incident was missed.
Forest's decision follows a trend this season, with Liverpool and Arsenal having done the same when controversial decisions went against them against Spurs and Newcastle respectively, and Sky Sports pundit Neville is clearly having none of it.
The refs should be doing better and are under enormous pressure at the moment. It’s in the clubs interests to work with them to make them improve.This public posturing is unnecessary. Speak to them and email them to gain clarification in private but they don’t have to “announce”…
— Gary Neville (@GNev2) January 21, 2024
Gary Neville hits out at Forest
"Clubs writing to the PGMOL is embarrassing!" he posted on Sunday. "Liverpool and Arsenal started it and set the precedent of this nonsense."
A second post from the former Manchester United man read as follows: "The refs should be doing better and are under enormous pressure at the moment.
"It’s in the clubs interests to work with them to make them improve.This public posturing is unnecessary. Speak to them and email them to gain clarification in private but they don’t have to “announce” they’ve written to the PGMOL.
"It’s not going to change the decision and it’s not going to help anyone! It just adds to the pile on."
Neville has a point in that complaining after the fact is never going to change the result and this trend could lead to a dangerous precedent of clubs writing to PGMOL after every poor decision that goes against them.
After yesterday's defeat, Forest look to be mired in a relegation scrap and every point they lose out on could prove crucial come the end of the season, so it is understandable that they will feel hard done by.
Refereeing and VAR in particular is far from perfect these days, but it doesn't feel like this constant moaning is going to solve any of the issues.
"Back with a BANG!" 💥
Ivan Toney scores on his return! 🔙 pic.twitter.com/QmarvV2OvK— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) January 20, 2024
