Accused Grayson hits back after red card fury

The United manager was accused of influencing referee Mark Halsey’s decision to show red to Cohen with his reaction to the midfielder’s 35th-minute challenge on George McCartney.

Forest, and assistant manager David Kelly in particular, felt Grayson’s charge onto the field immediately after the tackle, which sparked an ugly melee involving all 22 players, led directly to the visitors being reduced to 10 men.

Grayson, however, insists the accusations are well wide of the mark.

“He (Kelly) thought I had got Cohen sent off,” said the Leeds manager to the Yorkshire Post. “But I don’t make the decisions on the pitch.

“The referee has done that and it is down to him (Kelly) what problems he has got with it.

“If it had been the other way round and a tackle by my player on his then I am sure he would have jumped up and down.

“I have seen instances this season where their bench has been up and down so I am sure he would have backed his player.

“Mark Halsey is a Premier League referee who knows what the game is all about. He hasn’t gone and sent him off because I have backed my player. I will always back my players and if that means things happen on the touchline then so be it.

“If the players don’t see the manager showing a bit of fire in his belly then that might reflect on them.”

The game was goalless at the time of Cohen’s dismissal and Leeds went on to make their numerical advantage pay by winning 4-1. Two goals from Max Gradel plus a strike apiece for Jonny Howson and Luciano Becchio clinched an ultimately emphatic victory that keeps United firmly in the hunt for promotion.

Despite that, the big talking point at the final whistle was the red card shown to Cohen and the bust-up that followed.

Grayson, whose offer of a handshake after the game was refused by Kelly, said: “I was worried when the tackle went in.

“The lad has jumped in on him and George went down holding his leg. He could quite easily have broken it.

“Fortunately, he (Cohen) didn’t catch him too much but on another day he could quite easily have done. It could have been worse than it was.

“You can’t leave the ground in this day and age. In the 1970s when Leeds played Forest, that was a normal tackle. But you can’t do that now.”

The melee that followed Cohen’s lunging tackle on McCartney was the second time tempers have boiled over in games between Leeds and Forest this season.

Back in August, Chris Gunter sparked a huge bust-up at the City Ground by stamping on Sanchez Watt – an offence that later saw the full-back handed a three-game ban.

Asked if he would have any concerns about meeting Forest in the play-offs, Grayson added: “Not at all, if it has to be. It is not me or Billy Davies who’s going to win the game, it is the players on the pitch who will win or lose.”

Forest manager Davies, who confirmed the club would appeal against the red card, unsurprisingly had a different take on the game’s big talking point.

He said: “I said last week that when you get to this stage of the season, three or four things matter – refereeing decisions, Lady Luck, injury and suspension. We didn’t deserve that defeat.”

Asked to expand on the incident, Davies refused, saying he felt that it was obvious to everyone in the 29,524 crowd that the referee had got the decision wrong.

He said: “It is for other people to give their honest verdict and your honest verdict will tell you what took place. It is not for me to say whether referees get things right or wrong.

“It is also not for me to control what takes place on the touchline with other managers going on to the field of play.”

Leeds were one of three teams who started the weekend in the top six who won, Cardiff City and Norwich City being the others.

With Reading also beating Portsmouth, the upshot is United are today in exactly the same position as they were ahead of kick-off – six points behind second-placed Norwich and four ahead of the chasing pack in the race for the play-offs.

Grayson said: “All it has done has given us one of the eight victories that I have asked the players to try and achieve.

“We will see how many we can win. But the win was important because we have responded to the disappointment and the performance (in the 2-0 defeat) at Sheffield United.

“To beat one of the teams around us in the manner we did should give the players a lot of confidence and belief. Forest have got a lot of quality and are a big strong team but our players stood up to them.

“I said at the start of the week that it’s all about getting results. Whether you win 1-0, 4-1, grind a result out or play flair football – it is all about results at this stage. I think we deserved a victory on the basis of how we ground it out.”