Shrewsbury's Tom Flanagan hits out at 'painful' League One refereeing

Flanagan, the January recruit from Sunderland and Northern Ireland international, hit out at Andy Davies and his assistants after Steve Cotterill's Town were beaten 2-1 at home by Oxford on Saturday.

The stopper felt Hampshire referee Davies, who is a regular Championship official, got the majority of decisions wrong as Town fell to a first defeat in four games.

Cotterill, who was booked in stoppage time by the man in the middle, was unconvinced by the decision not to award his side an early penalty and then to blow for a late U's spot-kick – which turned out to be the winner from Cameron Brannagan – after Elliott Bennett caught Ryan Williams.

"We need a little bit of luck with the officials really, it's getting quite frustrating," Flanagan said.

"They've all come out of the Premier League, supposedly, that's what they think. They think they're all Premier League footballers and not League One referees, that's where their arrogance is at."

Striker Ryan Bowman netted his 10th goal of the season with a well-taken first-time strike on the hour to deservedly haul the hosts level against in-form high-flyers Oxford on the hour. Matty Taylor had early converted an 11th-minute opener.

And it was Shrews who were well in the ascendency after the break, in which they should have found a decisive second goal, before Brannagan kept his cool from the spot.

Flanagan added: "I'll be honest about the penalty, if that happened in the other box I think we'd all want it. It's not a foul, I don't think he gives it on halfway.

"But sometimes it's not the big decisions they get wrong. They'll have to make 40 decisions in a game and will get 38 of them wrong. It's painful, it really is.

"It's almost like they've got blinkers on, but it's been like that for a while, but this is definitely the worst year it's ever been.

"They've got no-one to answer to, that's the thing. We walk into the dressing room and the manager's going mad at us and there will be changes tomorrow night, people will lose their position.

"But he'll go and referee another game, that's the balance. They would've had an assessor here and he would've had his rose-tinted glasses on and thought he'd have done really well."

Cotterill's men, who dropped a place to 18th, have little time to stew on their frustration as relegation rivals Morecambe head to Montgomery Waters Meadow for a crunch re-arranged fixture tomorrow. The Shrimps are 22nd, seven points behind, and winless in 10 under new boss Derek Adams.