Wigan boss Paul Jewell has criticised the Football Association for handing Leeds ‘an unfair advantage’ in Tuesday night’s FA Cup tie.
Just over 48 hours after suffering an eighth Premiership defeat from their last 11 matches, the Latics must face Leeds in an FA Cup third-round replay at Elland Road and Jewell believes the FA could have helped out his team..
A request to switch the match to Wednesday was rejected by Leeds, however Jewell feels the FA should have intervened.
Jewell: ‘It’s an outrageous decision. Leeds play their games on a Tuesday. We asked for it to be played on Wednesday, but they said ‘no’.
‘But I don’t think it should be Leeds’ decision. It should be an FA decision because it’s the FA Cup. It’s quite clearly an unfair advantage to Leeds. I don’t care what anybody says. I don’t blame Leeds in a way for taking that advantage, but I do blame the powers that be. It’s up to them to say we play Wednesday.
‘I would like to know if we were Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal whether we would be playing on Tuesday. I guess not.
‘But as tough a situation as we are going through, I would rather be us than a lot of other teams. We are in the top half of the league, the semi-finals of the Carling Cup and we are still in the FA Cup, so we are not feeling sorry for ourselves.’
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