Daniel Farke: Leeds United manager says his team has had six refereeing apologies

Leeds United players appeal for a penalty against Sunderland, one of two big shouts that angered manager Daniel Farke

Leeds United boss Daniel Farke says they have received six apologies from referees' body PGMOL this season.

The 47-year-old said he expected two more after his team had two penalty appeals turned down in Tuesday's 0-0 Championship draw with Sunderland.

Leeds went second with the point, but will be overhauled if Ipswich avoid defeat against Watford on Wednesday.

"We have had six letters this season so far apologising and saying it was a penalty or a red card," said Farke.

"We'll probably get two more letters right now. It won't help us because it doesn't feel like a fair outcome.

"If we had got two penalties it would have felt we could have at least used one to win this game

"It makes no sense. In general I am never asking for red cards, it's more like 'Come on, act a bit earlier with yellow cards'. If you don't do this you send the message 'OK, keep going'."

The two penalty calls against Sunderland came in either half, first when Dan Ballard leaned his elbow towards Crysencio Summerville's shot then after the break when Black Cats skipper Luke O'Nien handled.

Neither incident was picked up by referee Tim Robinson, however.

"It's not my side to ask for red cards but if there's a rule that there should be a handball yellow, then I ask only for the rules," Farke added.

"When you lean into the ball with the elbow and the referee has a clear view of it, sorry, this is something you have to give.

"And in the second half, it was obvious, with both hands in the air, not difficult to see."

'Important to stay analytical' despite draw

Leeds' draw hands Ipswich the advantage in the promotion race, especially as leaders Leicester suffered a shock defeat at Millwall, but Farke said keeping calm heads is vital at this stage of the campaign.

"I don't normally like to speak too much about the past because it has no effect on nowadays, but do you know how I ended my first promotion with Norwich City? Draw, draw, draw, draw, win, win," he said.

"Do you know what? After each and every draw, everyone was panicking: 'It's not enough for promotion', 'We need to win this'.

"In the end you see the other results coming in and see a point wasn't so bad. We won the league with four draws in the last six games.

"I'm not happy, but this draw takes us into the top two and even if Ipswich win the game (v Watford tonight) we are within one win of them.

"It's important to stay analytical. This is such an emotional club, everyone goes crazy here, so it's important from a leadership point of view that you don't run around like a nervous hen.

"How can I ask my players to stay calm and cool in the head if I ran around and over-protected each and every moment?"