Swans denied clear penalty against Millwall - Sheehan

Alan Sheehan's Swansea are unbeaten at home in 11 games in all competitions

Swansea City were denied a "stonewall penalty" in Saturday's 1-1 Championship draw with Millwall, according to head coach Alan Sheehan.

Swans striker Zan Vipotnik appeared to be pulled back by Jake Cooper as he tried to meet a 75th-minute cross from Josh Tymon.

But despite animated appeals from Vipotnik and his team-mates – as well as Sheehan and his coaching staff – referee Dean Whitestone waved play on.

That was the second contentious decision in successive games that had gone against Swansea, who had a Vipotnik goal incorrectly disallowed for being offside during last Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Birmingham City.

"It's a stonewall penalty. I don't know what else to say without making an excuse for it," said Sheehan.

"It's a penalty. These are the decisions right now. Yeah, we had one last week, we've had one this week.

"The way the league is at the moment, they're very tight games. You see bottom teams at the moment beating top teams and everything in between. It's not really settled down yet, so these are the games you want to keep accumulating points and yeah, it's a decision that I feel that the referee got wrong."

Swansea had dominated the first half and led through Vipotnik's sixth goal in seven games.

And although they had chances to extend their lead, the Swans allowed Millwall back into the contest and conceded an equaliser moments before half-time.

As frustrated as Sheehan was with Whitestone's decision not to award his team a penalty, the Irishman was equally disappointed by his team's inability to take their opportunities.

"You have to give referees 30 minutes after the game before speaking to them and so I'll be asking him why he got it wrong," Sheehan added.

"Unfortunately it's gone now and we don't want to be a team that is unlucky and whingeing about decisions, and we know we need to be more clinical in the final third.

"We were very good for large parts of the first half and then got the goal. But we conceded a set-piece on the stroke of half-time that we didn't defend properly. We've got to find a way of getting that second goal."