Steve Cooper alleges that the referee in Leicester City’s defeat “would have booked everybody in the ground.”

The Leicester City manager gives his take on the state of refereeing in the Premier League after defeat to Aston Villa

Steve Cooper was left dismayed by the state of Premier League refereeing after arguing that Leicester City’s defeat to Aston Villa wasn’t officiated in accordance to guidance given by referees before the season started.

Cooper said that meeting with referees this summer suggested the threshold for fouls would be raised, allowing for a more physical match. But City’s 2-1 loss to Villa was stop-start throughout, with 34 free-kicks awarded by referee David Coote and nine yellow cards shown to players.

City assistant manager Alan Tate was booked at half-time and so was another member of the club’s staff, potentially Cooper, in the second half. One frustrating decision was the free-kick awarded against Oliver Skipp that led to the Villa opener, but otherwise, Cooper’s irritation was with the refereeing as a whole.

“I think everybody in the stadium would have been booked if the referee could have got around to it,” Cooper said in his post-match press conference. “I’ve just accepted that the refereeing is where it is. I’ve said things before and ended up being fined. I’m not going to do that.

“I do know that, because of where refereeing is, you just keep your fingers crossed every week that it doesn’t go against you on gameday. I realised that last season when I was away from the game, when I’m looking at them more neutrally and you see it clearly that it’s behind the curve in the Premier League.

“It’s the best league in the world, without any shadow of a doubt, but the refereeing, for a number of years, has been trying to catch up with that. You accept this is how it is, it’s out of your control but you keep your fingers crossed.

“You can talk about isolated decisions, but I won’t. What I will talk about is the managers meeting that we had in pre-season. The club visits you have from referees and the refereeing association, the key message to us was that the threshold for tackles and duels, in this beautiful English game that we love, was going to be raised. I can remember it clearly.

“And then we get that. It’s another reminder that we are where we are with refereeing. Let’s just focus on the players. Let’s be disappointed with the result. I’ll let other people sort that out and hopefully they will.”

City fans were also frustrated by a number of other decisions in the game. They had a second-half goal for Jamie Vardy ruled out when Coote got in the way of a pass in the build-up. There were also two penalty shouts on Vardy, the first for a tackle by Youri Tielemans in which he got the ball but also took the man, and the second at the death, which was awarded before rightly being overturned for offside.

Those moments came in a second period in which City more than held their own. They had trailed 2-0 after an hour, but fought back, Facundo Buonanotte scoring his maiden goal for the club to give them a lifeline. But they could not turn their pressure into chances late on.

“We’re really frustrated that we haven’t at least drawn the game,” Cooper said. “We felt like there was a real opportunity to win the game, the way the game was being played out. That’s a real frustration.

“It was an even game, up until the first goal. We felt that Villa were causing us a threat off our own turnovers when we were comfortable in possession. If anything, Villa looked like a counter-attacking team today, which is not what they are.

“That’s what we felt like could hurt us the most, controlling the game in the middle of the pitch. When we did lose it, they were a real threat. We’ll own the free-kick, that’s on all of us. For me, it should never be a free-kick and that really changed the complexion of the game.

“Half-time was obvious in terms of how the game could go, in terms of what was needed. The second goal, although they did have numbers up the pitch and bodies in the box, it was the first time in the second half that that was the case. It was against the run of play. It was a blow to concede that second.

“We managed to get back into the game and looked like we were going to be more than good for the draw. If we got a second goal, who knows?

“I won’t hide away from the fact that it’s been a tough start with results and points from the first three. I believe there’s been enough in the three games, with us transitioning back into the Premier League and introducing new players, if we keep going, we’ll be more than alright.

“We’ll always own up to results, I’ll be first to that, but we could have got something better out of every game that we’ve played. We don’t want to have a season of ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’, but we’re more than competing at the level and we’ve got to turn that into positive results.”