“We could say it is our fault that we lost the game because of the one Kevin missed at the end, unfortunately, because that would have been a massive bonus for us,” Big Sam told WHUFC.com.
“We fought and battled to the end, with ten men, so to get a golden chance like that and have it fall to our leading goalscorer, I thought ‘Go on Kev make it a pleasant day for us in the end’ but unfortunately the shot just went wide of the post instead of going into the net.
“It would have been too late for Everton to have come back [and score a winner] even with eleven men against ten. Then we had the referee sending one of their players off after he had sent Carlton Cole off, so it ended up being a bizarre second half after what was a fantastic first half. We scored a goal and defended as well as we did, but in the end it has all gone pear-shaped.
“We could look at ourselves and say it’s all our fault, and that’s fair enough, but unfortunately the majority of it isn’t because at one-one the referee sent Carlton Cole off. We were all aghast and the whole stadium was shocked by the fact that it was a red card.
“We’re all shocked because of the incident after 32 minutes when Anichebe has done almost exactly the same thing Carlton has done on James Collins and nothing has happened. When you see that sort of thing happening in the same game by the referee, it’s very disappointing indeed.
“We have to take it on the chin and move on because there is nothing we can do about the result. The most disappointing thing is that if our appeal doesn’t work then we will miss Carlton for the Reading match and he’s playing very, very well at the minute and he scored a fantastic goal.”