2 October 2006, by Sean Gillen

Mendes vents frustration at phantom penalty

Portuguese midfielder Pedro Mendes admits that he was deeply frustrated after being penalised for the foul that gave Tottenham a penalty in Portsmouth’s 2-1 defeat at White Hart Lane on Saturday.

Ivorian midfielder Didier Zokora went down under pressure from Mendes, and referee Chris Foy awarded Spurs a spot-kick, which Jermaine Defoe converted. However, replays clearly show no contact made by the former Porto man, with Tottenham manager Martin Jol admitting it was not a penalty.

“There was never contact. It was a referee mistake that cost us the game,” said Mendes. “But once again we performed very well. We played very well and we deserve more than this.”

When asked whether he was more frustrated with the referee or Zokora himself for diving, Medes replied: “I think it’s with the player. The referee was close to the scene, but I think it’s up to the player – he dived.”

“It frustrating for us, very frustrating for us. To come here and perform much better than Tottenham, and go away with no points in the bag.”

The defeat is Pompey’s second in a week, after a fine start, but Mendes insists that the performance levels haven’t dropped, and the team have just been short on luck.

“Even if you look at the Bolton game, we did everything we could to win, but the ball just didn’t want to go into the net. But once again, we performed well at Bolton, we performed well today,” said the former Porto man.

“The team is playing fantastic. Good players came in. Harry and the board did fantastic work to contract all these players.”

“We have a great team, a great squad. We’ve been playing very well but we’re unlucky. We were unlucky against Bolton and today, yeah, you can say we were unlucky today.”