A DEEPLY disappointed Lee Johnson has bemoaned the “bad refereeing” he feels deprived Sunderland of two points in their 2-2 draw at Fleetwood.

The Black Cats were heading for another away victory as they took a 2-1 lead into stoppage time, but having been awarded a penalty when Luke O’Nien was pulled back in the box, Sunderland found themselves conceding a spot-kick when Bailey Wright was penalised for a tug of his own.

Johnson feels the two incidents were markedly different, with O’Nien being wrestled away from the ball while Wright barely made contact with his opponent.

However, he also felt referee Neil Hair could not wait to level things up by pointing to the spot, enabling Ged Garner to salvage Fleetwood a 2-2 draw.

Johnson said: “I just think it’s bad refereeing. I just think that he couldn’t wait to give it. He’s obviously given the foul at the other end, but they were very different.

“One was a bear hug where he was facing away from the ball, and in the other one, they’re both facing the ball, both facing the goal, and there is contact in boxes.

“I’ll look at his next six games, and every time there’s a corner and somebody blocks someone or every time there’s half an inch of a short pull, he’d better give it.

“That’s the precedent he’s set himself. All we have the power to do is downgrade on the marks, and hopefully they learn from it.”

Sunderland were well in control when McGeady’s spot-kick doubled Sunderland’s lead after Ross Stewart had opened the scoring with a header.

However, Fleetwood were given a glimmer of hope when Callum Morton advanced beyond the Black Cats defence to make it 2-1, and Johnson was disappointed by the manner in which his side conceded that first goal.

He said: “It's difficult to take because we've put our bodies on the line and scored two good goals, but it is what it is.

“The first goal we conceded was a poor one, from our perspective. We made a couple of mistakes and we had a couple of warnings with those in-to-out runs that they'd made.

“We've left a slot and they've capitalised. That one was really disappointing because at that point we'd probably demoralised them enough to go and have control.

“If anything, that's the bit I'm angry about. But I'll be watching that referee's games in the next few weeks.”