Diego Simeone has refused to point the finger at referee Santiago Jaime Latre following Atletico Madrid’s stalemate with Athletic Bilbao on Sunday.
Los Colchoneros saw two Antoine Griezmann goals against the Basques wrongly disallowed by Jaime Latre, along with one which was correctly ruled out, but the Coach stopped short of criticising the match official after the game.
“I’m calm because my team are still competing. I don’t think [the ref’s performance] influenced the result,” he mused.
“In the first half, we were poor for the opening 20 minutes. Then the game became even, with chances for both teams.
“In the second half, we played well, with great courage, and we should have won the game but were left with the draw.
“I still have confidence in team’s ability to compete and we have three games to achieve our objective [of third place].
"I liked [Mario] Mandzukic’s performance [when he came on] because he allowed us to play in our opponents’ box.
“We’ll keep going and are only thinking about putting in a good display against Levante.”
