Diego Simeone believes Real Madrid receive preferential treatment from referees after Atletico Madrid’s Angel Correa was red carded during Saturday’s derby draw.
Despite Simeone’s men putting yet another dent in their rivals’ LaLiga title hopes, he was aggrieved not to pick up all three points and highlighted what he perceives as refereeing bias towards Madrid after Correa was sent off for an elbow to the chest of Antonio Rudiger.
“A contact is not a blow,” Simeone told DAZN. “Football is a physical game.
“If I’m not mistaken, Rudiger measures 1.94 metres and if it was apparently such a brutal blow, it would have left him sitting down, but he immediately gets up.
“It may be a yellow [card] but sending a player off for that, there would be no players left on the field.
“It’s the same story. It is normal, and it has become normal [referees favouring Madrid] and that’s not right and it would be nice if we could all compete in the same way.”
Correa’s dismissal was Atleti’s third in three meetings with Madrid this season after Stefan Savic’s red card during a 3-1 extra-time loss in the Copa del Rey quarter-final and Mario Hermoso’s sending off in September’s league defeat.
Simeone is frustrated by favouritism towards Carlo Ancelotti’s men, especially at the Santiago Bernabeu, saying: “In the Copa del Rey, they could have sent off Dani Ceballos for a foul that was a red.
“Today, Angel’s foul they saw it that way. You have all seen it, there are things that are very clear.
“[VAR] can go either way, sometimes in your favour, sometimes against you.
“However, every time we come here [to the Bernabeu], it goes against us.”
Despite ending a run of four straight games away from home against Madrid without scoring, Simeone felt his team should have picked up all three points, declaring: “We are left with the feeling that we could have won the game.
“We knew that Madrid at the end of games are very dangerous.
“We overcame Reinildo’s injury, also recovered from Correa’s sending off and took the lead. We could have defended better so as not to concede the equaliser, but we must continue on this positive path.”