NEIL Harris claimed Millwall were denied a penalty in their 1-1 draw against promotion-chasing West Bromwich Albion at The Den on Saturday.
Duncan Watmore gave the Lions the lead in the first half before John Swift equalised with a penalty in the second after Joe Bryan had taken down Grady Diangana.
In the eighth minute, the Baggies’ Conor Townsend appeared to handle a cross from George Honeyman, but referee James Bell ignored home claims.
Diangana then seemed to catch Watmore as the hosts pushed for a winner.
“I think the referee had three decisions to make in the penalty boxes,” Harris said. “I’m not sure the one in the second half on Duncan was a foul. I think in the Premier League with VAR it’s a foul because there’s contact on the player before the ball. In the Championship, we don’t get them.
“The other two – Joe does commit the foul, he just mistimes his tackle and fair play, it’s good feet by the attacker.
“But [Bell] misses the penalty in the first half. We’ve put the ball in the box and the player’s hand is at head height and it’s hand ball. So he probably got two right and one wrong.”
Harris has taken 11 points from his six games in charge to lead the Lions away from the relegation zone.
West Brom are fifth, seven points above seventh place.
Harris said: “What a good Millwall performance that was for so long in that game, especially in the first half. I thought West Brom nailed it in the first five minutes in the sense they slowed it down, retained the ball, passed backwards and sideways for so long to stop us getting near it and putting pressure on them.
“But then we grew into the game and we had them rattled. They’re a really good side with really good players, just look at the bench they have, and we bossed it.
“We’ve come in at half-time and the lads summed it up and said, ‘they’re going to get a rollicking in their changing room and come out and be aggressive because we should have been 3-0 up’. And we should have been – we should have been out of sight by half-time.
“And then start of the second half they’re dominating the ball but we were having all the chances.
“If you don’t see teams off at this level, you will get punished by a moment. And when they have quality one-v-one players, it only takes a moment, as we saw with the penalty award, that you get found wanting.
“So my glass is half-full in the sense of really strong performance, really good point gained against a really good side. But obviously the disappointment is that we deserved the three.’
