Daniel Farke was left mightily irked by the decision-making of Paul Tierney and lack of communication from the fourth official during Leeds' defeat to Arsenal

Daniel Farke has vented his frustration at the ‘inconsistent’ officiating in Leeds United’s 2-1 defeat to Arsenal, stating that three yellow cards his side received were unjust.

Ao Tanaka and Ethan Ampadu earned cautions for fouls from referee Paul Tierney within two minutes of each other, the latter causing Farke to appeal in anger to the fourth official. The manager would himself go into the book for his protestations in the 39th minute.

He would later explain that he felt the decisions not to award yellow cards to three players who clattered into Dominic Calvert-Lewin earlier in the first half led to inconsistency.

“There were three fouls on Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the first half in good situations for counter attacks,” Farke began when asked to give his view on the situation. “I was going to the fourth official, ‘Listen, are we thinking about a yellow card?’

“Perhaps because it was a tactical foul, he said, ‘Yeah, we're thinking about it, but Daniel, it's 20/30 yards in your half. It's not so dangerous.

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“I said, ‘OK, listen, no problem. I accept this. I don't ask for yellow cards, but please don't do the [opposite] when it happens on the other side just because the whole stadium is asking for it.

“What happens? Ao Tanaka, 30 yards in their half foul - yellow card because whole stadium is on it. Ethan Ampadu 30 yards in their half - yellow card because the whole stadium is on it.

“When I was asking the fourth official, ‘Come on, Oliver [Langford]. We have spoken before about it. Why are you doing this?’ He didn't want to explain, and didn't want to come to me. So I'm always more or less in Mikel’s technical area, and in my technical area, he didn't want to show up. So I had to go over, and then I saw a yellow card because I went out of my technical area.”

Farke went on to indicate how this impacted his game plan. He was seen bellowing at Tanaka to calm down after launching into a tackle before half time, before his exit on 71 minutes.

Farke added: ”All three yellow cards were not deserved or not with consistency. But it's also like with Ao Tanaka, I have to take him off in the second half because he was there with another foul. We had to be careful.

“Ethan Ampadu has to be careful in each duel and these little details are also sometimes decisive. I think there was no consistency in these decisions, and yeah, when you tell them this or ask them for explanations, and they don't have an explanation.

“They are just annoyed, and they give even the manager sometimes a yellow card. That's it.”