Swindon Town's Luke Williams says the referee "decided to be a Bury fan for the day"

Swindon Town head coach Luke Williams lambasted the performance of referee Mark Brown after the Robins lost 1-0 at fellow relegation candidates Bury.

The one goal of the game, which sent Swindon into the bottom four of League One, came via the penalty spot after defender Raphael Branco fouled striker Tom Pope in the box and James Vaughan converted the spot-kick in the 37th minute.

At full-time, head coach Williams tore into the display of the referee and called the penalty awarding an "astonishing" decision. 

"(It was awarded for) contact inside the box which is astonishing because in every penalty box in the whole world, in every single football pitch from Sunday morning to Champions League, everyone is contacting each other inside of the box," Williams said.

"It's not a grapple, it's contact and then release, like every other player, so why we've been punished with a penalty is beyond me, it's staggering, to be honest.

"If the rule is that no-one's allowed to make contact in the box - fine - but it's the same for everyone, yeah?

"I hate to talk about this sort of nonsense - just do your job properly.

"We know we haven't been good enough this season, we know that, but we could certainly do without the referee deciding to award a penalty because two of the opposition bash into each other or because somebody made some physical contact.

"(The performance was) not good enough because we didn't win. Lawrence Vigouroux had one save to make in the whole 90 minutes of football (and) the referee decided to be a Bury fan for the day.

"Other than that we had nothing too clear until later on in the game. I think Charlie Colkett would expect to score (with an effort in second-half stoppage time).

"I think when James Brophy breaks into the box and has a a chance to square with three targets, he has to square it to one of them - clean, and they should put it in the back of the net.

"I don't think it's too much to ask from players of their qualites and their talent. If you don't do that, you don't deserve to win."

Swindon have now lost four matches in a row and travel to Northampton Town in midweek, who won 3-1 at the County Ground in the reverse fixture, and beat Chesterfield 3-1 today (Saturday).