Gareth Ainsworth wasn’t happy with the performance of referee Gavin Ward in Wycombe’s 2-0 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday.

The 47-year-old believed that his side should have had a penalty when Anis Mehmeti, who was making his first start since the 3-1 home defeat against Middlesbrough, looked like he was fouled in the box when attempting to take a shot.

The incident happened in the first-half.

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He said: “Words escape me for this.

“Honestly, they do.

“Please have a look at that and tell me that it’s not a penalty and I’ll crack on.

“For the life of me, the young boy Anis, makes a fantastic run in the box, and as he shoots, he is taken out.

Uche Ikpeazu came on as a sub against Sheffield Wednesday (Prime Media)

Uche Ikpeazu came on as a sub against Sheffield Wednesday (Prime Media)

“I don’t know why it is not a penalty – only Gavin Ward knows that and I am not going to ask him because I will get myself in trouble, because I will say a lot more than ask him.”

Ward has officiated three matches involving the Chairboys this season, with Wycombe failing to win any of the fixtures.

The most notorious match he took charge of was when Wycombe played Norwich City at Carrow Road in October.

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The ref decided to award the Canaries and injury-time free-kick just outside the Wycombe box after he deemed that Fred Onyedinma had fouled Mario Vrancic.

Ward gave the free-kick which Vrancic took and subsequently scored, despite replays showing that it was the Norwich man who had fouled the winger.

However, Ainsworth moved away from the referee’s performance and even though the Chairboys are bottom, he is addressing the season on a ‘game-by-game’ basis.

He continued: “I don’t want anyone looking at the table and going ‘we need this’ and ‘we need that’.

“We go game-by-game, I want to get minutes into the boys, I want to enjoy our time in the Championship, and I want to go for it.

The penalty claim 

“That’s why we played three centre forwards – a real attacking line-up and I will be going for it on Saturday.

“There’s no point sitting back, soak things up and get a draw, and I want to go for this and attack teams.

“Uche was rested so that’s great for him on Saturday, I thought Stewart and Tafazolli had good games as I thought they commanded really well and there were are a lot of positives but we got beat.

“It’s hard to take.

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“I don’t like getting used to it and we’ll make sure that we’re competitive for Saturday as that’s really important and Huddersfield are a team that we can beat.

“I think Sheffield are a team we can beat but we didn’t beat them today [Feb 9]”.

Wycombe take on Huddersfield Town at the John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday.