Ian Evatt felt there was a hint of offside for Portsmouth's goal against Bolton Wanderers and that Pompey players influenced his side's decision making in that key moment which led to the Whites going behind.
Aiden O'Brien put Pompey ahead early in the second half, after Dapo Afolayan had gone closest to breaking the deadlock before half-time and forced a good save from Portsmouth goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu.
But Wanderers responded to going behind with Elias Kachunga coming off the bench to win a penalty and Kieran Sadlier fired home to earn Bolton a share of the spoils.
READ MORE: Bolton Wanderers player ratings vs Portsmouth - Kieran Sadlier & Elias Kachunga good
The point and results elsewhere on the night in League One means Wanderers sit 12 points from the play-offs with five games of their season left and any aspirations they had of reaching the play-offs this season are now effectively over.
But Wanderers boss Evatt believes there was a question mark over the free-kick taken by Michael Jacobs where Pompey players appeared to be in an offside position, Wanderers half cleared and the goal led on from that.
Evatt felt the the Pompey player who was in an offside position when the set piece was taken affected the decision making and led to the poor clearance and subsequently going behind.
And the Bolton boss believes the rules in this area perhaps need to be looked at going forwards.
He said: “I completely understand what the officials are saying because the rules are the rules, but the rules are wrong. I was a defender, I was a centre back, and you’re aware of people in offside positions and what it does do is it affects your decision and even if they don’t make a play at the ball, you know they’re there and you’re stretching or rushing or making a bad decision to try and prevent them from getting the ball.
“That’s exactly what happened. The player in the offside position has affected our players’ decision. It ends up being a poor clearance and it ends up being a goal so we do have to look at that.
"If they do have an impact, they don’t have to have an impact by necessarily touching the ball or physically going for the ball, but if they’re stood in the vicinity of a player and can affect their decision then for me they’re offside and probably something we need to look at with the rules.
"I think it’s happened a few times, I’ve seen it on the TV quite a lot and it does impact you, especially as defenders because it’s a natural thing to clear a ball when someone is in and around you.”
The draw came at a heavy cost for Wanderers as skipper Ricardo Santos, midfielder Kyle Dempsey and attacker Dapo Afolayan all came off with hamstring problems.
Wanderers will assess the severity of the trio's injuries in due course, with MJ Williams and Kachunga coming off the bench to impact the game after Afolayan and Dempsey had to be withdrawn from the action.
And Evatt was pleased with the impact the duo made in the League One encounter.
He said: “Rico is a huge player for us so we hope that’s not too bad and likewise with Dapo and Kyle so we don’t know right now how bad it is.
"Declan (John) was cramping up as well towards the end so we’ll do our due diligence, get them scanned and see where we’re at later on in the week.
“I thought MJ did great when he came on. I thought h gave us some energy and somee power in the middle of the pitch some physicality.
"Elias was full of energy, good forward run to get the penalty and we were wanting to bring Baka (Amadou Bakayoko) on as well to make a difference for us but we’d already burnt our subs because of the injuries so there’s lots that happened.
“There’s lots to look at and lots to debrief on but the main thing is when you don’t play well, you don’t lose and we didn’t lose tonight.”
