Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate felt an "extremely harsh" penalty had cost his side the game with Hull City.
Boro had gone ahead when Tuncay Sanli slotted home Justin Hoyte's cross 11 minutes from time.
But after the Tigers equalised when substitute Bernard Mendy's shot rebounded off a post and into the net off Ross Turnbull, the hosts then scored a late winner when Marlon King slotted home a penalty after Geovanni was brought down by David Wheater, who was sent-off.
There were question marks over whether the Brazilian was in an offside position when he made his run, while Wheater appeared to make minimal contact with the City midfielder in the box.
Southgate told Sky Sports: "The penalty is extremely harsh especially given the fact he (Geovanni) was offside.
"I think the pictures clearly show he is offside to start with. He is coming back from an offside position and that gives him an advantage.
"But we can do nothing about the referee's performance; however it is a bitter pill to swallow.
"We should have defended it instead of appealing but then it just looks pretty soft and when I think about the other decisions given throughout the afternoon, for them to get a decision in that area of the field I find very surprising.
"But we can do nothing about that. We have lost the game and we have to take our medicine."
Southgate also felt his side's inexperience showed as they failed to close out the game after taking such a late lead.
He added: "A draw would have been a fair result. When you go ahead at that stage you expect yourself to win it.
"Obviously the key was keeping that lead longer than we did, but we were naive in the way we played that 90 seconds."
Many in the crowd at the KC Stadium were surprised striker Mido did not figure in the game but Southgate confirmed the Egyptian has been sidelined again.
"Mido is injured. He has a hamstring problem so we had a pretty young bench today," he added.
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