The Wanderers thought they would be given a spot kick midway through the first half when a shot from marquee Nicolas Martinez struck the arm of Sydney FC defender Michael Zullo inside the box, deflecting it wide.

The linesman and referee had a clear line of sight, but waved away the Wanderers players' claims for a penalty and awarded the Sky Blues a goal kick.

After being on the receiving end of some harsh decisions this year, Popovic blew up in the press conference with a harsh criticism of the performance of the officials, suggesting they had influenced the outcome of the match and potentially cost them a first win over Sydney FC in more than three years.

"I'm getting sick of talking about it. It's a penalty, It's clear, it doesn't get clearer than that. Teams are getting affected every week. Sometimes the linesmen get involved and sometimes they don't," he said.

"If you miss the handball - I don't understand how you can miss it - but OK, let's say they miss it. How it's not a corner is just hard to understand.

"The deflection was so clear. So the linesmen or the referee decides so it's not a deflection and it's not a penalty. It's a tight game, it's a derby and they're the moments that change the game."

In the wake of the incident, Popovic threw his support behind the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee which will be introduced to the A-League in round 25 of this season.

"I think it's the next step in football and we'll see how it goes. The decisions are the decisions but in saying that there are a lot of games this year that we haven't converted our opportunities so we have to look at ourselves.

"We can't be blaming referees why we had so many draws. If we're talking about decisions, unfortunately we're being affected quite regularly from it," he said.

The result extended the Wanderers winless streak in the derby to nine games and saw them slump to eighth position on the ladder, further adrift of a finals spot.