Mark Hughes, the QPR manager, rounded on the Football Association on Saturday for what he claimed was an attempt to deflect attention from the match officials' "poor" performances in his struggling side's controversial 2-1 defeat at Bolton.

Hughes was outraged that the referee's assistants did not spot that Clint Hill's 20th-minute effort had clearly crossed the line and claimed it was "laughable" that the FA's response to the latest 'ghost goal' controversy was to renew calls for goalline technology.

Although he absolved the referee, Martin Atkinson, of any blame, Hughes was scathing in his criticism of Bob Pollock and Jake Collin. Pollock failed to spot that Hill's header was two yards over the line before being scooped out by the Bolton goalkeeper, Adam Bogdan, while Collin upheld an equaliser for Hughes's team two minutes after the break despite Djibril Cissé appearing to be offside.

"The laughable thing is that the FA have come out in support of goalline technology within an hour of the game finishing," said Hughes. "It is absolutely ludicrous that they try to protect the poor performances of the officials that they supply. Until it comes in, actually do the job that the assistants are supposed to do: which is check whether or not the ball has gone over the line.

"You ask for the key moments and key decisions in games to be judged correctly. In fairness to Martin Atkinson, he is acknowledged as one of the better referees, and his performance was OK. I just felt he was let down by his assistants. They missed the key moments you have to get.

"They even got our goal wrong because that was offside, so they haven't covered themselves in glory at all. They missed a penalty, a hand ball in the area, and in the end the guy on my side [Collin] completely lost his nerve to make any decision."

Contrary to Hughes's claims, it is the Professional Game Match Officials Board that designates who officiates at matches in consultation with the Premier League. The FA merely reacted to the controversy, as it was being analysed by Sky Sports' expert panel at half-time, by reiterating their desire to see goalline technology introduced at the earliest opportunity. "The FA has been a leading proponent of Goal Line Technology for many years," read a statement. "We will continue to press for its introduction once further independent testing is complete later this year, so that anyone wishing to introduce the technology is able to do so at the earliest possible opportunity."

The International Football Association Board are to decide on whether to adopt goalline technology into the global game at a specially convened meeting in Kiev on 2 July, after last weekend giving two companies – Goalref and the British-based HawkEye – the green light to carry out further testing on their products.

This latest episode contributed to QPR plunging into the bottom three with 10 matches remaining.

The QPR captain, Joey Barton, tweeted: "Seminal moment in the game. We have to be the unluckiest team ever this season. When ur down there, u rarely get rub of the green. Big decisions all wrong. Ref saying 'don't blame us blame, the FA for not having goal line technology!' Sort of sums it all up."