Sonia Bompastor hit out at the new rule requiring players to stay off the pitch after medical treatment, saying she has told her squad not to go down "except if you are dying."
The regulation that was introduced this season means, in most cases, if games are stopped for an outfield player to receive treatment, they must then go off for 60 seconds.
Bompastor was particularly unhappy about two instances in Chelsea's 1-1 draw with Aston Villa in their Women's Super League opener last Saturday that saw Sjoeke Nüsken twice forced off.
"I don't think that's the reason we dropped points on the weekend and we couldn't win the game," said head coach Bompastor.
"But we had three different situations and we got really impacted in one of them, the third one, with Nüsken, who had to come off the pitch, and Villa scored when we were one player down."
Bompastor did not feel correct protocol was followed in an earlier incident, arguing the referee had made the decision for medical assistance to be called, while she was also not happy with the length of time her player was made to stay on the sidelines.
"We spoke with the referee at half-time about particularly that first situation with Nüsken and he said, 'The player told me to ask the medical [team] to come in,'" said the Frenchwoman.
"But that's not the truth. The player didn't even talk to him. He just made the decision.
"The referees need to understand the impact. It's one minute and in that situation it was not even one minute, it was more than that, it was 90 seconds.
"It needs to be better. Maybe some players will keep playing with having an injury, which is also not good enough. I told my players, except if you are dying, you stay on the pitch, and that's not what we want."
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Bompastor, meanwhile, was also critical of the officials at the WSL match between Crystal Palace and Everton, with Palace under investigation after using four substitution windows, one more than permitted.
"It's really unfortunate," said Bompastor. "There is something probably around the Crystal Palace team where they could have done better for sure but also the officials were there as well and I think they could have picked up the failure.
"I don't know what decision will be made but, when you won on the pitch and you have maybe to play the game again or lose points, in those situations, it's tough to take."
