By Aston
January 5 2008

Town manager Jim Magilton feels the red card shown to Town's Liam Trotter ruined the FA Cup tie between Town and Portsmouth earlier today. Jim: "It was a very dubious sending off.

"Liam is a midfield player and I expect him to go into tackles. He may have been a little bit late but it was a caution at most.

"An experienced referee deals with that. I spoke to the official at half-time but he told me he is a professional and he is 100 per cent right so that is what we are dealing with.

"We had the same thing last year when Mr Bennett told me he was 100pc right, we appealed and he was 100% wrong.

"The sending off ruined the game and probably took an edge off Portsmouth because they thought they could canter through the game.

"It was a shocking goal defensively. We switched off and we know what David Nugent is all about so it was a really sloppy goal and I'm not happy about that, albeit it was a great performance from us.

"To go down to ten men and then play in the manner we did was fantastic. They didn't lay down and die and the keeper has made three world-class saves, where as our keeper has not had a save to make."

Source: EADT

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