Burman blasts red card

The midfielder, who was deputising for on-loan Town player Jim Stevenson, was shown a straight red after 76 minutes for a challenge on Alex Lawless.

Hatters too advantage of their man advantage to score twice as Burman told the Kent Messenger: “I’m really disappointed with the decision.

“The referee is in the centre of the field and the ball was down this side (by the dugouts).

“There’s absolutely no way he can see that’s a sending-off. It’s a foul, I agree, but a lot of people went round him and I think he reacted to that. I don’t think it’s a sending-off.

“To go down to 10 men, that’s when the full-time guys come into their own. With 15 minutes to go and 11 (players) on the field, it could have been a different story.

“It’s hurt us in the last 10 minutes and it gave them the lift they probably wanted. He’s standing behind it. He can’t see it and their player got up.

“The referee had an all right game but that decision, he’s got wrong, and it’s cost us.”

On the challenge itself though, Burman continued: “When you’re tired, the brain tells you to do some strange things. Initially, he’s gone for the ball and I’m standing right close to it.

“The referee is not to one side, he’s behind him. In my opinion, he’s got the decision wrong.”

Town’s players were surprised a red had been awarded too as Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu admitted: “I didn’t get a good view of it, but I thought personally it would be a yellow card.

“The referee had a decision and made it red. We took advantage of that and scored two goals.”

Match-winner Andre Gray was left slightly in the dark over the incident as he said: “I didn’t really see the sending off as I was blocked off.

“But it’s happened, the ref’s seen something and we’ve gone on and won.”

Meanwhile, first team coach Hakan Hayrettin felt Clark paid the price for losing his cool, adding: “It looked a rash challenge, the referee’s made his mind up, he could have given him a yellow, could have given him a red, but he decided to give him a red.

“Maybe that was a changing point of the game, but maybe not. I think we had the last 20-25 minutes, we had the emphasis to go and win the game anyway.

“If you’re going to make a challenge like that, make sure you stay on your feet, his bad luck was our food fortune.”

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