Neil Warnock has labelled his sending off at Reading as “trivial” and claimed his Cardiff City side deserved their battling draw on Monday night.
Warnock was sent to the stands after a heated conversation with fourth official Andy Woolmer during the Bluebirds’ 2-2 draw at the Madejski Stadium.
It meant the Cardiff manager had to witness the final stages of his team’s comeback from two goals down standing watching a screen in the TV interview room.
Afterwards, Warnock criticised referee Stephen Martin and Woolmer. He said: “It’s the first time I’ve been sent off for asking a fourth official in a sensible way about a player arching their back.
“I don’t know whether Woolmer was panicking a bit because he’s very experienced.
“I called him over and I suppose the referee is going to enjoy that, isn’t he? It’s his big night.
“I’m 69, I’ve been in the game 37 years and I’ve never been sent off for anything as trivial as that.
“The fans might have enjoyed it. Someone usually gets sent off when I’m at Reading so it was my turn tonight.”
When asked where he watched the final quarter of the match, Warnock responded: “They said I’ll take you to the directors’ box and I said, ‘are you joking’?
“This is Reading. I’m not going anywhere near their fans!
“I said I’ll watch it on my phone but I couldn’t get 3G in the dressing room. I ended up going in the TV section with a few of the guys and when we got the first goal they shot off.
“I saw the second goal and obviously celebrated running around the little room on my own.”
Lee Tomlin scored in stoppage time as Cardiff came from two goals down to snatch a draw.
A Callum Paterson own goal and a Mo Barrow effort gave the home side a 2-0 lead but Cardiff scored twice in the last seven minutes to earn a point.
Joe Bennett pulled one back before Tomlin’s shot was deemed to have crossed the goal-line after bouncing down off the crossbar.
The comeback means Cardiff closed the gap to Championship leaders Wolves back to four points and stopped Reading climbing into the top half of the table.
“After the second half, I thought we deserved a draw,” Warnock added. “We didn’t start the game badly but we gave them two silly goals.”
Jaap Stam, the Reading manager, said: “That was very tough to take and very frustrating. Basically, we just didn’t do enough, otherwise we wouldn’t have drawn this game.
“We started the game well and we played some very good football in the first half. We scored two goals and maybe could have scored one more.”