FRANK Lampard felt Ipswich Town goalscorer George Hirst should have received a red card in Coventry City’s 3-0 defeat at Portman Road.
Hirst doubled the home side’s lead after Sindre Walle Egeli put the Tractor Boys ahead while substitute Ivan Azon completed the scoring.
However, with the game goalless, Hirst was flagged offside before shooting wide after the whistle had gone with the striker already on a yellow card.
Referee Paul Tierney opted against showing the Ipswich man a second yellow card despite booking Josh Eccles for the same offence earlier in the first half.
The decision left Lampard baffled on the touchline and believes the offence should have resulted in a red card for Hirst.
Lampard said: “There’s no answer for it. It’s wrong. It’s clear.
“Josh [Eccles] does it and it’s a yellow card. I don’t love that yellow card but I know the emotion from when I was a player.
“Hirst runs through, flag goes up, the referee blows the whistle, he stops, he goes again and does exactly the same as what Josh did.
“It should have absolutely been a red card and then he scores the second goal.
“They have 11 men when they should have 10 for the rest of the game and it went against us.
“We cannot have any head-dropping. I know there’s a feeling of a team there that’s not the feeling we had last Christmas. We have to make that count.”
Coventry saw their lead at the top of the Championship table reduced to seven points as the Sky Blues lost in the league for just the second time this season.
However, Lampard praised his side’s approach to the fixture and felt the final scoreline reflected harshly on his players.
Lampard added: “It’s a reality [the scoreline]. In terms of the performance, we all understand how that first half looked.
“You could feel the atmosphere in the stadium, we were winning everything, we had a real feeling of control.
“We had a real personality about us, great organisation off the ball, the work ethic was great and we restricted them.
“They get a goal from a bit of mess, the players kept going. I don’t like three-nil. I’m a bad loser. I hate defeats.
“My only reaction is for the players to understand how they approached the game against a parachute team with a big squad.
“I’m relatively proud in how we approached the game. Circumstances happened. The reaction is the only important thing.”
Ipswich took the lead two minutes before half time as Walle Egeli curled a shot into the bottom right corner from the edge of the penalty area.
Town doubled their lead on the hour mark when Hirst raced onto Marcelino Nunez’s through ball and coolly finished past Carl Rushworth when one-on-one.
And Ipswich exploited Coventry’s high line again deep into injury time as substitute Azon curled a shot into the bottom right corner from inside the penalty area.
Coventry are next in action against Preston North End on Tuesday, December 9 with kick-off at 7.45pm at Deepdale.
