Bristol Rovers boss Darrell Clarke: Chris Lines’ red card was unnecessary

Posted Tuesday, April 03, 2018 by PA

Angry Bristol Rovers boss Darrell Clarke slammed midfielder Chris Lines for his game-changing and unnecessary dismissal in his side’s 2-0 League One defeat at Fleetwood Town.

Lines was sent off for two bookable offences for back-chatting and continuing back-chatting to referee Ross Joyce after he failed to award a free-kick for an alleged foul from Fleetwood defender Cian Bolger on Ellis Harrison.

Town went on to score twice after that with Ash Hunter’s 78th-minute strike and substitute Jordy Hiwula’s 89th-minute effort all-but secured their League One status as the hosts moved on to 51 points.

And Clarke could not hide his anger. When asked if the match changed after the sending off he said: “Yes certainly. I’m very disappointed, angry, for an experienced player like Chris Lines he should not even get involved in the situation.

“I’m not going to get involved on what was said, the tit for tat but we have got a bit of history with the referee, he was the referee (when we lost 2-1 to) against Blackburn.

“He says he swore at him and we will deal with that internally but I’m obviously very disappointed.”

Fleetwood boss John Sheridan has all-but mathematically steered his side to safety during his seven-game unbeaten run as they made it four wins in a row and picked up their fifth-straight clean sheet.

But he had no sympathy for Lines, while praising his own men.

He said: “I’ve got no sympathy for him because I thought he was the best player on the pitch.

“He’s an experienced player, he has already been booked and I think the referee must have pulled him four times, then the fifth the referee has just got annoyed. It is his own fault.

“But I want to talk about my own players.

“Whatever level you are at, five clean sheets on the spin, unbeaten in seven is a great effort.

“We are getting ourselves safe, I can’t ask any more of the players.

“I think we have just got to carry on the run, carry on keeping clean sheets, climb the table and obviously we need a couple more points to be sure.

“But we are just focused on winning as many games as quickly as we can and get as high up the table as we can and make life as difficult as possible for the teams around us.”